Tales from the TJV

A new speed record on Team Cowes as they blast across the Trades, recounts Sam Davies

It is a more cheerful and awake Sam Davies who comes on to the phone this afternoon. Team Cowes is fully into the Trades wind after the hideous conditions of the first week is now rocketing along at speed into the 20s. Sam has also just had her lunch - tuna salad Catalan with Rivita and water.

"It is brilliant – really nice. It is a bit of a worry for us because we are the lowest boat and we’re trying to get high. We know the others are reaching down and they’re a bit more free. I think they might have a small genniker, jib top-type sail which we don’t have. We’re reaching with genoa.

"Genniker reaching is probably the best, but with genoa reaching you can really push it, because you’re not worrying about breaking the genniker halyard or the bowsprit and everything is really reliable. And we are just hooning along.

"Nick [Moloney] managed to find a wave and got 28 knots boat speed this morning, which is pretty cool. So you can just hammer along and put it on a wave - we’re not surfing down them, we are more going sideways across them because we are trying to climb a little bit and you can put it on a wave and go at 20 knots just working the apparent up and down, a bit like a multihull.

"The only thing is that it is really quite heavy to helm. And our hands are just agony - we’ve got really sore joints from gripping the tiller. Your wrists and the tendons and all swollen up now. So once you get on the helm having been off for 2-3 hours it is agony until you have warmed up and got used to the pain. But by the end of three hours it is agony again. But the speed and the kind of sailing makes up for it."

Wind-wise at the time of our conversation they have 20 knots on board, although it had been around 18 knots on average. "It is really nice when it goes up to 22-23, and it is a little bit underpowered when it goes down to 16. It is a hazy sky I’m not sure if that is the dust from Africa or moisture and there are some Trade winds-type clouds, but no squalls. We get more squall activity when we get down to around 10deg N. At the moment it is relatively stable which is quite nice.

"It is not too hot because it is quite hazy and there is enough breeze, so it is a T-shirt under oilskin trousers and a spray top. So it is not to hot and halfway through the day the sun goes behind the sails anyway, so it is not burning hot.

"The wind is almost east, 070 TWD. We had the wind south of east a bit yesterday which was quite depressing. As the westernmost boat it is not so good for us, now it has come back. It is quite unusually east. The moment there is more north in it then you’re freer."

At the time of our conversation Sam said it was too early to have a plan for crossing the Doldrums. "Meeno [Schrader] is having a look at it. There is a little depression running across from east to west, which is going to run across in front of us, so we are going to get some quite strong winds as we come into the Doldrums. I was talking to Meeno last night about it, and he was saying it is too far out to make a call on where to go and how to get through there. So we are staying high of the rhumb line because of this depression because we might get more of a header, which again isn’t so good for us. We have to hope that we might get more wind than the boats to the east of us. So we are looking at it - but it is a bit too far out yet."