Wednesday 19th October- Financial Crisis in the South

I have totally lost count of the days, we are into the 4th week at sea I
believe, last night I had to wear a thermal as it is starting to get
chilly at night, I still find it amusing to see the weather changing as we
move on the globe…. you start somewhere on the planet, with a certain
weather, sail south and feel the weather getting warmer, sail west and the
sun sets later to raise later. Then keep going, it gets horribly hot, then
not so hot again, then as you go east your sunrises and sunsets shift
again as you move… We take it for granted on a flight because it happens
instantly as you walk off the plane the other side of the planet, but for
a person like me who has always lived in a city, the idea that I have gone
far enough south to have to wear thermals again, to the other side of the
planet where it is a different season, spring and not autumn, it is quite
something!

Ok, enough for childish fascination, but after all we are just big boys
moving our little boat on the globe as we did with a finger on a spinning
globe in geography class many years ago, there is so much about this trip
that taps into our inner childhood dreams that it is difficult not to get
lost in thoughts…

For this and many other reasons i want to thank all those that responded
to my equatorial appeal for donations to our racing funds. I understand
that mine is nothing but glorified begging, I could reherse my pitch and
try it on the tube back in London next year, but the fact that we are in
the middle of the sea makes us a lot less threatening and somewnat more
romantic in our quest for the childhood dream. We received quite a few
more donations in the past few days, i’m not sure I have the whole list
but a big thank you this week go to Achim T, Jonathan H, Michael M,
Daniela G, Jon S, Giovanni I, Mervyn W, Etienne G, Giovanni P, Bruce M,
Kim K and Dimitri for helping us one more step of the way. If you feel so
inclined and want to help us too, you can visit our cheeky page at
www.marconannini.com/help where with a little banter we are trying to
raise real extra cash for our campaign.

As for the sailing, all very quiet today on “Financial Crisis”, the wind
has started to drop which first meant changing sails to a bigger reaching
gennaker, now in just 12 knots of wind our averages are starting to fall.
The front runners are screaming along under spinnakers in probably 20-25
knots of wind so we admit to a little envy down here…

Our immediate opponents on Cessna have turned left as expected and keeping
up good speed, which means that for a while they will be doing a better
angle and speed to the finish, but they should run into light airs as
early as this afternoon so we’ll see how the situation will develop for
them.

The weather forecast is complex and will seemingly force us for a big
detour, on our metaphorical way from Oxford to Dover it is clear there is
lots of roadworks in Central London.

Posted by: First Class Sailing