28.11. - Where are the dolphins?

I guess that each and every one of us has pretty similar expectations about the Atlantic crossing in general. Blue seas, long and high waves, constant tailwinds etc. Last, but not least, having dolphins surfing along next to our boat. In addition to the flock of tunas, we have only had one visual contact with an unidentified relatively large swimming object - maybe a whale, dolphin or a shark?

On the deck my daily routine is to scan 360 degrees every now and then and hoping to see a flipper somewhere. The best way to do the dolphin watch is to sit on the railing in the bow and let your legs touch the sea surface. In the bow the height from the sea under your feet varies from 0-5 metres, and the boat accelerates like a rocket when the speed rapidly increases on the surfs. It's a long time since i last felt myself like a 6-year old child. Today I was there again when Pasi gave me a 14,9 knots surf with the spinnaker.

Our Italian crew members are convinced that we will see dolphins during our journey. They also said that we would get fish - and we did - so they must know. Yesterday’s catch was fresh tuna marinated with lemon. It was definitely the best and the freshest tuna starter I have ever had in my life.

Daily breakfasts, lunches and dinners have become a very important get-together for all of us.
Our Italian chefs demonstrate what Italian cuisine really is all about. The pure tastes and simplicity of ingredients are prepared in a passionate way. So far we've had incredibly delicious pastas, melanzane (eggplant for those not in the know), which by the way took three and a half hours to prepare! We've also had pork made in the oven, turkey with milk sauce, asparagus risotto and pepper-chili chicken for lunch or dinner - and dolci after every meal with espresso or café latte. Unfortunately Andrea did not manage to bring fifty bottles of Brunello from his family vineyard as he did in ARC 2006, so we have had to get used to Spanish red wine.

Even though the life here is tough, it may be that we all gain a few extra kilos.

Now back to the dolphin watch.

Karri


The excitement of the race is slowly increasing. All the boats are now heading directly towards St. Lucia by the southern or the northern route - depending on the tactics they chose. For a few days we have received messages that we are doing extremely well. Yesterday we were in real distance on the 26th position of the whole fleet of boats. Considering that on paper we are only about 170th fastest, it looks good, but we are hungry for more information.

Today we recruited Olli's father to be our racing land base. He delivers us daily position coordinates of the 50 leading boats. Olli has built an Excel model where we insert the coordinates and the boat specific handicaps. The model then tells us the positions with handicaps.

Getting line honors is always highly valued and we are leading that in our class, but real target is winning our own class in handicap and being as high as possible in the overall race. Currently it looks good. We lead our own class and are 3rd overall, just 6 miles behind the 2nd and 60 miles behind the leader.

It cannot be a coincidence that three leading boats are all classic Swans: 48, 46 and our boat - a 46 as well. The conditions have actually been perfect for Swans. Enough wind and waves to bring the Swans’ best characteristics out: seaworthiness and reliability that enables one to drive them hard and completely safe in conditions where other boats are at their edge. We have noted many occasions where even our X-37 would have broached, but Monomotapa was not even close to that. It's amazing how gracefully Monomotapa just slides at 15 knots through the waves.

Last 24 hours were quite good: we collected 188 nautical miles and were able to catch the leading boats a bit

Hannu