Scarlet Oyster - Snakes and ladders Day 3 on Scarlet

It has been an interesting race so far, with some highs and lows, some
decisions have sent us powering up the leader board others have had us
drifting back down again!

Still not much sleep, prob about 3hrs so far, better than none though. Race
has been a mixture of no wind and quite a lot! Last night we were pressing
on with the Asail in nearly 30knots, we have spent several hours last night
drifting, now we have 15knots so not too bad.

It has been pretty hard to see what the right thing is tactically, 2 days
time we will be passing through the low pressure, into light headwinds, it
is too far to go to clear the North of it for us, and no way under it
either, we are looking closely at the weather to see where our best point of
entry may be.

Going further N could see us locked out up there, with a slow ride S to the
trades if and when (hopefully) they materialise. Going S early adds distance
and looks even lighter in the mid range than somewhere in the middle.

I was hoping the main contenders in the class may end up sailing the same
way, making keeping tabs on each other tactically more easy. This has not
happened either! Philippe and his team on Quokka have taken a very extreme
Southerly route presumably to sail around the whole mess and pick up the
trades first (assuming the trades will actually be there!). Brave call, and
has sacrificed a lot of distance to this cause, hence a low ranking on the
tracker, if this works for them, expect to see them rise up the rankings
quite smartly in a couple of days.

Our strategy till now was to break out west into better winds, to cut some
distance out of the run to St Lucia, we had to negotiate the 'wind shadow'
of Gran Canaria to do this, however watching the big boats pick up a
Southerly wind South of the island gave us confidence that we may be able to
pas close to the south of the island without significant stoppage, we were
rewarded with a 15 knot SE wind for most the way, the transition back to the
gradient N wind was a little fiddly, but by 2100 we had a great 25kn NNE
wind propelling us W, we were also delighted to see ourselves topping the
leader board in class and overall!

However 50 miles south of Tenerife was not so favourable and sailing in 4
knots or less from random directions (mostly West!) cost us a great deal of
time! Since before 1200 Monday we have been moving well, at times very
well, right on the wind limit we have set for the A3. We have now climbed
back to the top of our class with a nice margin at the moment, but the Volvo
70 and Caro are off with their afterburners lit it seems! We were a little
surprised to find ourselves ahead of most of class A on the water including
some maxis! Idea sailed quickly past us yesterday, I doubt we will catch
her again till st Lucia!

All is well onboard and a case of mal de mer that was beginning to concern
me with one of our crew has improved a great deal this morning. Boat is
holding up well with no issues thus far, early days though...

Best get back to the weather now

By for now

Ross