Abraxas 3 - Only one Fastnet Race left to sail

In an hour or two we will have 605 nautical miles left, and for those of us who have sailed the Fastnet Race that number is something special. But as the distance might be the same, the expected conditions couldn't be more different. Racing in the English Channel and the Irish Sea is usually cold, wet and a lot of upwind sailing, here we have a weather model that predicts 100 % downwind sailing, 27 C in the water and sunshine almost uninterrupted all day. So its easy to choose which distance one would prefer, although for the competitive ones there is of course no doubt that the Fastnet is at a level far above the relatively sedate sailing we are doing.

Our two last days have been relatively uneventful, we started the engine for a few more hours (a total of 42.25 hours), and then set up our easy downwind rig with a poled out jib, cutter sail and a full main. Other than a gybe there hasn't been much work to do as the crew prefer to let the autopilot do the steering. The skipper would have loved to do a lot of steering in these conditions but unfortunately I'm struggling with pain in the neck, shoulders and arms after a hard struggle with a spinnaker on the second night out that felt like it destabilised the disc that I had operated two years ago. So we have effectively been one man short for manoeuvres since that day, and sailed quite conservatively. Luckily we have been able to sail decent "race" since and might get a reasonable place on this leg.

Even though we have good days out here, we are very much looking forward to getting ashore, and get our hands on a cold drink or just a big beer!