Pure Magic

What an epic morning — perhaps one of our best thus far on this adventure. I was I was asleep, dreaming of Cape Town, on my nav station bench when Stu Wilson, dripping wet in his foul weather gear, gave me a wake-up nudge and said, "I think that we should give the fractional Code 0 a try, we just got the knock [wind shift] we've been waiting for." After some quick calculations on the computer I threw on my dry suit, boots and harness. Jumping up on deck and assessing the situation, I agreed with his call. As we completed the sail change the sun had risen on what was a cold, clear, and brisk spring morning down here in the Southern Atlantic ocean. With the new sail flying, the boat lit up. We had no idea that the fractional Code 0 would perform so much better than our A6. The Russians had walloped us over the past 24 hours and now, after seeing the fractional Code 0 in action, we realized that the A6, AKA “the lemon” was to blame. It's quite depressing and bitterly frustrating to be rolled as quickly as we were. But, not knowing sail cross-overs is one of the difficulties with a late-entry program such as ours. But, we are learning.

After a brief turn at trimming the main sail, Stu looked over at me saying, "Matt, its your turn to drive — send it". I smiled, handed off the mainsheet, transferred my harness tether to the wheel and jumped up on the steering platform. For the past couple days we've been sailing downwind true-wind angles. With the fractional Code 0 we could give the boat some heat and sail 110 to 130 TWA, which made for excellent surfing. Like a surfer, we could now ride down waves, execute a bottom turn, head back up the wave, and then ride the same wave over and over again. Did I send it? Oh yes — I pushed the throttle through the floorboards as hard as I could. I was hoot'n and holler'n the entire time. I’ve found that the boat likes it when you talk dirty to her as you’re caning it. Then, as if I couldn't be having anymore fun, this morning became legendary as an albatross pulled up along side. She glided, without a single flap of her wings, only 50 meters away, for about 20 minutes. This is the first albatross that I've ever seen. Overwhelmed with excitement, I realized that this is just about as good as ocean sailing gets.