Crew's Race Report - Day 4 / Race Day 1!

Finally the race was upon us, and like a well oiled cuckoo clock the crew of Rona II sprang manfully into action, or as manfully as any creature waking up at half four can. At any rate the crew got to work readying the boat for our departure, and after much grim contemplation of the weather we were off. With a wave goodbye to the port that had sheltered us for the past few days we sailed out of the sight of land into the ocean. A few pre-race pukes and a hearty breakfast later, we were ready to hit the start line running. (Broad-reaching actually – Ed!)

It was a lonely start but with a hearty Rona II cheer we started our voyage with fervor (admittedly an unusual adjective to use but little else could be used to describe our enthusiasm.) Although the crew's mood in general was a positive one, Poseidon's it seems was decidedly not, with waves that can only be described as "Rather Large", rating an impressive two and a half on the standard Jack Moss scale (and five meters for the rest of us).

After a few hours at sea the skipper took up a new past time... Surfing. A sixty-eight foot, sixty tonne vessel, he had Rona II at a maximum speed of 15.9 knots down the side of a particularly large wave, notably whilst with a sandwich in his mouth. Some other strange goings on included the food gaining the power of flight , many crew members staring lovingly into buckets whilst having strange and rather morbid sprees of deja-vu upon beholding the contents, and the mother watch learning to cook and clean down below in conditions best described as being a cross between a sauna and a tumbledryer. Altogether it was a highly entertaining morning.

By lunchtime Rona II was turned into a bakery with cakes and bread being produced left right and centre, however, despite these happy moments, the motion of the boat turned up a notch and as a result, so did sea sickness, with the mother watch being the worst affected, in fact one of the members of that lucky watch decided that buckets were suitable neckwear - literally - for all occasions.

Following these events a "small" mishap regarding dinner caused a depressingly large amount of pasta to be burnt to the pan. Luckily much was salvaged from the chaos resulting in the final meal from the mother watch meaning a much anticipated sleep was theirs. And so the first day of a three day race was over.