Vendée Globe Day 85 morning update: Pip in the trade winds
by Vendée Globe 31 Jan 2021 09:50 GMT
31 January 2021
A good working day for Pip Hare - Vendée Globe Day 85 © Pip Hare / Medallia
It's another spectacular night in the trade winds. The full bright moon is lighting up the ocean and Medallia's decks. The water glistens sliver as far as the horizon and the winds are pumping, 25 to 32 knots. It would be perfect conditions if only I was going in the other direction.
I am hot, sweaty, being shaken and slammed around and feeling that this part of the course is relentless. I've been three days now in the NE trades and have at least another three to go and it is taking a lot of my emotional energy to stay sane and focussed. Medallia is heeled over hard and regularly bouncing off waves so moving around is difficult and the ride down below is far from smooth. The sun shines directly into the cockpit and there is no shade on deck. Down below is airless and climbs to temperatures in the high 30s during the day. Doing anything below soaks me in sweat, on deck I am baked by the sun and drenched by the waves. There is nowhere to hide from these conditions.
But more than the physical discomfort I am for the first time finding it difficult to find my rhythm in these conditions. On other points of sail when Medallia is going well, the boat seems to fit into the environment. The balance between wind, waves and boat feels natural as we carve our path through the ocean. I can normally feel an inbalance before I see it an will respond with a sail trim or course change to bring equilibrium back again. On this point of sail the opposite seems the case. It feels as though we are working against the elements. We seem at our fastest when the boat feels most at it's most uncomfortable; excessively heeled and aggressively slamming into the waves. Any point that the ride becomes more gentle I naturally check the log for the resultant drop in speed.
The weather for our final approach into Les Sables D'Olonnes is looking like it could be tricky. There are a number of big depressions sweeping into the Bay of Biscay and already we have seen Maxime sail hard to get ahead of one and Armel having to press pause by the Portuguese coast to let the system pass ahead. It is too early and too far out to call what our finish will look like but it is clear at the moment that sailing this stretch as fast as possible will give me more options in the week ahead. The Azores high is established quite far West and to avoid headwinds we must all sail a course to the West of this system which adds close to 1000 miles to the rhum line to the finish.
Now, as much as ever in the race I need to keep driving no matter how uncomfortable it feels. This is an endurance race and it is time to endure. In these super tough moments I like to focus on the 'why' and not the 'what' for my motivation. My purpose is not just to sail around the world single handed, it's to do it in the fastest time I can; to deliver my best performance, to learn from my mistakes and take that knowledge forwards. All this because I love sailing as a sport and I have always aspire to be the best sailor I possibly could. It is this motivation that will get me out of that hatch, shaking out a reef even when the boat feels overpressed. It is this motivation that won't allow me to watch the speed drop by half a knot over time and not respond. It is this motivation that will get me through another day of this sweaty, bone shuddering stage of the course.
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