All the ships have modern (ish) radar and communication instruments and from this we knew the position, bearing and speed of Sørlandet and nearby ships. Trainees were allowed within eyesight of this info or opportunity to ask so long as we weren't in the way and so we knew, with less than a day to the finish, that we were second and our rivals Christian Radich first, but not by much... it was close. The day started slowly on our morning watch with a gentle wind and doing about 3 knots. The weather came in and we raced around trimming the sails ending our watch at a satisfactory 7.5 knots and knowing that Radich was going slower. There was still enough time.
Through the day the wind grew strong and we skipped along.
8-12 watch working hard.
Spirits were high and an impromptu sing-along broke out amongst those not on duty.
Back on our afternoon watch there seemed to be endless tweaking of the sails. CRACK! Everyone span to see a rope flapping in the breeze – a pin had snapped! All nearby hands dropped what they were doing and we raced to bring the rope under control, replace the pin and trim the sail again. Hard work heaving all the ropes, but it was working and at times we were doing 10 knots while Radich only 4! Our watch leader Jo Leif observed that if it continued like that we'd pass them in an hour and a half, but that it was unlikely to continue for so long. Other hopeful news was that they'd had to go downwind of a 'vessel of limited manoeverability', sending them on a broad arc to the finish while we, coming from behind, were able to stay higher up the wind and were heading straight for it.
As a generally slower vessel, our handicap relative to Christian Radich's meant that we didn't need to be ahead of them, only close enough behind that our adjusted time would be better. It was starting to look like we might just pip them at the post!
Estimates at that time were, if we continued as we were, that we'd finish about 02:10.
Some talked of staying up until then, but I was too tired and set my alarm for 01:00.
I awoke to the sound of brief cheering, followed by feet and rope noises coming through the deck – also the ceiling of the banjer and transmits sound freely so no jumping on deck!
The sails were being taken in. Clearly the race was over, we'd finished earlier than expected and to make the darkness deeper, the sad song of the engines swallowed the sound of the sea.
The only thing left to do was sleep.
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