We are close to the entrance of the major port of Shanghai and of course commercial ships are flying around us everywhere, so it’s a matter of keeping a good eye on the radar and, of course, having a good look-out on deck, as the last thing the commercial ships are expecting is a sailing boat in the middle of the winter!

We are still beating and made a gain against the boats behind us for the first time, only a very small one, but nice to see that happening again......and, above all, no water is coming over the deck, which make's it a tiny bit less cold for the guys on deck.

We have been sailing now for few days in weather pattern which was favourable for the boats behind us. We always had to sail more miles, very frustrating, but there was nothing we could do. It looks like finally we can crack our sheets and start sailing a direct course to Qingdao, and if we are lucky, we might even see a spinnaker for the last 100 miles.  But again, it looks like we will on the receiving end, and the boats behind us have better breeze. Hopefully the weather models are this time not correct! But when it comes to that, we have shown to be good in boat against boat situations; we have shown that in the previous leg.

Bouwe Bekking - Skipper