The fleet headed back out into the Pacific from Seattle. The challenge of this race is always the lighter, hot, conditions as the yachts head further south towards Panama. Race 11 got off to a tight start with all the teams still within 20 nautical miles of each other after covering around 240 nm in the first day.
Ryan commented: “We have had some good reaching and now upwind conditions as a ridge passes over but hopefully during the night tonight the winds will go more from behind us giving us nice downwind conditions for the next few days and even all the way as far as the Ocean Sprint.”
The crew found their feet again with a few new joiners feeling the green monster visiting and getting a bit seasick. There were some diversions (literally) when the US Navy requested the fleet to avoid a live firing range. This meant heading further offshore just after the Code 2 had been hoisted, which ‘stuffed our inshore route plans’ in the words of AQP Charlie.
They made good progress but as the fleet reached Mexico conditions started to calm down heading into the Ocean Sprint. Five days of downwind sailing under the Code 1 was described as ‘awsome’.
Ryan said: “As we progress further south, we will certainly see more squally weather and the guaranteed wind holes, so we are all enjoying the sailing at the moment, doing good mileage in the right direction and maintaining a good position in the fleet.
“The whole crew has been helming, so everyone has gotten pretty good now. The only downside to the perfect sailing conditions is the lack of entertainment and excitement that sail changes and challenging conditions bring, but we found salvation a couple days ago though in the form of boobies.
“Boobies are a rather odd looking and very curious bird with large round heads and eyes that stick out and always seem to stare at you in a slightly confused yet standoffish look. They've suddenly taken to providing crew entertainment with the slightly odd things they seem to get up to.
“We had one land on the top of our mast right next to our precious windvane, seeming to want to stay the night, and it’s still there now despite our best attempts. We've clapped at it, shaken the backstays to wobble the mast shone our spotlight at it and yet he seems unphased.”
From here on life got hotter and slower as the winds became extremely fickle. Even the birds left the boat but were replaced by dolphins and porpoises. The dolphins put on a show by jumping quite high out of the water and even doing backflips. “The porpoises stuck with us for a lot of the night, even while we were bobbing along at around 1kt of boat speed they still seemed interested in seeing what we were trying to do,” added Charlie.
As the fleet ground to a virtual halt the Race Committee announced that racing would finish at the next mandatory gate (No 2), some thousand nautical Miles from Panama. Dare To Lead took sixth place in a very close finish fight with Unicef which beat us by just 272 metres.
Ryan commented: “We’re very happy with the team as it was a fantastic performance sailing wise, nice atmosphere and spirit onboard and as some of the circumnavigators would agree most likely one of the most enjoyable races so far.”
The fleet made best speed to Panama with a pit-stop in Costa Rica to refuel. A few days later the crew enjoyed a well-deserved rest in Panama mainly exploring the old town’s history, touristy shops and enjoying the many great rooftop bars and restaurants. Then came the transiting of the ‘impressive’ canal. Although Ryan had done this three times before the rest of the crew were experiencing it for the first time and found it very exciting.
So Dare To Lead heads for Race 12 in 4th place with 91 points, just one point behind Zhuhai. Perseverance is in 2nd with 101 points. Ha Long Bay Viet Nam leads with an impressive 107 points.