Thursday night was exciting aboard RB with unfortunately quite a bit of sail damage. The number three got washed overboard when the wind piped up and the nose buried in a large wave on a surf. It is beyond repair onboard at least with two large holes and the bolt rope is well and truly tattered. The old North Sails large kite also exploded beyond repair so we are down to frankinkite (the one I have put the tack and head back on) and a beautiful new large UK kite with great shoulders that roll to weather and give us amazing VMG.

The last two nights have been beautiful with a small crescent moon and stars that show through between squalls. We have had some very nice sunrises with the suns rays streaming through the clouds in shafts of light and rainbows being created by the rain under the squalls. Last night as the sun went down there was a yellow brick road in the sea to follow created by the moon reflecting on the sea. It also lit up the tiny droplets of water on the lifelines making them look like little drops of gold.

The Dove chocolate saying of the day is ‘People matter more than things’ not really something you can argue with!

It is hot hot hot down below and still damp but yesterday the boat looked like a laundry as everyone stripped off and had salt water baths and washed their clothes with some nice smelling soap.

Now coming to the title of the blog which was voted upon aboard!

Everyone still has the worst case of monkey butt they have ever encountered and I commented the other morning that it felt like I had the Himalayas on my arse! – not attractive I know 🙂 Also the sea state does look like a mini mountain range with two different swell sets so much nicer than the short chop around the british isles. When the wind stays up we are able to keep surfing at 10 knots+ continuously when it drops to 14 knots it is hard to keep the spinnaker full as you start surfing on the waves faster than the wind backing the spinnaker.

This afternoon we dropped the large spinnaker we had hoisted this morning and changed out the spinnaker halyard as there is quite a bit of chafe and we only have one halyard. I have rebuilt the old one so we can change out in a day or so. I really don’t want to deal with the halyard breaking and having to go up the rig to sort it all out. Before leaving SF I put two padeyes at the top of the rig so we could hang a block off and rig an external halyard if the internal one broke.

Anyways it is time to sign off and get some sleep as last night was not very conducive to it with the French contingent being French and crashing every time they were on watch and I was off!