Hi,
The doldrums,the no mans land between the Great North Atlantic Depression which rotates clockwise and the Great South Atlantic Depression which rotates anti clockwise.

The result? everything comes to a grinding halt and the whole thing becomes as exciting as it sounds!!
The received wisdom is that the first boat that exits this zone wins and we are all close to the exit door. The trick is to enter this zone at the shortest point, obvious really, except that the whole thing moves around in a wave formation, so where you enter it today will not be where you’d enter it tomorrow. The other key is to use whatever breeze is available to inch forward, so suddenly instead of racing you are crawling and it demands even more concentration than in good winds with less obvious results.
So you sit in this windless place in temperatures of 40 degrees plus with such hugh humidity that you sweat just lying in bed. Everyone tends to get irritable, you have to be really careful…
We are now close to the exit, asssuming it hasn’t moved, and the reason we are on the Eastern side is that the forecasts say there will be slightly more wind this side of the exit than to the West where most of the other boats are. To a great extent you could start the race just North of the Doldrums because this is where it’s won or lost, 48 hours ago I was pretty confident about our strategy, now less so but I’m not sure why.
So, all will become revealed in the next 48 hours.

Next up… Ricardo’s straw pole amongst crew ” what fun things could you have done with the money if you hadn’t spent it on being completely exhausted!! Mine ?? I’d have a F*** off holiday with a bed, bar and someone who cleans the loo!

Love

xx