The horizon was a blast of crimson lights -  the most brilliant dramatic skyline as the sun set over Falmouth Harbour as  Hydrocarbon Logic approached  the finish line. They were greeted  by the most dramatic gorgeous sky. I was in the Antigua Yacht Club as cameras flashed to capture the scene.  What a dramatic end to the race.

Half an hour later they slid into Falmouth Harbour in the dark. It was a wonderful sight to see their smiling faces. They did indeed have cold bottles of the finest Carib beer waiting on the pontoon. The crew were much relieved to be back after their long, hot exhausting race. The sun tans were indeed a few shades deeper. Their spirits were high as they posed for the official RORC photo and then dashed around retrieving the gear stashed on a nearby yacht. They were longing for showers and the ones sharing a house thinking of their cumfy beds. Beside Hydrocarbon was the very sad looking demasted High Tension. That was the only completely owned Antiguan boat apparently.  My companion on the pontoon had formerly raced on that boat and said the skipper would have been devastated by their bad luck.

There is a RORC prize giving on Friday with a BBQ party. RORC  seems to have an amazingly well organised  team. It is completely different to Madeira where it was Ian and his megaphone! The yacht club yachtie's committee are organising the parties and prizegiving and the meet and greet people and the myriad of things that need to be done for this event. They have a 24 hour watch at Charlotte Fort complete with generator and portaloo! Even The generator has a security guard. In fact they have a fair bit of security in place at the Yacht Club. Which is hardly surprising as there are so many huge yachts.  One of them is The Maltese Falcon that is sleek shining black with a futuristic looking set of masts within which the sails are furled. Apparently the mast design was made some years ago but it needed the right type of sail material to be invented.  It is worth a google. It is worth a fortune.  It takes up a whole pontoon. How the other half live!

At 19.15 local time this evening Hydrocarbon Logic crossed the finish line at Falmouth Harbour Antigua.

After 3 ½ days of fantastic, but very hot sailing conditions all the crew are desperate for a cold beer, or maybe even 2! I think they might have just earned it!

At the time I type this, Hydrocarbon have come 4^th in class and are 16^th overall, but wil 2 yachts yet to finish in IRC Class 1 this could change. Their closest rivals EH01 are still 4.5 miles to go to the finish line, they have sailed a great race.

30 miles to go to cold beers!

Well another nail biting day, and Hydrocarbon is nearly home! They have been trying very hard to extend their on-the-water lead from EH01, but still this yacht is being sailed very well, and will not be shaken off. All of the crew are now exhausted, with tiredness and heat, but the thought of those cold beers after the finish line is spurring them on. Philippe texted in to say that they had spotted a whale just alongside the yacht this morning, a  spectacular sight indeed – he commented “we were graced with the presence of a magnificent whale as it wagged its tail above water, waving at us, a few times before disappearing to the depths below.  What an amazing creature..”.

Philippe has described the sailing conditions as just perfect, with bright blue skies and sea, with a constant 15-20 knot breeze – lovely! 

At 1800 hrs GMT Hydrocarbon has just rounded the last mark of the course, Redonda, and they are now headed to the finish line. They 30 miles to go upwind, which means they will slow up a little but their eta is approx. 4-5 hours which means 10pm earliest in UK and about 6pm local time in Antigua. Waiting for them on the dockside is Maire, wife of Brian, who is eagerly waiting to share few cold tinnies with the crew. Hydrocarbon is still 3^rd overall, let’s see if they can get 2^nd, which would be just great!

Quote of the day from the yacht has to be – “my liver thinks that my throat has been cut due to the lack of alcohol onboard”..... we have been trying to decide which crew came out with this interesting prose, and back here in the office we think we have it sussed....we will let you know tomorrow after it has been confirmed! It’s amazing after just 4 days at sea what everyone craves; whether it be cold drinks, baths and showers, a loom that doesn’t move or just space to be by yourself – everyone is different. At this point, we think they are all singing from the same hymn-sheet and just wanting to get over that line as quickly as possible, and to keep EH01 at least 15 ,miles behind them. They can still achieve this as this last leg to the finish is quite tactical as it is a beat and not a straightforward sprint – still very exciting, and everything still to play for.

Fingers crossed!!!!

Many apologies to all our supporters for the lack of blogs from the boat!  We have a good excuse though….we have been racing very hard!  In actual fact down below during the day provides us with intense heat that makes Hydrocarbon a 50 foot powerful and fast sauna!  It even has a rocking mechanism fitted for good measure! 

We try and spend as little time down below as possible as just sitting at the chart table for five minutes results in buckets of sweat and a fast track to dehydration!  What about at night you may ask!  Well not much sleep happens during the day due to the temperature so I have to say that we all sleep like babies….some do snore louder than others, so nothing really changes there!

Last year toward the end of Round Britain and Ireland race I promised you all new adventures for the teams at Sailing Logic and I think we are certainly delivering those!  Sailing in the Caribbean has its own challenges and moving away from my beloved Puma onto new boats adds a new dimension to the learning curve.  ‘Rome was not built in a day’ and it is going to take a season to learn the new skills and understand the idiosyncrasies of new waters before we get back up to the top.

Having said that, we are putting in a very solid performance in our first offshore race away from Puma and Northern European waters that I feel we can all be justifiably proud of.  We have been up and down the leader board throughout the race (even leading class at one stage) but lost some miles at a critical point of the race, which are now looking difficult to recover.

The sailing in the Caribbean is absolutely awesome, so totally different to the UK waters that we are so used to.  I have worn nothing other than shorts and a t-shirt for the past three days and three nights – that is due in part to the fact that I have not got any foulies with me! (who guessed that one on facebook then)?  It was not entirely my fault though; I think the same person that removed the saucepan lids and cutlery probably believed they were unwanted for the race and just excess clutter and weight that I keep banging on about!  So during the day I am very warm and wet and at night I am cold and wet!

The seas are as blue as in the brochures, the sun is as bright and every day it blows a near perfect 15 – 20 knots of breeze.  I say near perfect as just like in the UK the wind does blow from the wrong direction sometimes and we find ourselves beating to windward.  This is simply just not good for sunbathing!  We are racing downwind at 11 knots now though, so making the best of the opportunity to get rid of the tan lines! 

The sunbathing (no not really Chandler, we are working hard) was only briefly interrupted an hour ago when we were graced with the presence of a magnificent whale as it wagged its tail above water, waving at us, a few times before disappearing to the depths below.  What an amazing creature, awe inspiring but it does provoke anger at the way they are still being cruelly hunted in some parts of the world.

I have asked a few of the team if they would prefer to be down below sweating and struggling with the heat of the Caribbean or donning thermals in a vain attempt to keep warm in the English Channel!  With the exception of me, it is pretty much unanimous that the intense heat is preferable!  I just love it all; the hot, the cold the storms, the trade winds, the sunshine and the rain.  It is all incredibly challenging but always for different reasons.  What does not change anywhere is the competitive nature of yacht racing, the camaraderie, the love of the sea and lust for adventure that we all possess.

And the final thing that will be the same the world over is the taste of that first beer, the exchange of stories with fellow competitors and the realisation that none of it was quite as bad as it may have appeared at the time!

Latest Blog from Bowman Joseph Macdonald

Day 3 and we’re already seeing the end: we’ve been racing hard, watch on, watch off, 4 hours at a time watching the miles creep down. It’s been quite eventful since the start, with the first day spent reaching, with the whole crew on the rail.

We settled into our watch system that evening and being on the first watch I was one of those sent below. No chance of sleeping though, it’s all far too exciting!

The night was spent half under spinnaker, then coming up behind Nevis, St Kitts and Saba.

It’s very hard to describe a powerful boat reaching at night. The best I could come up with is imagining sitting on an open carriage on an express train as it hurtles though the dark. Waves come and go, and we‘re leaving a phosphorescent wake behind us, creaming out into the receding darkness. The moon came up at about 10pm that night, lending its eerie light to the scene and making it more than a little magical. I expected to wake up any second. In fact I did when we tried to find a strange vibrating noise at the mast (we only found it the next morning).

Day dawned over us in a pink glow and the boat hurtled on: we’d come round the end of Saba and into the wind, so some beating to do. For those reading this who don’t sail beating is exactly what it sounds like: being tied to a fairground ride and slammed up and down a bit, then a bit more for good measure. We put a reef in and went round the bottom of St Martin and St Barts, back onto a run which helped everybody get back into good spirits. They say that the second day is always the hardest as one settles in to sleeping for 4 hours at a time and generally getting used to everything being on an angle. Mealtimes are generally an excuse for some choice swearing as yet another boil-in-the-bag meal goes flying across the cabin, along with the drawers, spinnakers, boxes of cereal. I do believe I saw the skipper go across once on a big roll, but don’t tell him that I saw it!).

Yesterday we hit a bit of a dead spot behind Guadeloupe and lost some time which is rather unfortunate, but we’re still in the top half of our class currently sailing on the second to last leg. The music is on, the washing up is done, and spirits are high (and rising: I just did a spot check). I’ve been asked to say that while some of the crew are writing blogs, the others are still sailing… cheeky!

Really looking forward to a beer and a really long hot shower now: see y’all in Falmouth Harbour, eta for us 5-6pm this evening!