We rose to a light rain and the forecast of winds from the SW. Not very happy about either. Beating into the wind and waves for the next 20 hours was going to be difficult and being soaked wouldn’t make it easier. As predicted, that’s what happened, windy and rainy.

We started the race with the genoa and no reefs in the main for good speed as the winds were around 15 knots. Within a couple hours we had reduced the sail area down to the number 3 and 2 reefs in main since we had a steady 25 knots with gusts to 30.

With swells 2-3 meters, we pounded up wind and settled into our routine. We set up 4 hour shifts to give everyone time to recover from the exposure to the weather and proceeded into the night. Boomerang has a few leaks so that, combined with all the heavy breathing, the cabin and everything in it got quite wet. On each successive crew changes we would put on another layer of fleece, wet foulies and very wet gloves.

(This is what we all looked like the next morning)

Our plan was to head off the coast in hopes of staying in the wind as it was forecast to die in the early morning. Right on schedule it did just that and as the sun rose, the rain diminished and we happily started to shed layers. By 11am we were down to shorts and t’s. It had been a very long night.

Our first real meal since Cindy’s breakfast in Winter Harbour was a lunch of two trays of lasagna. We easily consumed all of it and as the wind came back, our spirits rose. As a good luck sign, we drifted past an ocean sunfish with an 8 foot wing span.

The winds increased all day and by late afternoon we had picked the perfect line to the finish and made an epic, 25 mile run, on the same jibe, surfing 3-4 meter swells with boat speeds exceeding 10 knots. This is what we signed up for!

We finished the race around 10:30, motored up Ucluelet and headed to bed exhausted.