What a week of contrasts… Going from resetting the GOR speed record to drifting aimlessly in the fog on a mill pond ocean. Musically we’ve gone from intensity of the “Flight of the Bumble Bee” to “The Teddy Bear’s Picnic” played on a bass tuba, by a valium addict. Not the most inspiring stuff.
Sadly our prize for being in the lead has been to have it halved, as we were the first to the light winds but there’s no guarantee that we’ll be the first out. The GRIB files that contain our forecasts have been changing fundamentally every 12 hours, with neither the old or the new forecast looking anything remotely like what we’re actually experiencing! Our only hope is that the wedge shaped ridge extending down from Tasmania holds in place and allows us to pass through the narrow part while leaving the thick end for the boys on BSL. For the moment however they appear to be Teflon Kiwis, carrying on through forecasted calms as if they’ve got an open tab at the Wind Bar.
Surrounded as we are by a drenching fog that blankets sun and the wind, life continues apace on shore. My girlfriend arrives in New Zealand on the 28th and, perhaps optimistically, we’ve booked Sam on a flight back to London on the 30th so he can go see his girlfriend for New Years. Two solid dates in the diary that are not to be missed, so we’re still pushing hard to get in in time, and to get there first!
- Sea Trials
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Sea Trials
Welcome to my newly minted Outside TV blog, one dedicated to an unusual element of Outside pursuits. My fellow bloggers here all live exciting lives and bring back fantastic stories from their expeditions up, over and around terra firma. I am going to be taking a different tack, and will be telling you about my pursuit of Cape Horn and a racing circumnavigation of the globe, powered by the wind.
I was born into this gig, as my mother met my father when he was halfway through sailing around the world, a dream that I have subsequently adopted as my own. I spent my first year at sea, shaky first steps not made easier by the rocking of the boat! Later, growing up in New Zealand the blurred face and scratchy voice of Sir Peter Blake battling storms in the Southern Ocean left an indellible mark on me and sent me on a path to where I am now.
About Conrad Colman: Conrad is an ocean racing sailor who hails from the land where they grow 'em best, New Zealand. Having decamped to France via a lot of mountain biking in the American Rockies, he's now racing around the world on a 40 foot yacht with a Spanish sailor who was a stranger just months before. Tune in for a " how to guide" on life at sea, endurance racing, team building in confined spaces and the gory details of a freeze-dried diet taken to the extreme! He can be contacted through his website: www.conradcolman.com.
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