As we knew that the equator passing would be in the darkness, King Neptune made his appearence about 30 miles north at 1800. As we pollywogs bowed before his highness, we shared wine and rum, the story of Jim Nash, and lots of laughs as we rocketed down 6' swells at speeds up to 13 kts.
The night was also wonderful. Plenty of high speeds as we rode the tight reaching spinniker over unseen swells. Then at 2242 we crossed the equator at Lon 139-40.9'W and 5 new Shellbacks were born.
This all merrily continued until 0600... almost exactly 1 day since it began as the wind started building to 24 kts. We decided first to change spinnikers to our heavy 1.5 oz, allowing us to also check the spin halyard for wear. But very soon, we were headed in the wrong direction and we took it down to put up the #3 and get back on course. 10 minutes later, the wind died and the rain started and we switched headsails to the #1. Shortly thereafter, it was more appropriate to have the chute back up. When we had cleaned up the other changes, taking a couple of hours of hard work... we relaunched the 1.5 oz. The wind dropped and we couldn't fly it, so we changed again to the 0.75 oz, but immediately the wind changed direction and we were off course again. So, finally, we put the #1 back up (which we hadn't yet put away). This all cost us probably 20 miles to our competitors.. ouch. But now we're back on course (and speed). Ahh.. yacht racing.
Right now we're bombing along, on course at 10.5 kts. Good pace for us, and I think a winning one.
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