Birthday boy, Mike Sanderson & Team Sanya in last dash to Lisbon

There are not very many people in the world who can say that for their birthday, they were woken early for a phone interview, then before breakfast had a snickers bar lined with matchsticks presented to them as their cake, and a present in the form of a 100 calorie can of Diet Coke. That was how our skipper Mike Sanderson spent his birthday morning on board the mighty Sanya Lan.
 
Turns out, he would need the sugar, as not soon after we found ourselves in a 35 knots squall, and as moose took the rains he averaged 25 knots of boat speed over 3 hours, knocking off about another 75nm of the total distance to go. It was certainly wet out there though. “I swallowed quite a bit of water up there, think its time for lunch,” he commented after his close to 5 hours stint on deck. “The plan is to try and ride this front for as long as we can, and then the next tactical move will be how to get through the ridge up ahead. The boat that can get through that area quickly will come out in pretty good shape,” commented Aksel when I asked him to give a quick overview of the next 24 hours…

But for now, life is much of the same onboard, it’s still very wet on deck, and down below for that matter, the weight is still aft and we are still averaging 20 knots of boat speed. The finish of this leg is certainly shaping up to be a close one as the fleet will compress over the next 24-48 hours. Oh and make sure you tune in tomorrow at 1500UTC for a Live call from the boat.
 
SOURCE: bymnews.com