Team SCA in the Volvo Ocean Race - Day 27: Coming down to the wire

What started off as a very calm day, reminiscent of the doldrums, has fortunately not ended that way; in fact, it's ended in the seriously opposite way. Currently, we have nearly 20 knots and this wind is expected to increase around 0300 when we will see gusts up to 30 knots.   Unfortunately, it is upwind and the ride is not very comfortable nor as fast as downwind sailing. Sailing upwind, in swell, is like jumping on a horse, instead of fences though we are leaping over waves; even more, the horse you're riding is not very graceful and with each land you crash down, hard.

Life upwind is not easy. Walking around, you hope that there is not a rouge wave to cost you a misstep, resulting in whatever your holding (dinner, pee bucket, water, safety gear) to come crashing on top of you on the leeward side of the boat. This would not be the ideal way to end leg 1.

Yes, that is correct, it is nearly the end of Leg 1. It's the final night. Tomorrow, this time, we will happily be in Cape Town, showered and fed, all of us stoked to sleep in a still bed for the first time in 27 days. And we are going out of this race in the best way possible: racing another boat.

At the moment, we are neck and neck with MAPFRE, the red Spanish boat, and we're not letting them out of our grasp until the finish line. We cannot see them on AIS (our ships tracking device) however, they are only 9 miles away. Earlier today, Sophie was able to see them when she went up the rig to spot for wind. All day we've been making sure our boat is performing 110% so that this is a fair fight through the night and into tomorrow morning.

Tomorrow morning, the drama will continue as we come both come out of this pressure and into another area of no wind we will need to sail through. Then separate from our dying forecast, we have to negotiate Table Mountain's wind shadow (a wind shadow is just that: a shadow of the wind caused by a land mass, also known as a transition zone). Hopefully, we have not forgotten our transition zone negotiating skills learnt in Lanzarote, Canary Islands!

So it's all come down to the wire... Fingers and toes crossed for a seriously epic fight!

(www.teamsca.com)