Xtra-Link A day in the life.. Written by Ruan De Hart

A day aboard Xtra-Link, during the Cape to Rio Yacht race.

It is difficult to pin a start time to our day aboard Xtra-Link. Every day flows into the next, but lets start at breakfast. At 6am UTC (which is the designated time standard for the boat) we all sit down to cereal and fruit juice on deck. Everyday We have a different flavour or brand, but we always share a box between the five of us. After breakfast we sit around for some social time. This might seem a bit early, but it gets hot quite early in the morning. As soon as the sun comes out and catches your back (the sun rises from the stern) you can feel it baking. So after breakfast, most of us have a siesta.

Since we have to keep in touch with the outside world, we have "office hour" at about 8am. Emails are checked, new weather reports are downloaded and the engine is started to charge the batteries. Everyone is up, either on deck or checking our latest corrected position. By this time it has become quite hot and to escape the heat, most of us lie down afterwards or find a shady spot on deck. The rest of the morning is spent hiding from the heat.

Lunch is not what you would expect back home, canned fruit and custard.
Once again we all sit down in the cockpit at 12am, but by this time conversation is a bit more interesting since everyone has had some time to wake up. Our progress in the race is usually a topic of dicussion. Siestas are once again taken.

The boat is always more "alive" in the afternoons, as the heat of the day has passed. We spend our time catching up on some reading or interacting with the press. As it is cooler, we tend to sit outside and enjoy the good weather with some snacks at 4pm. Batteries are charged and a quick email and weather check is done.

As we try to conserve energy onboard, we try to minimise the use the boat's lighting during the night. Dinner is thus made at 5:30pm, while it is still light. Dishes are washed and the tempo on the boat slows down. As soon as the sun goes down, we start our night watches (3 hours off, 1.5 hours on in teams of two and one of one) while the rest go to sleep. This watch system continues until dawn. Now you can understand why we sleep a lot during the day.

So when do we actually sail the boat? Well, since we are competing there is always a focused helmsman in charge of keeping us tracking at a good speed in the right direction. Sail changes can happen at any time, as the weather changes. We have completed many sail changes with only the moon supplying light. You have to keep an eye on the wind speed and angle. Deciding on which sail should be used.

It has taken a couple of days to get into this abnormal routine, but by now it almost seems second nature. To keep our lives interesting input from the outside world is always appreciated, so feel free to send us an SMS to +87
077318 4879