We crossed Cape Leeuwin during the night, from now we are sailing below Australia. Greetings to my friends who live there, I can feel their closeness. Unfortunately we are not able to communicate like in old times through radio amateurs, but I think of you a lot! If you look south, we are there somewhere over the horizon! Hugs to you!

18th February 14 00 UTC, in the night. Counter to what the forecast said, or according to the new forecast, the wind has not increased, but got a little bit lighter and has that tendency. C unreefed the third line, now they are at the helm with the solent. Everything’s relative, now we have a 31-35 kns wind and it feels pretty calm comparing to the previous 45. It’s already dark and we can’t see anything, not even the waves. But this calmness is just the base, because from nothing we suddenly go wild and within three seconds our speed is 22 knots, and then we crawl on with with 14-16 again.

In the morning. C let the water out from the back ballast and unreefed the second line on the main. Now we are progressing in a 25-knots wind, our speed is quite good. According to the rooting, the wind is going to turn soon and we have to gybe. It is advisable to follow the borderline southward.

By sometime tomorrow afternoon we are expecting a northerly turn and an increase again, which will allow us to progress well for a few days. Our forecasts in wind-angles aren’t too reliable, but we can read basic tendencies from them. The whole last night we were able to sail 5 – 8°more southerly than what the program said and this is going to be like this in the future too, we can’t and we don’t want to slavishly follow its instructions.

I’ve never been slothful to reach down for a crumb, but this has been a matter of value for me, or philosophy, if you will. Now the picture is slightly different, everything is about the calories here, and both subconsciously and over-consciously we pay attention to the amount of energy. I smiled as I realized myself sitting at the kitchen, having breakfast, with a piece of buttered pita in my hand, between my legs the coffee mug and a jar of jam, watching for every little crumb that falls. I can’t see where it is but I know it’s there somewhere, crossing my fingers for it not to absorb the sea water, and as soon as I have a free hand I reach for it happily.

We are out of sugar. I’m convinced that we bought more sacs of brown sugar but we only found one, and that is over now. Interesting, that tea tastes better with honey, but coffee is much better with sugar. We combed the whole boat for sugar but couldn’t find it anywhere.

We crossed Cape Leeuwin during the night, from now we are sailing below Australia. Greetings to my friends who live there, I can feel their closeness. Unfortunately we are not able to communicate like in old times through radio amateurs, but I think of you a lot! If you look south, we are there somewhere over the horizon! Hugs to you!

Slowly we have to arrive at half of the southern march, just as much as the half of our course. If I count correctly, here in the south we sail 313 degrees from the whole circle. We’ve joined the empire of southern winds at 20° West, and Cape Horn is at 67° West. 156,5° is halfway and now we are at 138°, we still have 18,5° to go until halfway which is going to be roughly two days. So the day after tomorrow in the afternoon we will be at the halfway of our southern march. This is a closeness you can touch.

The OO,OP&P is going in front of us, we have almost always the same winds and conditions, we are faster than them, and still we are not able to get closer. Even if we do come closer, the weather gives it back to them. Typical old wisdom, that the wind always blows for the one who’s in the front, especially in a gallop race like this, the whole time racing by the fence. We can’t see big overtakes or lags anywhere in the fleet, yet there are differences in speed.

In the beginning I didn’t know where to put the boat, didn’t know how fast it’d be in this fleet. Today I can clearly see our deficiencies — especially in the sails and in our use of the daggerboards —, as well as I can see our potentials and it gives hope. Back in the day it took me until the second race to make the Alba Regia competitive too. This is the case now as well. We talked a lot with C about these questions and the conclusion is always that it’s much more beneficial to be here, than if we had skipped the race.

The Renault which is sailing ahead of us also hit something with the rudder, and they had a damage in the carbon layer. It surprises me that all of the collisions so far – and I hope there will be no more – has happened down here in the south where the ocean is considered the cleanest.

A recurring question and dilemma for me is hoisting and using the third sail. We barely use the A2 down here, because, though we have wind conditions when we could use it, the waves make it impossible most of the times.

If he could, Conrad would be standing outside on the deck whenever he can with a hoisted jacket so that we go faster. It’s gotten dark, the wind has not changed, direction has not changed. If the TWD (true wind angle) would turn from 295° to at least 270° W, we gybe.

At 11 50 UTC our position is 44° 44′ S, 119° 19′ E.

BWR actual official info and Spirit of Hungary skippers’ onboard photos sent from the South Indian Ocean – with a nice drawing of  François Denis (friend of Conrad)