#leg 7

The Amazing Race Australia Season 5 - Episode 7: Leg 7 AirDate: February 14th, 2021, 07:30 PM

We picked up an extra person for the trip to NYC - media crewperson Tristan. It's always fun to have new faces around. The race started really well for us. First we all had photos with an old lighthouse (ours makes it look like we're actually stealing said lighthouse and carrying it away on the bowsprit). When the racing began we were right up at the front of the fleet (such a nice feeling). We managed to keep pace with the fleet for quite a while as well. But alas, we are Mission. Eventually it was clear we wouldn't be in top three through the scoring gate and began to consider heading west from the rest of the fleet in the hopes of making up some ground towards the next gate while they went north. As it turns out, three of the boats made that call. Us, Qingdao, and Invest. It was only ever going to go one way. We got stuck by a ridge - sort of like a band of high pressure. High pressure means no wind. No wind means we're not managing to go anywhere. Welcome to the back of the fleet. It really is a terrible feeling to be barely drifting along and seeing the rest of the fleet gain ground on you every single sched. Eventually the race had to be called for the three of us at the back. There was no way we'd make it to New York in the appropriate time frame otherwise. We had a very close battle with Qingdao right at the end while waiting for a phone call from Justin to tell us we were officially done racing. They came very, very close to overtaking. As it turns out though, the race had been called several hours before (us 10th, Qingdao 11th, Invest 12th) and Justin forgot to make the phone call. That's very frustrating when you're changing sails over and over in an attempt to keep moving with hardly any breeze. We were all a bit upset. But hey, what can you do? We had a long motor north ahead of us again. It was time to get back to cleaning and maintenance. I had the joy of both Sophie and Orla on my watch for this race - and we had an absolute riot during this downtime. Dancing, giggling, getting wildly inappropriate. It was a really good laugh. Eventually the weather got a bit iffy when we got into the Gulf Stream properly. Wind coming south and current heading north makes for a rather lumpy sea. We had to conserve fuel as well so it was back to sailing. Slowly. Everyone got a bit grumpy considering that we were watching our time in NYC slip away, bit by bit. Worse was having to transfer fuel to Qingdao as they were too short to make it (and had been constantly motoring instead of sailing). Transfers like that mean meeting up and quite literally passing jerry cans from one boat to another as quickly as possible (to keep the potential for smashing into each other at a bare minimum). On the plus side boats generally trade food and such. For example, we'd been passing out Tang to just about anyone who would take it. Garmin usually traded freeze-dried goods. Nutella was a hot commodity as well. In his case I think we swapped some yeast for candy. Never underestimate the power of sweets to improve morale. Skittles for all. We did eventually make it up to New York. Or rather, New Jersey. Late. Where my family was waiting!

Photos from the start of the race to Jamaica. At least it was pretty!

We motored out of the canal to a miscellaneous spot with the rest of the fleet for an early-morning Le Mans start.  This race had been sold as an upwind sprint to the NE corner of Jamaica - the boat with the fewest tacks (I'd like to point out that this was autocorrected to 'feast tacos' - dinnertime anyone?) would likely win.  During the race down to Panama the team had decided to push it for this race and specialize more than we usually did. The theory was that when upwind, having good helms matters exceptionally - the closer to the wind you can sail effectively, the less likely to need to tack. It was brought up by a handful of crew members and extensively discussed. Derek and I both voiced strong opinions against it. My arguement boiled down to the fact that somebody is going to get upset when they're told they aren't a good enough driver to helm the race. Well we rolled with it. And of course people were upset and pissed off. For exactly the expected reasons. Nobody wants to spend an entire race as rail meat! We had to have a discussion about it partway through the race because a couple of people were acting like children. You chose it. Don't get grumpy with me. Ugh.  Safe to say it marred the race a bit for me. Didn't make a difference to our standing anyway. None of the boats made it to the corner without tacking. And we were in our usual position at the back of the fleet with a couple of usual friends.  We also had a couple other issues with the crew dynamic during this trip. I don't want to air all the boat's dirty laundry, so we can just call it various people's personal issues.  Anyway, apparently the lead boats had a very exciting finish into Port Antonio. We wouldn't know, because all of us at the back got stuck in a wind hole and slowly drifted our way across the finish line. Such a painful process. We ended up in port the day after everyone else and missed the first-night-in shenanigans.  It was a short trip, but not a particularly enjoyable one. We were all looking forward to the break in Jamaica.