After a rather tiring approach to the Philippines we managed to get a few days of recovery. After the mandatory deep clean of the entire boat and the usual maintenance work we only had to carry out a few repairs, as we do in every stopover. The biggest by far was the repair of our spinnaker. It took some time but even herr the team was able to make good progress and get a day off in the end.

Subic Bay is split into two parts. There is the more modern free-port zone and the more traditional city of Olongapo. But both of them cannot deny the western influence. The decades of being a US navy base, which was handed over to the Philippines at the beginning of the nineties, has left its mark. This is not only apparent on the menu in the restaurants but also in that most people speak very good English. This simplifies the communication a lot.

We are underway again since Sunday. Besides our normal departure procedure, including a parade of sail and the safety exercises, we also held a photo sessions with the fleet before setting course for Qingdao. To not get stuck in one of the numerous wind holes on the west coast of the Philippines, race management has decided to only start the race near the northern end of Luzon. This allowed us to go there with the aid of our engine and should ensure we arrive in China according to schedule.

Now we are racing again for just over a day. The first few hours were very interesting but the wind has decreased a bit since. Most of the boats are still within sight, but first tactical differences become apparent. It will surely remain interesting as this race is one of the shorter ones, estimated to take between eight and ten days.

Once we leave the Japanese islands behind us, we will first enter the East Chinese Sea and then the Yellow Sea. In both of these sea areas we have to expect a lot of fishing boats. According to reports they come in groups dozens of boats and have nets which are several miles long which they deploy. Thus our main goal for that part is to avoid all of that. This will keep us on our toes for sure.

As the race is shorter it will be more intense. This means potentially more sail changes, more manoeuvres and most certainly more trimming of the sails. This means I might not be able to write updates regularly. I will try to catch up in the stopover, even though this did not really happen either in the last ones.