Blogs

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2,500 miles to go!

2,500 miles to go and we are hunting down each member of the pack. We
are currently in 5th position and making maximum effort to make further
gains on our competitors ahead of us. We have had some eventful days
down here in the southern ocean. We had a fantastic day sailing with our
heavy weight spinnaker two days ago, hitting top speeds and surfing down
waves. During the night tragedy struck, the wind angled changed by 90
degrees and a sudden wind increase by 15 knots caused the helmsman to
loose control of the boat. The spinnaker wrapped and tore in half. All
crew were called on deck to help retrieve the pieces of the kite and get
them down below. Immediately repairs had to begin as this kite is a
crucial part of our racing ability. We set work on drying the spinnaker
with tea towels and hair dryers. We drew out a plan of where the damage
was and how we were going to start fixing it. Two days later and the
sail repair team are down below hand stitching and patching the
spinnaker together. Our sewing machine, though hand operated seems to be
managing the task well and we discovered that my physiotherapy tape is
very useful for sticking sail cloth together. Despite this we have
managed to sail the boat fast and make significant gains on the fleet
ahead. Last night we entered stealth mode hoping that we might be able
to pop out a couple of places ahead within that time. This afternoon my
first time on deck since the tear in the spinnaker occured, we suddenly
noticed another clipper boat approximately 2 miles away from us on our
port side. " Its Edinburgh" someone shouted "and we are ahead of them!"
It was amazing to see another boat on the ocean after 2000 miles and
even more amusing that they had spotted us during our stealth mode. We
had a chat on the radio before they dipped away over the horizon to the
south of us. We will probably not see them now until Geraldton. So with
approximately 10 days to go we are starting to make our way very slowly
north again and hope to have our spinnaker repaired in the next couple
of days. Our next targets are Jamaica then possible Spirit of Australia.
The race is most certainly on!"