| On the way to Cape Horn |
| Friday, 04 March 2005 |
We are storming downwind to Cape Horn, now just 635 miles away, or one Sydney - Hobart as Will would say. I would rather think of it as one Fastnet, or if you are from the East Coast of the US, you would say one Newport - Bermuda. Records could be tumbling on any of these courses if we were there, as we head for the mark at 20-25 knots. We have the distance to go on a display on deck and the 5 on board who have not seen the Horn are all wondering if we are going to get there in daylight or not.
We have got the medium reacher up again after a few days of sailing with the smaller yankee sail, the sun is shining and the sea has taken on a long remembered blue colour after days of slate grey. There are still a lot of squalls, and we are pinballing from one to the other. Water temperature is 6.4 degrees C.
Last night we were hit by a particularly vicious squall, the wind going from 20 to 42 knots in a couple of minutes. We had to do an emergency roll on the medium gennaker and put the yankee back up. We decided to keep the gennaker furled till dawn after that.
What we did see during that squall was very unusual, though at the time we had our hands too full to appreciate it, and that was a moonbow, where the rain in the squall creates a grey rainbow just from the moonlight. I have only seen this once before.
Stan has been making a complete inspection of the boat, and found 100 litres of water in the back beam. We pumped it out, and he found that it is coming from some new padeyes. The back beam has been in the firehose for the last 2 weeks and just a slow leak has built up to a sizeable weight of water. Getting into the back beam is like being in a mineshaft, everything black, wet and very claustrophobic. The beam is sealed into separate watertight compartments to ensure that the boat floats high if we capsize - it would then become the bottom of the boat.
Otherwise all good on board. We are already looking at the weather for the next leg up to Punta del Este and planning our strategy. There are all sorts of choices, inside or outside the Straights of Le Maire and inside or outside the Falklands; they are just the first decisions to be made.
We heard a couple of days ago that Geronimo had retired. That’s a great pity for them, and for the race, they sounded understandably down about it. I am sure that an unexpected pitstop in Sydney will cheer them up a little though. We had a great race with them for 2 weeks, racing neck and neck. We would have liked to continue the cat vs tri debate for another few thousand miles, but I am sure that we will have another chance soon. Certainly I hope during the next Quest race in 2006, if not before then. We all hope the biggest racing tri in the world can be repaired quickly and resume its globe circling exploits.
Brian
www.maxicatdoha.com
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