| Tristan de Cunha |
| Saturday, 12 March 2005 |
All good on board. We have had a couple of fantastic days sailing on board Doha 2006, as we left the South American coast behind we had generally clear skies and small seas. We were blasting along with 2 reefs and the yankee in 20-degree C water and 30 knots of wind. It was Southern Ocean winds without the cold, icebergs, drizzle and the fog!
Now we are 1200 miles off the coast, and it’s squallier with a more confused sea, but we are still making good progress eastwards. Ahead of us 850 miles, lies the tiny island of Tristan de Cunha and 2300 miles ahead of us is Cape Town. It looks like we have 3 days of good winds before we hit an area of lighter breezes. Right now we have the medium gennaker and 1 reef in the mainsail as the wind is 23 knots. Still plenty of sail changes going on board, as we keep in tune with the ever-changing wind speeds. The crew has been racing for the last 16000 miles and we are going to continue to be working hard until the finish.
Whilst we are tearing along in these conditions I am making notes on changes that could be done to this boat to turbo it for the next race with stops. And I’m also thinking about what would be the perfect boat if we had a blank sheet of paper to win the next race. There are some new maximultihulls now, with the cat Orange2 on the water about to break our RTW record, and the tri Groupama 3 in build for launching late this year. There are other maxi-tris being mooted in France, so there's an exciting future ahead for this class.
Right now it’s time to slip on the Musto foul weather gear, and get on deck for another driving stint. Less than 8000 miles to go.. Just the distance from London to Freemantle, Australia.
Brian
www.maxicatdoha.com
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