2002 – 2003
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Ocean Planet in the Around Alone – Update
Thursday, February 13, 2003 1300gmt
Position: 46 20S, 166 47W
Hi all,
It has been really fun to be at or near the front of the fleet and have nice sailing conditions. The serious stuff starts in a day or so when we will have 35 knots of wind straight from the north driving us to the south I’ll keep pushing hard, if I can stay close to the leaders till Cape Horn, then the race re-starts there.
Ocean Planet seems a bit better with her modified bow, but mostly we have had good conditions for her and I have been putting her in the right place at the right time. The tactical challenge really comes when the conditions start to favor the other boats.
Psychologically, when it gets rough it will be hard to keep the pedal down as technically the race is over for me at the next stop in Brazil. Especially if I break ANYTHING. We have no finances left whatsoever and there are still a lot of bills to pay. The boat needs to make it back in one piece in case we have to sell her to pay the bills, but I guess I’m gambling that if I stay near the front it will somehow bring some sort of financial miracle. Each stopover so far my friends and supporters have performed magic already, so it is hard to ask them to do more than they already have. They are such an inspiration, and I can’t believe we have made it this far! Right now we don’t even have enough to buy the food for the next leg, so I have my fingers crossed for more miracles….
In the meantime, we are close reaching at 11.5 to 12kts. I’m staying a bit north so that we can bear off when the northerly blast comes. We’ll see how it all shakes out….;-)
Later for now,
Bruce and Ocean Planet