2002
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Ocean Planet Report
Monday, November 11, 2002 1200gmt
Lat: 09,30.13s Lon: 026,30.52w
Continuing to claw southwards about 500 miles off the coast of Brazil. I am gaining slowly on Brad. He sent a note a little while ago that said he had bad windshift last night, so he is sticking sail needles in “Brucie voodoo doll” to make sure I get the same windshift…:-) If we can keep up the pace, we should have 12/13 days to go.
Frankenstein (the mainsail) is hangin in there. I went for a little aerial trip yesterday to trim off a big piece of stickyback material that had come off and was tangling in 3rd reef block. I clipped tether onto hefty lazyjack and climbed straight up to the 3rd reef line. It as over in a minute and easier than I feared, But Frankie’s lookin pretty ragged, missing two battens and has a lot of soft spots.
However, he’s better off than Igor, our working jib and our oldest sail. had to retire Igor from use today due to a nasty looking split up near the head. I’ve been pushing pretty hard, but mainly it’s just the miles and years adding up. Also, the abuse from Leg One when the boom broke and I had to use him in way too much wind which didn’t help. Thankfully we’re getting replacements for both sails in Cape Town. They never were meant to go past Leg One, being the original sails that were used to deliver the boat to the start. So right now we have one jib, the staysail to use from 8 to 50 kts upwind, with the lt. genoa for under that and an atn gale sail for a storm jib above. Far less than ideal for racing fast.
Ideally, I would like to add a furler for the staysail and a separate stay for the storm jib for Leg Three, but it doesn’t look like we’ll have the money or time. We still need to figure out how to pay the bills for Leg One. I borrowed $10k for the entry fee, credit cards all maxed prepping boat (about $40k owed there), new boom $20k, etc. Also the communication expenses to send these updates has run up to over $15k, ($10k still owed). I don’t know how long I can put off these bills off and afford Cape Town prep for Leg Three, but that’s what we’re going to do, somehow.
Later,
Bruce