2002

Home > Journals > Around Alone

Ocean Planet Report
Ocean Planet Around Alone Log
1310 gmt, Thursday, October 17, 2002
Pos: 44 18N, 12 37W Hdg 190T @ 10kts

Well, my plan of going over the top of the monster approaching low is off, latest weather puts that out of reach. That and 60+ knots on the north side…

So, now the options are to bang away against 40kt headwinds between the low and Europe, or pull into a place called La Coruna, which several boats are doing. If I do that, the lead class one boats will be out of reach for sure as the storm will last for several days. But if I follow them into the maelstrom, I risk blowing up our patched mainsail with 6,000 miles to go to Cape Town. There is some other stuff that got messed up on the first night, a broken lifeline stanchion and the vang line jumped a sheave on the pusher vang damaging the carbon around the sheave. That one bugs me since I remember it happening before and making a mental note to use a larger rope, which I forgot in the rush in Brixham. Drat!

I’m going nuts trying to decide what to do. If I was further ahead with the leaders I would stick it out for sure since they will escape to the other side of the low sooner. Things always seem to snowball when you fall behind….

Thinking,
Bruce