Boris back
Boris Herrmann is back up to speed and with that his mood is lifting after having to repair the link to his foil arm twice yesterday. But he has still had a repair to make.
“ This morning I had the boat stopped losing the miles as I repaired a lashing on the bow on the J2 tack. Now I am going nicely, 20 knots to the ESE. I think I am following a similar track to Justine and Clarisse and Sam as well, everyone on port tack now, positioning with this development of this high pressure and the low coming behind us, setting up for more northerly winds as the low comes in and then lots of reaching for the next five or six days, so not a very strong, massive system. It is almost moderate conditions for the next half a week or so. I got lots of rest last night which was good, the night started early. Tidying up the boat is for today as I have been setting up the boat to sail fast, lots of stacking and routing. Here we are going nicely and with a bit more rest now and soon the sun will heat up the cabin, I can see my breath, it is a bit cold and damp.”
every day is a school day
The mental black cloud is also lifted for Pip Hare as she heads deeper into the Southern Ocean on Medallia, “I have turned the corner, I spent 14 hours straight fixing things. I rebuilt a relay from two knackered ones. Before that I did not even know what a relay was!”
Behind Hare who is 17th, the South African gateway is not very welcoming. Crossed by Isabelle Joschke in the early hours of the night, which is getting shorter and shorter for the sailors who are chasing the sun, the MACSF skipper (19th) described her conditions, “The passage of the first front went rather well, apparently I beat my 24-hour speed record with my boat, it was unbearable on board but it was really nice! A kind of race against the clock to stay ahead of the front, I found that really cool. On the other hand, behind it was a bit of a cold shower, the sea got up, the wind too, and since yesterday afternoon I have had hellish conditions, with a very unstable wind, from 25 to 45 knots, you had to be on your toes at all times. The boat sometimes hit the surf, that's something I really experienced four years ago, and it's a bit of the great stress of the Southern Oceans.”
And Ollie Heer, fighting in depths of the daggerboard fleet is in great spirits after a tussle to get his engine to start on Tut Gut.
He smiles, “The engine and I are friends again. It took a little bit of working on. That is where my technical experience comes in and it is purring again like a little cat.”
“Progress is not bad, I managed to achieve what I wanted over the last couple of days, I managed to achieve what I wanted, to get back into the pack of daggerboard boats leaving a couple behind. I am preparing the boat for the Southern Ocean that is why I noticed the problem with the engine. We are ready and I am looking forwards to it. Already yesterday we saw winds in the high 30s and 4.7m swell and so proper Southern Ocean conditions and so I am ready, I am ready to do some proper sailing down here.”
“Compared to my sailing last year and like the Transat CIC, the Jacques Vabre as so on I have become much more conservative in the way I sail, it is much more sustainable the way I sail the boat. It is important down here to not sail the fastest, just the best way to sure me myself and the boat stay in good shape because there are still many, many miles to sail and being disciplined in this area is handy.”
Heer enthuses, “We had the the first proper front come through yesterday and now tonight and the first half of tomorrow is quite light but I am still sailing with a very conservative sail plan. Tomorrow night I go through the second front and I have just gybed and am positioning myself with the daggerboard boats in the north of the rhumb line just to not get into the worst of it. I am expecting low 30s of breeze. If I did not set a limit to the breeze on my routing I would see 40 knots which is not what I want. In terms of strategic gains, I don’t think it is an objective right now, you see it with the other boats right now, it is not how to sail fast from point A to B, it is the trade off between performance and being conservative as it would be stupid to break the boat now. You can see that with the average speeds, that is the overall thinking right now. This is about proper seamanship.”
