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East - West Atlantic Record

Maiden II daily report : Days are long…

samedi 20 avril 2002 –

Another day in the Atlantic has given us hope and desperation but we are still just on the edge of this downwind record attempt sitting only 28 miles behind Club Med. We are negotiating clouds squalls and rain to try and pick our way through a mine field of light airs of 9 knots and trade winds of 15 with the odd puff of 18. Dusk and Dawn consistantly give us nail biting conditions which is playing a huge role in the overall result for Maiden II.


Around dusk we have a big decrease in pressure often reducing down to as much as only 8 knots and sending us up to 40 degrees off course, not good for dead downwind sailing but then dawn beaks giving us a good solid 15 to 18 knots which allows us to get to within 10 degrees of course which is a welcoming sight on the B& G instruments.

Through the night we completed another 4 gybes where the deck lights come on and luminate the whole boat like a big floating tennis court the standby watch springs into action to take part in their roles to successfully gybe this boat with little down speed and without breaking gear. The current watch prepare the boat, run the lazy sheet organise the mast area, engage appropriate winches then the standby watch take there place on the front trampoline to furl the big gennaker. To furl this huge sail it requires 5 people to run up and down inside the contninuous furling line until the sail is furled and the boat can be swung through the gybe.

Brian Thompson goes to the head this morning before coming up to join us on deck, however he had a rather extended stay in the head as somehow the outside latch got closed. He was found by Helena as he was knocking on the door from the inside trying to very politely attract someones attention, he was released from the head after about 5 minutes and still trying to find the culprit. The Aussie condingent on board have a little Koala bear nicknamed Kev. Kev is a little bit of a wild card right now he is taped to the wind speed read out and gets a little good luck scratch every now and then. However yesterday he was close to being drop kicked off the back of the boat.

Daily report by Fraser Brown

– Navigation Report by Adrienne Cahalan
– Distance to finish end Day 9 : 715nm
– Distance for finish for Club Med end Day 9 : 687nm
– Miles behind Club Med : 28nm
– Average speed to finish : 18.66kts
– Average speed since start : 14.68kts
– Maiden Two position end Day 9 : 25 40N 61 44W
– Club Med Position end Day 9 : 22 40N 62 20W
– Hours since start : 216hrs
– Hours to finish : 38.5hrs
– Average daily run since start : 352 miles
– Current Speed : 21kts
– Current wind speed : East 15-20kts
– Current heading : 310T

We are in the situation now where we have to ’bang a corner’ just like the dinghy days when you get to the bottom mark for the last beat to windward and know that you have to pull out a big one. So we are hitting the NW corner of the course with a predicted SE shift to almost lay in on port gybe. We have a tough average to beat at 18.6 kts but with this windspeed it is still acheivable. There is a large bank to our south-east associated with a trough predicted to give us the record breaking SE shift and the risk in our strategy is the surprises this cloud bank may bring. Stay tuned !

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