Saturday/Sunday update
Akarana
Graham Deegan
Sun 29 Nov 2009 18:12
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Hi Team,
Another day, another update. As I right we
are quietly running in about 15 knots at a speed averaging nine and bit
knots. Almost perfect conditions but perhaps a a bit too perfect after
recent days which were a bit more edgy.
Starting from last night. It begun with a
brief debate as to whether we would run fast or run safe. It was decided
to run fast and we left the kite up although we did change to the heavy
air spinnaker. The breeze varied from 14 knots to 25 with quite of
lot above 20 knots. Twenty is good, twenty five is a touch too good
however we came throught it all right and maintained a good speed in roughly the
right direction around the nominal rhumb line. Blasting down wind in
moderate seas with a three quarter moon is to be experienced and
the concern caused by fear of the dreaded squalls which apparently can
produce gale force winds for 20 minutes or more just gives it that little extra
spice.
We heard last night that we had improved our
position by one place although we are now starting to see that the tactics over
the next few days will be crucial. We are trying to position ourselves for
an expected large scale veer while at the same time not wanting to stay too far
north because it maybe that the winds will be stronger to the south. Chris
our weather man continues to do a good job but of course we have the added bonus
of being able to blame him if we get the next bit wrong.
The crew continue to get along well despite the
boat being incredibly noisy and crowded and sleep being a difficult to come by
commodity. This might be because Anthony assisted by Piers is doing such a
good job with the food. Libby's excellent cake served promptly at 4.00 pm
every afternoon by the Preacher is probably also a factor.
At about 2.00 pm ships time (16.00 GMT) we were
crossed about ten miles ahead by another competitor who had obviously decided to
go south. The fact that he was in the race boat start (20 minutes ahead of
us) and 90 foot long made us feel pretty good. When we looked at his
number via his AIS we could see that he was not going any faster than us
either. So as previously stated.
So far so good.
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