Friday 27th February
Position 42'55.806S 163'44.275W
Wind 266 Degrees 17.6 Knots
COG 102 Degrees SOG 9.9 Knots
Distance Sailed 1,081 Nautical Miles
Dear Friends,
Life is sweet aboard the good ship Mowgli. Not only are we finally back at the front of the fleet but with all the confusion of time zones my birthday just seems to go on and on!!
We have had 24 hours of the most fantastic sailing with winds steady at around 18 - 22 knots and sailing at a pretty steady 10 - 12 knots with occasional bursts of speed over 16 knots. We have the masthead (big) spinnaker up and full main meaning we are pretty over powered some of the time and have the odd broach but nothing too serious.
Yesterday morning as the sun rose we spotted the Chileans on the horizon off our starboard bow and it wasn't long before we also spotted Michel on Roaring Forty directly in front of us. We were all within about 6 miles of each other which is amazing after over 1,000 miles of racing. We all managed to speak over the VHF radio and it was good to hear other voices - we didn't get round to discussing our tactics though!!
The weather has been quite squally with large rain and thunder clouds rolling over us giving us unpredictable winds and lots of rain. It was fine when we could see the other guys over there getting a soaking but not so much fun when it came our way!! After one particularly large rain cloud we never did see the other boats again even though Michel had only been about three miles in front of us. We were headed by about 20 degrees and I think they weren't which meant that we had the chance to maintain our northerly position over the fleet. As we get closer to the ice gate at 45' south this will be important to us and give us more options although inevitably we will all have to gybe northwards at some point.
We had invited the other competitors to come over and join us for roast duck and a glass of red wine last night - on condition that they let us take the lead! Sadly there were no takers although I think the Germans were tempted... We had a wonderful dinner with the autopilot on for the first time in nearly 24 hours and enjoyed a wonderful bottle of Sandihurst Pinot Noir made by my brother Mike in New Zealand - thanks Mike! Thank you also for all my cards and presents.
The weather remains fine today and the race is on...
Love to all.
Jeremy and David
Thursday 26th February
Position 42'25.895S 171'12.913W
Wind 282 Degrees 13.6 Knots
COG 65 Degrees SOG 9.1 Knots
Distance Sailed 721 Nautical Miles
Another day of mostly light winds but with some pretty spectacular squalls thrown in - not so much strong wind but torrential rain. Overall the weather for the last few days has been more reminiscent of the doldrums than of the Southern Oceans! Temperature in the shade today was a little under 30 degrees and of course even hotter down below! Winds have been variable from about 3 knots up to maybe 17 or 18 and we have been steadily making ground on the boats in the south. The latest report shows us just 10 miles behind with considerably better boat speed and we believe being north is going to favour us for a little while yet. It looks as if the light winds are behind us now and we can look forward to a steadier breeze over the next few days.
We did a further repair on the boom today by adding some glass fibre to the resin mix and adding a 'bandage' over the cut shown in the previous photograph. On the advice of the manufacturers and Hakes Marine, this should be more than enough to solve the problem and they seem confident that the structural integrity hasn't been compromised.
Our masthead spinnaker halyard became stuck at the top of the mast this morning - just when we were planning to take the spinnaker down in advance of a squall coming up behind us. In the event we strapped the sail down as best we could and the squall passed without any dramas. David went up to the top of the mast as soon as the rain cleared and managed to free it without too much difficulty and we dropped it to the deck and repaired the frayed halyard before getting going again.
We have been within sight, just on the horizon, of Michel on Roaring Forty for much of today but sadly despite good efforts have been unable to speak to him on the VHF radio. Not sure whether it is his radio or ours playing up - I don't think it is ours...! We were going to invite him over for bacon and eggs at lunchtime!!!
Looking forward to birthday celebrations tomorrow and roast duck for dinner again and perhaps a bottle of wine!!
Happy days.
Love to all.
Jeremy and David
Wednesday 25th February
Position 42'45.122S 174'59.219W
Wind 291 Deg 5.6 Knots
COG 148 Deg SOG 3.7 Knots
Distance Sailed 518 Nautical Miles
There is nothing more frustrating than light winds when sailing. Your sails flog, the boom knocks back and forth and it is hard to hold your direction. it is all the more frustrating when you are leading the pack and you fall out of the wind whilst your fellow competitors seem to stay in it and steal your hard won ground!
What has made this doubly frustrating for us however is the fact that our new boom has already suffered from serious damage, I guess as a result of a design flaw. The lashing for the vang system strung under the boom has ended up actually cutting through the carbon fibre at the inboard end of the boom itself after the metal eye containing it came free - picture attached. That this was caused in such light conditions where nothing is under very much pressure is annoying to say the least! We have already glued everything back into place and will do quite a lot of sanding and additional glass work in the morning. The manufacturers, Hall Spars, will hopefully get a technician down to Brazil to do complete repairs once we are there.
In the meantime we don't expect this to be a serious cause for concern although it will mean we are unable to use the vang/preventor system.
Apart from this we have been basking in glorious sunshine and enjoying the wildlife of the south Pacific Ocean. There were more albatross around today than we have ever seen and at one point there must have been nearly twenty of them either flying around us or sitting on the water close by (I didn't know that albatross ever stopped flying?). We also saw our first shark only about two or three metres from the boat. Not sure what it was but I guess it was about 5 feet long and hunting for sitting albatross!!
Yesterday we saw a seal close by as well and it then started following us jumping out of our wake rather like a dolphin would. She couldn't keep up for long but it was wonderful to watch and not something I have ever seen or heard of before.
Our hunt for wind continues although we are expecting it to remain light for another couple of days before we find ourselves with too much wind later in the week!
love to all.
Jeremy and David.
Sunday 22nd February
Position 42'51.836S 177'34.640W
Wind 17.5Kn 291 Degrees
COG 090 Degrees SOG 10.6 Knots
Distance Sailed 389 Nautical Miles
It is Sunday morning - again! Last night we crossed the 180 degree meridian and passed once more into the western hemisphere and with it lost a day. Another big milestone under our belts.
After a wonderful month in New Zealand, Mowgli was finally ready to go - but not without some serious last minute dramas! On Thursday night we had refitted the bowsprit with the new deck fitting and in doing so noticed a small area of damage on the pole which had gone undetected. Those wonderful people at Hakes Marine were down in the pouring rain first thing Friday looking at it in situ before deciding to take it back to their yard. At lunch time we got a call to say it was looking much more serious than they had thought and we had better come over to have a look. They had grinded out most of the damaged area producing a hole in the bowsprit about 2 inches square and the cracking appeared to continue from there. They were already in consultation with Hall Spars (who had just made our new boom)and thought they would be able to fix it and had volunteers to work through the night.
The mended bowsprit was finally fitted on saturday morning but the spare wind instrument for the top of the mast was still on its way from France! It had landed at Auckland early in the morning and we had arranged special customs clearance. Nicola Hakes was at Wellington airport waiting to collect it. Mowgli was due to leave the dock at 12.30 to be ready for the start and at 12.20, Nicola was spotted running down the gangway with a large cardboard box. David was at the ready to go up to the top of the mast and fit the instrument and as the Mowgli theme tune started playing to the onlooking crowd, we finally managed to get David down to deck level and get on our way!!
We were lucky on Saturday to have such a wonderful day for the restart of our race in Wellington with brilliant sunshine and steady 25 knots of wind in the harbour - a dramatic contrast to the day before. We all knew however that once over the start line and getting out of the heads into the Cook Straits that the wind would build up to 35 knots plus and we had to have a sail plan to deal with the increasing conditions. We started with 2 reefs in the main - Boris had three and Felipe had two. We and Boris opted for a staysail and Felipe went all out with his solent. Boris crossed the start line first with Mowgli at the back of the fleet but with three reefs he soon lost out to both Felipe and ourselves with some exciting close racing going on out of the harbour. Once we could gybe onto course out of the heads the other two boats put their code sails up and we opted for the more conservative approach of our solent. No point pushing too hard and breaking anything on the first day!!
Our tactics have been to get a little south of the fleet but to stay north of the Chatham Islands and with a similar result to the Cape Town start this appears to have cost us time against the rest of the fleet. However we are now gaining that ground back and in the latest position report are now lying second, 0.4 miles ahead of Beluga and just 2 miles behind the Chileans.
The weather has been wonderful with bright sunshine and 15 - 20 knots of wind over a flat sea. It has been more like trade wind sailing than the Southern Oceans and long may it last!!
Plenty of fresh food to go and we very much enjoyed the venison stew produced by brother Michael for dinner last night and Mum's fruit cake has already made a welcome appearance. Thank you both.
There are so many people who have been involved in getting Mowgli back on the water in time for this leg and without their commitment and efforts we just wouldn't be here. Gautier from North Sails, Gordy from Duffy Rigging, Paul and Will from Hakes Marine all stand out and we thank them for everything they have done. Once again however the star of the show has to be Pip who worked tirelessly chasing all the people just mentioned along with a dozen more. Whilst David and I managed to get some time away from Wellington with family, Pip has been in New Zealand for well over a month and hasn't left Wellington once. Pip, thank you.
Love to all.
Jeremy and David.