Wednesday 12 December 2007

Hugo Boss News.

This is the latest news from Hugo Boss. We just received an email from Pete and Anne saying that they(Alex and Andy) have slowed the boat a little to try and minimize any damage!

They are currently in 3rd place.

Tuesday 11th December 2007

Time: 16:00 GMT
Latitude: 50 24.22’ S
Longitude: 43 00.14’ E
Position: Third
Average speed: 16.5 knots

It was dreadful news to hear that the French boat Delta Dore lost her mast last night. What makes it worse is that they had to cut the whole mast away, as it was damaging the boat in the sloppy seas. This means that they have nothing left to make a jury rig and land is 800 nautical miles away. Both Capey and I really feel for co-skippers Sidney and Jérémie, and we wish them a safe trip north to South Africa. There are three boats now heading into port and Estrella Damm is the only one that looks like it will be able to rejoin the race. I wouldn’t bank on this being the end of it either, the stats suggest that nearly 50% of the boats will not finish this race so it is really important to not push too hard especially this far south and so far away from all rescue services. I was lucky last year when I lost my last boat that Mike Golding, a fellow competitor, was close enough to rescue me. If I had been forced to wait any longer for a rescue ship to arrive, I might not be here now.

It is getting even colder down here now and it’s blowing 25 to 30 knots. Snow flurries and sleet showers are a daily occurrence, and disaster struck yesterday when the heater broke, leaving us rather cold and grumpy. Today we have seen the sun for the first time in a while and after some technical advice about the heater from a fella called Toby, we are all warm and toasty again. Heat makes a big difference to life onboard, dry clothes, dry cabin, it completely changes the morale and thanks to our wind generator taking the load off our engine for charging the batteries, we have fuel to burn!

Capey and I are still chilling out at the moment and will do for a little while to come. When the conditions are appropriate we will put our foot on the gas, but for now we are preserving our energy and waiting.

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