ATLANTIC 1000 Images

DAY 2 - Hollywood to Jensen Beach

As I write we have come to the end of another long day - 20 % of the race complete. Today was another tough one – but I guess not as bad as our shock treatment yesterday. 89 miles is a fair whack as the say.

At 10pm the gun fired and we got through the surf well – Fernando giving us a healthy shove as we left the beach. We had made some modifications to our rig and the boat felt good – we shot off on a double trapeze broad reach. Well the day did not start well. We had a string of problems with our rudders kicking up. At over 20 knots it’s like losing your steering going down the highway at 120km/h – results unpredictable. We lost a lot of time to get them back down – and frankly I thought the day was going to turn into a nightmare.

We had dropped back to about 9th and generally were not having a fun time. The wind was gusting 18 knot and it was pretty bumpy with a sloppy side swell. We kept at it however and tried to find a style that was gentler on the helm and it started to pay dividends. We found the groove and established a good equilibrium with me on the tramp and all of big Bob’s weight out on the wire. We started to maintain a good average velocity. We hugged the coast and that was good option and soon we had pulled up to third. The wind freed up and soon the leaders – Team Tybee and team Castrol had hoisted their spinnakers.

We did the same. Soon the day looked brighter and quieter. A red boat -Team ‘Morada’ was sneaking up on us – so we went into race mode and covered him – we got the better of him but on the finish our friend Rick Bliss slipped by us and finished seconds in front. We finished 4th only 11 minutes behind the leaders (I believe) – which after 90 miles we were quite happy with. We are getting to know the boat a bit better now, so hope to keep improving – but its early days.

Various teams had problems today – team Lowen pulled out of the race – they say body fatigue – team Howard’s pub was dealt a blow when one of the crew dislocated his shoulder at the start – Doug Kirby the skipper found a replacement crew and then went on to break his spinnaker pole. He came in last to a round of applause from the beach a few hours behind the second last boat.

So far our boat work in the evenings has entailed nothing major – some systems have needed revising and we continue to iron out small problems.

Check the gallery for pics and more from me tomorrow.

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