Pirates Making Progress in Melbourne

The Pirates are making progress here in Melbourne. The boat is disassembled and the repairs are being affected. Kimo Worthington, our General Manager, will write something later detailing the repairs that we have made and explaining a bit about how these boats are constructed in the keel area.

Manuel Fernandez, Chairman of Pescanova and Manuel Perez, Managing Director of Pescanova Australia arrived last night to visit the team. Manuel Fernandez brought his usual optimistic attitude and a really nice video he made from the work the shore team did in his boat yard at Punta Lagoa (Spain) last October. He spoke to the team today at lunch, then we watched the video. Inspirational stuff, including the team working in the rain and darkness at 0400 on the morning of the relaunch.

Here in Melbourne, the shore team is in the midst of a tough 10 day work period to repair The Black Pearl so it was a nice time to show them that they too are stars! The crew takes the baton at sea and the shore team carries the baton ashore. The Pirates are strong because of all the Pirates.

For today, I just wanted to share a few of the great emails I have received following my Pirate Update of January 25th…the Christopher Columbus piece. A couple of the quotes are keepers and I want to put them up on the wall in my office.

1. Paul – Right on with the bit about Columbus Day etc. in Curmudgeon.

Our motto here: Don’t go where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.

I don’t know who said it but it works for me. Drive on!

Bill Kreysler

2. I liked Cayard’s e mail this morning – this is the quote i would refer to Teddy Roosevelt:

“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”

“Citizenship in a Republic,” Speech at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910

Justin Smith

3. Great read–love reading your logs and sharing with all my friends.

Today’s was especially good and reassured a lot of naysayers. Taking a risk, taking on a challenge and pioneering new things-isn’t that what the pirates did?

Go guys, you know Paul, I have always said, “If you’re not living on the edge, you’re taking up way too much room!”

Cheers to you and the rest of the Pirates,

Dulaney Collins

4. Paul,

Thanks for your comments in Scuttlebutt 2017, just what some of the knockers in our world need to be told.

Wishing you and your team the very best of luck with the remaining race.

Hi to Erle and Craig.

Kind regards

Malcolm, PYBC, Auckland

5. Bravo Paul,

parole sante !!

luca bassani antivari

6. Paul,

Sincere thanks for this. I read every email you send, fascinated by your exploits and your description of them. I hope you are finding time to relax a bit in Australia and I look forward to hearing about the boat as it is nursed back into shape for the next leg.

Bob Iger

President and Chief Executive Officer, The Walt Disney Company

7. Paul, Inspirational notes recently published.

Like you always say onboard when something is going well, “THAT’S WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT!”

Jug

Proud Pirate

Thanks for all your support!

Paul Cayard

Pirates of the Caribbean

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Melbourne –

Today, by video conference form Melbourne, I participated in a Press Conference held at The Press Club in Washington DC with an audience of about 200 people, 100 of which were journalists. It was moderated by Gary Jobson who has done all the sailing coverage over the years for ESPN. On the panel here in Melbourne was myself, Glenn Bourke, Richard Masson-a crew member of Ericsson, and one of the young sailors off ABN Amro 2, George Peet, who is American. The whole thing was very positive and it was a great opportunity to straighten out some misconceptions about the Volvo Ocean Race.

Ironically, I had a similar conversation last night with my wife. It was a good dress rehearsal for today. The fact is that through the media or a lack of the right information getting out, the wrong perception about this race is circulating in some circles. Today, with the authority that only those onboard can bring to bear, we got out the right message, which is;

These are technologically advanced boats, which produce record setting 24 hour runs of 565 miles that everyone in the media is so happy to write about. What goes with that is potential to break things. Two things will happen as we go forward; 1, the sailors will learn to manage “the edge” better, and 2, we will improve the reliability of the equipment.

Another point is that this event is going to give much more to the sailing community that other premier events in our sport. Canting keel technology is smart technology. It allows you to keep a boat light (which is fast) yet have high stability which translates into horsepower and speed. This technology will be the standard for the entire marine industry, racing and cruising, in 10 years time. The America’s Cup for example, spend 100’s of millions of $’s on antiquated technology and will be changing to canting keel technology in the future. In the near term, we will get our boats sorted out and we will produce a good competition by Baltimore if not sooner. What the event will be left with at that point is great competition from incredibly fast boats that are spectacular to watch and which the average Joe, and even many top level sailors, can only dream of getting a ride on.

I for one, as a professional, am very happy to be part of this learning curve…. to ride on the crest of the wave. I don’t feel there is any real damager of a serious catastrophe. If I did, I would not take my boat and crew out there. There is still a chance that things will break and this will limit a competitor’s ability to go full speed. But these issues are getting fewer and fewer as we sail the boats more and more and we find the weak spots. The future is clear…look at ABN Amro 1. She is the only second generation boat out here and she is holding up just fine.

By June, this period will be a forgotten blip on the radar screen. People have to learn to suck it up in the valleys. I have to tell my teenagers this but it seems you have to tell some adults too. If life was all smooth sailing, it would not be worth living. We need some challenges in order to feel like we are conquering something.

I am proud to be the skipper of the Black Pearl, I am proud to be part of developing this technology and I am honored to have great partners like Disney and Pescanova. I would not want to be sitting behind some desk somewhere criticizing people who are willing to “dig deep” to cross into new territory.

As far as I can remember, there aren’t a lot of points of land or holidays named after people who sat at home and criticized Christopher Columbus.

Paul Cayard

Pirates of the Caribbean

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Pirates of the Caribbean Finish Leg 2 of the Volvo Ocean Race 2005-2006

Pirates receive warm welcome upon arrival in Melbourne

23 January 2006 (Melbourne, Australia)

Paul Cayard and his Pirates of the Caribbean team crossed the finishing line off Williamstown, Melbourne at 2325 hrs (local time) to a warm reception from the awaiting flotilla.

The team has overcome much adversity on Leg 2 of the Volvo Ocean Race to finish a very credible fourth place, picking up 8.5 points from the leg in total, receiving 4.5 points from the two scoring gates and 4 points for their overall finish position. The Pirates of the Caribbean have now moved up the overall scoreboard from seventh to fourth (tied with Brasil 1), just two points behind third placed movistar.

Alan Finney, Managing Director/Vice President, Buena Vista International (Australia), stated: “This has been an incredibly courageous undertaking for all involved in the Volvo Ocean Race and the BVI Australia team are all proud of Paul and the crew and are looking forward to celebrating their Melbourne stopover.”

The Pirates have gelled as a team as they worked tirelessly to overcome problems during Leg 2 from Cape Town to Melbourne including; a broken radar bracket on the first night and the boom vang breaking, both of which the crew repaired at sea; an electrical fire; contaminated drinking water and finally the keel ram snapping and forcing The Black Pearl to stop in Albany for emergency repairs. The biggest concern for the crew was the structural damage incurred to the keel area which forced the team to slow down for 48 hours while an assessment was made.

Paul Cayard, Skipper of The Black Pearl, said “We are very happy to be here. It was a challenging leg but a lot of good has come out of it for The Black Pearl. We have finally raced a leg and that has given us a chance to calibrate our systems, Jules and my working relationship on weather routing and strategy, our watch systems, and our sail changing techniques. We have a good grip on our boat’s performance in all conditions and when to use which sail combinations. These things all take time on the water and we have just put in our first three week stint in this VOR 70 Class. Now that we are ashore, our first order of business is to diagnose the damage to our keel structure and assess the repairs that need to be made. We have just 12 days to prepare the boat for the inport race on February 4th . This event is like a relay race. Different departments of the team run different legs of the race. Each part of the team can’t start until the one before it finishes.”

Added the reflective Justin “Juggy” Clougher (AUS), Bowman, “There is an enormous amount of satisfaction in finishing the leg. This has been a milestone for the project on many levels, human, technical and analytical. We missed an enormous amount of data collection on the first leg, and have compressed all that and more into this leg. Coping with technical difficulty has been a drag, however, looking though this we are very happy with what we have achieved. The boat has shown her potential, we have had to rationalize the boat’s performance and our expectations of it and ourselves and the team now has a “play book”. Building on what we have learned is the logical step. If it doesn’t kill you, it makes you stronger…. No pain, No gain….No guts, No glory…. Go hard or Go home!!”

High points will always include any sort of Southern Ocean “ripping” in all shapes and forms. This is the most exhilarating monohull yachting you can do, on world record paces. Charging through the Southern latitudes with nobody else around is a thrill. Sailing home is always a high point. The coming together of the team unit will be a payout that lasts the whole race. Losing my Michelin spare is a definite plus!! Competing in offshore yachting is great, what better way to make a living than doing what you like to do? Low points? Never look for them, can’t dwell on them, you’re asking the wrong person…… but having to watch Dirk deRidder eat is NOT pretty!! Can’t wait to get back 100% strength and get amongst it, where a pirate belongs!!”

Jules Salter (GBR), Navigator, commented: “The first few days of Leg 2 provided a range of conditions in which we could test The Black Pearl’s pace against the other yachts for the first time in this race. We learnt a lot about our sail crossovers, angles and set up with reference to ABN 1 and 2. Our speed in moderate running and upwind conditions was fine, we also got a good insight into some lighter air reaching set ups. We had a good 24-hour run of 541 nautical miles which was cut a little short by a piece of gear failure. The ABN ‘muscle’ boats are certainly faster power reaching in a large sea but we saw enough areas where our performance can at least be equal to encourage us for the rest of the race.”

The Melbourne stopover won’t be all about repairs for the Pirates of the Caribbean. On February 6th, Paul Cayard and the team, together with Official Partner Pescanova, will share their adventures and tales of racing around the globe with more than 500 Melbourne school children. These unique events, are becoming a hallmark of the team’s stop in every port, with plans already underway for the Pescanova event in Rio in late March.

According to Donald Evans, Vice-president, Marketing and Promotions, Buena Vista International the international film distribution arm of The Walt Disney Studios, “We entered into this race with high expectations, and that has not changed. We are very aware of the challenges and are confident that we will continue well in this race. The Volvo Ocean Race 2005-06 continues to be a unique way to promote our upcoming film, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest. We’ve got one of the world’s best skippers and crew, events in each port that benefit youngsters, and lots of excitement around it all. We are looking forward to the next six months.”

Pirates of the Caribbean Crew List, Leg 2

Paul Cayard (USA)

Jules Salter (UK)

Justin ‘Juggy’ Clougher (Aus)

Curtis Blewitt (Canada)

Justin Ferris (NZ)

Rodney Arden (NZ)

Craig Satterthwaite (NZ)

Erle Williams (NZ)

Dirk de Ridder (Netherlands)

Anthony ‘Youngster’ Merrington (AUS)

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Seems Like this Leg has Taken Forever

Position: 39,22.95S , 140,45.40E

Speed: 9 knots, Course: 24 deg.

230 miles to go…seems like this leg has taken forever. We have nice sailing tonight, 12 knots of wind from the southwest so we are running toward Melbourne. The seas are smooth and fully in line with the wind so these are good conditions for our keel. We are making about 10 knots toward the mark.

Last night was an awful night as you could probably tell from my short email early this morning. The wind playing havoc with us and the seas were quite nasty which created a lot of stress on all of us as we could feel the “slop”

in our keel bearings on each slam. Add to that a very strong thunder and lightening storm with constant rain and you have “less than ideal conditions”.

It was a good test of our team. We are all physically and mentally tired. We could have easily gotten on each other then, but we all just realized what it was, a blip on the radar of this very long race, and took some deep breaths. Very testing conditions!

Looking back on the leg, it is hard not to remember all the hurdles; the broken radar bracket on the first night, the broken boom vang (both of those got repaired by the crew a sea), the electrical fire due to a short in the keel controls on the port steering pedestal, the keel structure that had us quite concerned and forced us to slow down for 48 hours mid way across the Indian Ocean, the compromised port fresh water tank, the titanium keel ram itself snapping and forcing us into Albany for a quick centerline lock job, and the leaks which have kept our pumps busy and buckets full for the past two weeks. Our bilge is the cleanest bilge ever seen on a boat. When the water comes out from below, it is crystal.

However, there has been a lot of good on this leg for the Black Pearl. We have finally raced a leg and that has given us a chance to calibrate our systems, Jules and my working relationship on weather routing and strategy, our watch systems, and our sail changing techniques. We have a god grip on our boats performance in all conditions and when to use which sail combinations. These things all take time on the water and we have just put in our first three week stint in this VOR 70 class. We also learned a lot about things that seem trivial but are still important to have completely sorted out such as; how much diesel we burn each day, how much food we consume each day.

Also, I should point out the components that are holding up to the beating that these boats dish out; the mast by Hall spars is solid as a rock, the sails by North – haven’t torn anything yet, the Spectra fresh water maker – which as you can imagine is vital, our cordage by Maffioli has held up perfectly – no chaffing or broken sheets, even the computers – “Toughbooks” by Panasonic have held up perfectly and our food by Real Expedition has stood the test of three weeks and we still look forward to eating. As much as all teams will be harping on what doesn’t work or failed, I think it is worth mentioning those items that have stood his test. I think these boats dish out more punishment than anyone or any computer program predicted and that is why a lot of things are failing.

On the performance side, sure, the ABN boats are very quick. No one can deny that in any kind of power reaching condition, they are the fastest boats out here. And legs 2 and 4 should be perfect for them. However, trying to look a the positive, we were 30 miles behind ABN1 on day 6 when 30 miles made the difference between staying back with ABN2 and Movistar and riding the front and putting 300 miles on the fleet. Then while racing ABN2 and Movistar, we initially gained on them in moderate conditions until we all went through the transition which seemed to punish us extra hard. There is still lot of race left and especially from Rio on where there will be a good mix of conditions. Now is not the time to make hasty judgments, at least not for me and my team.

Now is the time to get the boat repaired and reliable for another very tough leg. Now is the time to get our minds and bodies recharged. Now is the time for all Pirates, whatever their role, to dig in and bring their best game to the table, leg after leg, stopover after stopover, in-port race after in-port race, hurdle after hurdle. That’s what it is going to take for us to win this race. We may not be doing it the easy way, but we have to play with the cards we are holding. We all know the Round the World Race is a long and hard race, and we are not even half way done. This is a 12 round, heavy-weight championship fight.

Standby for round 3.

PC

Pirates of the Caribbean

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50 miles to Melbourne

0730 UTC – 50 miles to Melbourne

We are sailing down the coast to the southwest of Port Phillip Bay in 30 knots of wind. We are taking it easy as there is plenty of breeze for a boat without the ability to cant its keel and not much to gain. The sea is very short and steep here and the Port Phillip entrance is known to be very difficult, even closed out, at times. We have two reefs and the Blast Reacher up and we are doing 20 knots.

Last night was another testy night. The wind died and we ended up slating for three hours, then beating upwind in 3 knots for a few more hours. We basically were not getting anywhere and none of that was on any forecast. That set us back yet another 6 hours on what seems to us to be a delayed arrival. The wind filled nicely this morning and we have been making good progress since.

Anthony Merrington did a great job of managing our meals on the trip. Starting with the third night out when we were heading southwest to get round the high pressure ridge, Anthony realized that he needed to start stashing some food. Thanks to him, we are eating our last meal tonight.

I expect the finish tonight will be anticlimactic, 4th place isn’t a place one usually gets overly jubilant about. Having said that, I am not forgetting how we felt about our prospects of completing the leg 10 days ago or the fate of Ericsson or Brasil1 who would be very happy to be in our shoes. Also, it will be nice for us all to be reunited with our team mates and family members and share a few stories over maybe a beer or two. It will be midnight local time when we get to the dock so I don’t envision any kind a big night out on the town.

Kimo Worthington, Curt Oetking, Mike Danks, Mark Reihana have the troopes ready for our arrival. I am sure thy will take good care of us, take the boat off our hands, and be ready to play their part over the next few weeks. We will be racing to Wellington in less than three weeks.

I am looking forward to seeing Melbourne, it is one place I have never been.

I hope that we have done a good job of bringing you the action and the adventure from leg 2 and that you are enjoying the journey with us. I will give you an update on our progress in a week’s time.

Signing off for now.

Paul Cayard

Skipper of the Black Pearl

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Looks like a long way to Melbourne still for us

It has been a tough night out here on the Great Australian Bight. Thunder, lightening and constant rain have been on the menu. Complete volatility of

the wind has made planning a route difficult at best. The big issue is that our keel is getting worse. The keel is wobbling in its bearings and more

water is coming in. There is a left over swell from the northeast which is directly where we need to go. Our course on port tack is straight into this

seaway. This creates a violent slamming so for most of the night we simply couldn’t sail on port tack.

So we have been sailing slowly and on the wrong gybe for most of the night just trying to minimize the amount the keel jerks around in its loose

structure. Now the sea is smoothing out a bit so we are on port tack trying to get to the north.

I have been up for 12hours straight so I am going to lie down for a few minutes.

Looks like a long way to Melbourne still for us.

Paul Cayard

Pirates of the Caribbean

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Right-e-o lets get on with it!

There are many aspects to this race. It’s a high level grand prix and associated with that,goes the stress and demand of competition. Due to the length and physical demands of the event, and each leg within it, human personalities cycle up and down , randomly and often. Being able to keep a grip on these cycles is a helpful thing, over the many months mingled with multicultural crews and destinations….smooth out the peaks and fill in the valleys!!

Emotive adjustments come in many shades and reasons,and defy logic sometimes.

You are out here busting your chops, absolutely smoking along, everything hunky dory, and the boat alight, nobody could be sailing better, you’re in a solid groove and the numbers are sensational, yet, the sched comes through and you lost 10 miles to boat X and 12 miles to boat Y . How the hell could that be? How could they be going THAT much better……VALLEY downer. Conversely, you are tripping over everything, having a shocka in shift management, and just hopelessly missing sail selection, you’ve torn sails, broken the pole, filled your boots with water, and everthing is a mess, YET you manage to put 2 miles on the whole fleet… Blimey, what are THEY doing??…COOL, lift.

The build up and start of this race is a huge pump session, everybody believes they are looking good to win, all are fired up. What happens next is somebody sets the pace, and all the others have to knuckle down, gather strength and focus to get past the leader. In THIS event, you have to maintain this focus and belief for 9 mths.Its a long time. The leader has to bear the stress of being in front with an enormous amount to lose for this time, which is stresssssss-ful.

Normal sport lasts an hour or 2, maybe a day or 2. In this race each match is many weeks, where you sometimes have to suck up pride and pain for extended periods far longer than a normal sport.

On the Black Pearl we are already coping with larger than normal moral testing issues this early in the race, which have required large amounts of physical and mental attention.Add to this lives can be at stake, even your own,as you put it blindly in someone elses hands, and they in turn accept this responsibiliity.

Across the fleet we can see a few of our brothers are doing the same. All sorts of technical and human challenges have appeared and we feel their pain.

Its testing stuff and by no means easy sometimes, to keep applying pressure to one-self, to keep driving pressure toward the leader. However, there are glorious moments too, which are hugely rewarding. Big days on the race course, doing BIG miles are very stimulating, exciting, and a physical blowout. Confidence booster in the boat and crew. Slow days on the race course are frustrating beyond belief, no matter how much you gain. Sailing in circles drives you nuts. Different people get out of their bunks different ways each day and for each watch.

The common goal to make the boat go fast is the link in the chemistry. Cold weather, blinding spray, soggy clothes, mundane food and lack of sleep are a few of the things which conspire to make it tough duty. Exciting sailing, challenging competition,special wildlife,spectacular scenery,and fabulous sunsets make it worthwhile.

Smooth out the peaks. Enjoy the high moments and consolidate them but don’t spin out on elation. Fill in the valleys. Accept the hardships, but don’t crash in despair, make rational plans to improve. Get the eye of the tiger back, dig in hard.

Getting close to the finish induces a happy high on board, but we are also faced with a busy stop to get the boat back online 100% for the next tough leg, and make sure she is ready to take on the battle. Every day and mile has been an important calibration and learning for us, which we intend to put to good use. We look forward to it. Some of the boats might squeak in ahead of us this leg, well I just hope they leave a coupla pies in the oven and a coupla coldies in the eski. That will make this pirate happy.

Under 1000 to the finish, but the wind just crapped completely out after a good day of reaching in 15-20. Another test…??!! Right-e-o lets get on with it!

Jug

Bow

The Black Pearl

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350 Miles Southeast of Eclipse Island

Position: 37,28.13S , 120,47.42E

Speed: 14 knots, Course: 124 deg.

The black Pearl is now about 350 miles southeast of Eclipse Island. We have nice 15 knot wind from the southwest, a beautiful moonlit night, and a great forecast for the next three days. This should allow us to make good progress toward Melbourne at minimum stress to the boat and keel. Our current ETA is 1200 UTC Sunday the 22nd.

The repair we made yesterday was to simply lock the keel on the centerline of the yacht. I did not want to wait for our spare hydraulic rams to be flown to Albany and the associated minor modifications that would have been necessary. We would not have been able to leave Albany until Friday if l went well. In the big picture, we need to get the boat to Melbourne where our infrastructure is all set up, hull the boat out, get the keel off and repair the structural damage that we have. The structural damage is the big one in my mind. We don’t know how extensive it is until we get her all opened up. The fact that this keel ram broke is just another detail that we can’t let distract us from the big picture.

Having said that, getting keel rams that we have confidence in, is another issue we are sorting out. Ericsson experienced the same breakdown as we did and they have been working on a solution for 10 days now. Our team is in contact with Ericsson and the manufacturer to find a solution. The rams we have been using are custom designed and built out of titanium. We own a spare set of stock standard, “off the shelf” rams that we could out in. We are investigating if they will provide more reliability. They come at a weight penalty but that is minor compared to not having the keel swing at all.

Today Brasil lost their rig. I feel for Torben and his team. This is a devastating blow to a team that has added so much to the event in the way of a country entering the event for the first time and doing so very competitively. It will now be a long, slow, sail to Australia for a team that already had a bad break on this leg. The information we have on he incident, said that the shroud turnbuckle broke in half. This is a worry as we have he same supplier for our turnbuckles and I believe most of the fleet does too. So this is another important issue to get to the bottom of quickly and make the necessary adjustments before leg 3 starts on February 12th.

We spent lot of the day today plugging leaks. We were taking on a fair amount of water through our keel pins which have gotten loose due to the structural damage we have. Somme how, locking the keel on centerline seems to have exacerbated the situation so there was quite a large volume of water leaking in. Erle Williams made a repair to the front and back keel pin bearings and I was his able assistant cutting 5 mm carbon plate into various sizAes and shapes. I think we need to mount a vice on the boat. Cutting carbon late while standing on it using the raft at a work bench just isn’t the way to get proper boat building done.

Our schedule in Melbourne will be tight, as will that of every team. Our work list is long and some of these items are not 5 minute jobs. We have beefed up our shore team with more people as extensive boat building, and rebuilding, seems to be a feature of this race. We are planning on giving the crew some time to rest as well so it will be scramble to be ready to race the in-port race on the 4th.

Pirates’ partner, Pescanova, is organizing another great event here in Australia for children from the Melbourne area on February 6th. The events in Vigo and Cape Town have been great and I think Melbourne will be even better as the dedicated team is building on the experience of the previous events. Later on the 6th we will also be taking Disney Australia out for a ride on the Black Pearl so they can get a sense of what it is like to sail onboard a VOR 70.

This leg seems very long. When I think back to the first night when we broke the radar bracket off the mast, and the repair of it the next day, it seems like it was a year ago. I think it is that we have had so many things happen in the two weeks. As you can imagine, we are looking forward to getting to Melbourne.

PC

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The Repairs Have Been Completed

Position: 35,1.90S , 117,53.16E

Speed: 0 knots, Course: 152 deg.

The repairs to the Black Pearl have been completed and she will leave the dock in Albany within the hour. It will then take her 1 more hour to reach the point at which she suspended racing yesterday. From that point in time, she will be racing toward Melbourne.

Today has been a very busy day in Albany fabricating and fitting new parts.

The Pirates would like to give a special thanks to Paul Terry, Ray Woonings of Wallace Engineering and his entire team, and Eleanor Hay of Movistar who helped us get sorted out with accommodation when we arrived late last night.

The trip to Melbourne should take about 5 days.

Paul

Pirates of the Caribbean

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Best Regards to the world from the Black Pearl

HEADLINE NEWS

The Black Pearl had a wildlife rendezvous this afternoon with a well known predator of the sea, as a shark got caght on their rudder, whilst ‘smoking’ along nicely at 20-25kts.

Helmsman Craig Satterthwaite reported “I felt a sharp thump on the rudder and then vibration through the steering, so I alerted the crew ”

Rapid Action Teams (RATS) quickly searched and investigated all areas of the vessel and according to Team Chief Ardern soon found the sit-chee-ation on the rudder.

This meant the that the RATS took command of the boat and undertook a carefully planned manouvre which involved dropping the headsail jib thingy and doing a partial backdown of the boat.

The 4-5ft shark was freed from his trap relatively quickly and we are optmistic that he made it back into prowl around the briney.

The RATS on Black Pearl have been in a heightened state of alert due to other issues, so this was an excellent run to showcase their effectiveness.

MEDICAL COLUMN

Some passive research being conducted during the leg has revealed some possible results aboard the Black Pearl.

Crewman DeRidder attended the infirmary with a possible lump development on his abdomen, which, upon preliminary testing has been isolated down to 2 possible things. It is hoped that the lump could be, in fact, an AB MUSCLE, which would be a remarkable feat to achieve for DeRidder, who has lived a polluted self indulgent life of consumption. Medical authorities aboard are highly optimistic that this development can be enhanced with some additional treatment of mainsheet grinder work and some sail lugging.

The other possibility that remains in the test is the remote possibility that this is a RIB showing through, which DeRidder has never seen before either!!

Either way, this is a very exciting find for world medicine, and we look forward to bringing some more revelations from this exceptional case of the human physiology

Dental Dept has had Bow-Jig Justin Clougher in for examination again, as he has cracked a second tooth this leg, this time on the top row.

Juggy is no stranger to this Dept, as he has a history of belting his melon (head) into things and breaking his ivorys.

Losing teeth has done absolutely NOTHING to diminish this blokes quest for sourcing or inventing and devouring anything edible on board, particularly the sweet stuff!

TECHNICAL PAGE

Huge win in this area with the technical team comprising of 9 CHIEFS and NO INDIANS (navigator Salter maintained Stiff Upper Lip and respectfully and wisely declined to participate) managed to repair the mangled and mutilated vang lug and reinstall the vang today, with no dramas. The were no injuries, and all personal prides remain intact, we all had a group hug and cheered as Director Satterthwaite slammed the top pin home and split the split pin.

Bilging the boat continues at a consant rate as the keel issues persist.

ENTERTAINMENT

Tonights feature will be a re-run of the popular classic “Erles adventues on Flyer” ……Woo-Hoo

Best regards to the world from the lost souls on the Black Pearl

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