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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Onboard The Black Pearl, 43S x 102E

Seahorse January 2006

We are close to completing our first leg of this Volvo Ocean Race. It hasn’t been without incident. We have broken the vang off the mast, hit an object in the water which damaged our rudder, and incurred some damage to our keel support structure. At this point, some 4000 miles into the leg, we are doing something between racing and delivering the boat to Melbourne.

The first thing to mention, appropriately at this time, is that it is very difficult to type onboard these new Volvo 70’s. The motion is so violent that typing on a key board is a two step forward one step back exercise. The mouse? Good luck!!

The most important ramification of this violence is the loading on the keel structure. So far three boats have had some type of keel failure. Currently we are experiencing some delamination of taping which holds our aft keel bulkhead to the boat. I think we will be ok and make it to Melbourne, but we have had to throttle back a bit in order to get some comfort in that conclusion.

Ericsson had a keel ram fork fail and is doing the leg to Melbourne by ship. Movistar had a failure of the keel ram structure on leg on and had to be shipped to Cape Town and we also, had a part of the keel fairing system fail on Leg 1and ended up flying the boat to Cape Town thanks to our partner, Pescanova.

So the question is; are these just teething problems of a new class or are they symptoms of a flawed concept. I will not answer the question but I will give you a few facts that will help you come to your own conclusion.

1. This is the first generation of this class and the boat the sailed the longest, ABN2, was launched 9 months prior to the start and about half of her time was spent in boat yards making repairs to her keel system. In previous Volvo Ocean Races, the competitors have had the benefit of older generation boats to go to school on before preparing their new race boats.

2. The Volvo 70 rule allows the longitudinal axis of rotation of the keel to be 150 mm up from the bottom of the hulls’ surface. This gains righting moment but adds complications to fairing and sealing that area. It creates something known as the “fish tank” which is a waterproof box in which the keel head meets the rams and below are the keel pins or axis of the keel for canting.

3. The Volvo 70′ have about 18 inches of total rocker of their length.

4. The Volvo 70’s are very flat in section as they only displace 14 tons.

When I decided to become involved with Pirates of the Caribbeaan as the skipper, I did think about canting keels and consider that it was fairly new technology. However, the Open 60’s have been using carting keels for more than 10 years and now there are new, large, boats like Morning Glory and Pyewacket which have successfully used carting keel technology. However, with ten crew, in large open ocean waves, I suppose it is possible we are pushing these boats harder than the their systems get pushed.

That brings up another subject which is, should we sail these things at a certain percentage of their capacity? The answer is yes, we have to. In fact, we throttled back onboard the Black Pearl during the first night of sailing on leg 2 and survived the night which as very rough, and Brasil and Ericsson did not.

I don’t know what is going on in all the internet forums as I have no access to that at this time but I imagine there is plenty of discussion about this issue.

On the official side, Volvo is organizing a meeting of team and designers in Melbourne to discuss these issues and how best to resolve them for the future. It is good that Volvo are taking a proactive leadership role in this.

Apart from the problems, the boats are a lot of fun to sail, very fast, and a good challenge for a 10 man crew. I am finding that I love it out here more than I remembered from 1997. I like it when Curtis or Juggy need a hand on the bow or he we have to stack the sails. I enjoy battling as a team and out here there are plenty of battles to fight. That is what I like about this race, the diversity of the roles..everyone does everything. The whole weather analysis and routing game is very interesting to me and now I feel fully up to speed with all the software we use for that. Missing out on leg 1 was a big setback for the Pirates, not only for the points but for the calibration of the team and our systems. We are getting sorted that front now.

I am damp pretty much the whole time but that hasn’t taken the enjoyment out of it for me yet.

Charging ahead toward Melbourne at 23.5 knots average at this hour! 1900 miles to go.

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380 miles from Australia, and Racing Again

Position: 40,24.5S , 113,11.98E

Speed: 10 knots, Course: 347 deg.

We are presently 380 miles from the southwestern tip of Australia. It seems a trivial feat now that the winds are light and we have gained more confidence in our situation but 72 hours ago we were in a “preservation of the yacht” mode and now we are racing again.

The whole fleet has compressed as the leaders entered a high pressure bubble first and you may have seen on the 10:00 position report that ABN2 had taken

the lead. I think this will be short lived because ABN 1 had invested in the north and west and should have a bit more pressure and a better angle as we exit the high pressure bubble.

Still, the fleet will be much more compact as we round Eclipse Island tomorrow and head east for the 1300 mile leg to Melbourne. The initial wind should be about 20 knots from the East so we will be going upwind and it will be fairly bumpy. We will have to judge the conditions carefully to make sure we don’t cause further damage that could keep us from getting to Melbourne.

Today’s conditions-light winds and sunshine- were perfect for a big maintenance day onboard. Craig and Curtis glued the boom-vang bracket back electronics, we dried out the entire boat, put away some of the cold weather clothes, etc. Just like at home, you have to clean up your house every once in a while.

Today was chocolate bar day, a day that comes around only one in every 5 days. Usually this puts everyone in a good mood and it did today for all but one person..Erle Williams. Someone stole Erle’s chocolate bar. So we formed a grand jury to investigate the matter. The panel interviewed witnesses and suspects. In the end the conclusion of the jury was that there was insufficient evidence to convict any of the Pirates of stealing and that the more likely truth was that the person who packed the chocolate bars only packed 9. The identity of that person was not immediately

available.

Humor is an important part of any society. We are getting along well and this is after all our first leg of racing together. It is a long way around the world in the best of circumstances so it is important to have a cohesive unit onboard.

Night is approaching now and it will be light wind evening which sounds nice but in fat is fairly difficult as you don’t have enough pressure and speed to give the boat of lot of directional stability so helming the boat requires a lot of concentration.

I hope all the shore teams have a nice weekend this weekend as once the boats hit Melbourne I think there will be serious work going on in all

camps.

Paul Cayard

Pirates of the Caribbean

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Saturday the 14th and the Keel “Made It”

Well, it is Saturday the 14th where we are and the crew are all talking about how the keel “made it”. Some of my guys are pretty concerned. I am

starting to be more comfortable with the advice that we are receiving from our designers that our damage does not affect the critical elements of the

keel structure.

We are up to about 90% of full speed. We should compress into the lead three boats starting tomorrow as they reach lighter winds. The out look for

after we round eclipse Island is for east winds around 20 knots so he course will be up wind. We will have to see how comfortable we are in those

conditions when we get there.

It is starting to smell like a kennel onboard. There is no time when you can go on deck and not get wet pretty much to the skin so there are a lot of

wet clothes and socks laying around that are starting to smell pretty bad.

Our Real Expedition freeze dried food is still pleasing everyone so that is a good sign. Usually everyone gets pretty fed up with the food whatever it

is after two weeks. We are losing weight through, at least I am. All thoserolls that I had justified as necessary stores for three weeks at sea are

finally shedding themselves.

That is all for now.

PC

POTC

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Crew Noticed Cracks in the Keel Support Area

Last evening at 1845 the crew of the Black Pearl noticed cracks in the area of it keel support structure. Water was coming into the boat from those cracks and still is. The rate of water flow is manageable at this time.

Sail was immediately reduced. Photos and video of the cracks were recorded and sent to the designer of the boat.

Several hours were spent discussing this issue with the designers of the boat. A certain level of comfort was achieved and we proceeded, with reduced sail, east at 12 knots through the night.

This morning we have reviewed the drawings of how this area was designed. It is not clear to us if this is structural damage or superficial. The fact that water is coming into the boat is not reassuring. We have a made a new video and photos in the daylight, and sent them off to the designers.

We have run tests with 0, 20 and 40 degrees of cant while inspecting the area. 40 degrees is definitely alarming. The cracks open and close as the loads change and the water flow is more and less accordingly. 20 degrees seems tolerable.

It is not clear to us, and probably will never be clear to us or anyone, how serious this damage is until we reach land. We simply can’t properly inspect the area out here.

On the weather side, the best winds to help us make the progress toward Australia are during the next 30 hours. We currently have winds from the northwest. Eventually, we will fall “off the back” of this system and be hit with less favorable winds from southeast. There is danger in being out here for long time.

Therefore, considering all of the above, I have decided to run the boat up to 80% of full speed at this time, with a maximum of 20 degree of cant, to make as much progress as reasonably possible in these conditions.

Naturally we are taking all precautions necessary for any eventuality.

In general, all is well and stable onboard the Black Pearl.

Paul Cayard – skipper

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Another 12 Hours On

2300 UTC

Another 12 hours on, we have had another round of phone calls and information exchange with the designers of our boat. We have damage to

secondary support structure in the area of the keel. That means that the main structure is integral but the bits that bond it to the boat have been

compromised, probably only slightly.

I hope and assume that assessment is correct. Again, we won’t really know until we get the boat hauled out.

My goals now are to get the boat and crew to the dock in Melbourne safely and without incurring any more damage, especially serious damage that could

keep us out of the net leg.

Next goal is to do as well as we can in this leg. The reality is that the two ABN’s are going quite well and with another two days of power reaching

they will be further ahead. So what is at play here is third place. It doesn’t make sense to me to break the boat for one place.

So, we will continue to sail at about 85% of full speed. This seems to be a speed that does not cause the severely violent landings and slamming that have caused what damage we do have.

We have maintained the watch system as usual and are doing regular maintenance of the boat. We have also affected some repairs in the area of

the damage, mainly to slow the water ingress.

All is well onboard. The crew are upbeat.

Paul Cayard

Pirates of the Caribbean

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Long Hard Day Pushing

Position: 41,22.44S , 75,3.69E

Speed: 25 knots, Course: 105 deg.

Sorry for not writing a report yesterday. It was a long hard day pushing to get every ounce of speed out of the boat heading for the scorings gate. I started to write my report last night and then there was a very loud bang. I jumped up out of the nav station fearing the worst – the keel. But word came back from on deck that it was the boom vang. It’s attachment at the mast had ripped off. The boom vang is used to apply down pressure on the boom when reaching. So we have jury rigged up something which is ok but not 100%. The guys are working on a plan to make a better solution when the wind drops a bit.

We have been flat out flying since the black hole ate us up a few nights ago and ABNAMRO TWO sailed right around us, literally in sight of us, while we slatted with no wind. Up until that point, the race was going well and we were enjoying it. Then all of a sudden all our hard work over the previous 4 days, and the associated gains, were thrown out the window. A little frustrating to say the least. Then the wind filled from behind which almost let Movistar pass us at the scoring waypoint. We had a sweet little sail set for the last 150 miles into the scoring gate and that popped us out in front for a third at that point.

On the run just before the scoring gate, we had the longest run, 140 miles in six hours, that is 560 miles/day pace. The boat is slamming downwind very violently. No one can sleep when it is this rough. As you go from 25 to 30 knots of boat speed, the keel hums to a higher and higher pitch. Then you feel the boat un-weigh itself, you go a bit weightless like in an airplane sometimes and you just cringe in your bunk as you know the bottom of the wave is coming. Sometimes it is just a big snowplow and rapid deceleration which makes you hold onto your bunk so you don’t slide forward on top of the guy in front of you. Those are the ones which create 2 feet of whitewater rolling down the deck. Other times we find the bottom by doing a violent belly flop which shutters and send vibrations throughout the boat. I am sure the other boats are doing the same because they are going as fast as we are. It is not hard to spend time wondering how long these boats can take this type of punishment. Typing and using the cursor is very hard. A lot of spell check and re-typing is needed. Kind of a two steps forward – one back exercise.

This leg is scored in three places, 70East, Eclipse Island, and the finish. The first two together are of the same value as the finish in Melbourne. ABN AMRO ONE after taking off in their own breeze a few nights ago and leaving us to deal with a decaying cold front for two days, had to pay back a bit of her lead last night to get in front of the three of us as we have been ripping along on the front side of this new low pressure system.

A few nights ago we hit something in the water. It put a gouge in our rudder about 1.5 meters down from the hull. Structurally it is fine just got a small bite taken out.

Today was a big day for me, I went for THE change. Today was THE day on this trip when I would put on my ONE change of thermal underwear or “base layer”. I took a shower by using baby wipes and then put on the crispy new clothes. Makes you feel like a new person!

Then one hour later, after reviewing the latest weather and position report with Jules, I decided we needed a bigger sail up so I went up on deck and went on the bow to help Juggy Clougher make the change. So much for the new clothes – soaked.

That is what I like about this race, struggling together to achieve something like a sail change in very adverse conditions – 30 knots of wind, cold water, 2 feet of water coming down the deck. It is such a struggle just to get the sail up to the bow, undoing the stack, pulling off the heavy sails that are on top of the one you want, pulling the one you want out of the stack of wet heavy sails, then putting the stack back in order and cinching it down so that the waves which are rolling down the deck don’t wash your inventory overboard, then dragging the new sail up to the bow and tying it forward so it doesn’t wash aft. Then you begin the process of hanking the sail on and actually changing. Then you take down the one that is up. In the end it is like doing to a hard aerobic work out of an hour. That is what is special and different about this race. I never go on the bow in the America’s Cup and Juggy Clougher never gets to steer in the America’s Cup.

Then after that, Curtis Blewett and I wrestled with a heavy stack of wet sails to reset them as they tend to slide inboard with waves hitting them at 30 knots regularly. Then I drove the boat for 1.5 hours. Pretty fun sailing at 30 knots and surfing the big open ocean waves. We shot some video footage this morning of the happenings on deck…truly wild sailing, much more so that on the 60’s in the past.

All these things that we do out here are thing of great memories that I will all enjoy for the rest of my life. That is why I am doing it again. I am enjoying reliving the experiences of 1997-1998 rather than just talking about them. They will always be there for me but now I am making some more.

This time it has all been pretty mild as we are so far north that the water temp has always been in the high teens. The crew are well, the boat is basically in good shape. This weather system will take us a long way to Eclipse Island at high speeds although we have seen the maximum winds which peaked at 36 knots.

Wow. If you are still reading this I am impressed. I guess I made up for missing one yesterday.

Paul Cayard

Pirates of the Caribbean

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