We are about 100 miles west of Cape Town, heading east. We will get back to the dock sometime early this afternoon. It has been good to get out here on the sea for a couple of days and run the boat and all its systems. Everything is working well.

The first day we had the strongest winds, up to 26 knots and we got the boat going 27 knots. While well short of the speeds we were going that first night on leg 1, everything seemed solid. We had a good look at our reaching headsails and spinnakers and recorded some performance information on each that helps us complete our sail cross over chart. The sail cross over chart is a jig saw puzzle looking thing that maps out an area that each sail covers on the wind speed/wind angle matrix.

Next, we slammed our way upwind all night, tacking a few ties and restacking the boat each time to simulate real race conditions for the loads and for our on training. “Stacking” is a chore where we take everything that is on deck and below and move it from one side to the other with the goal of getting the weight as far outboard as possible to add to the stability of the boat. This requires all 10 of us working hard for about 10 minutes to lift 100 kg sails, 25 kg food bags, spares, et. and shift them to the other side. Naturally the boat isn’t sitting there idly but rather inclined 25 degrees and jarring all over the place. Quite a workout!

Yesterday we practiced some in line (without tacking) headsail changes. We have gone to Hanks for attaching the headsails to the headstay rather than the twin foil device for safety in the high wind speed conditions. This takes changes a bit slower as you have to hank on the new sail and un hank the old one. The advantage of this system is that it is safer; you have less chance of loosing a man or sail overboard. The down side is that you sail without a headsail for a the period of time that it takes to make the change. So we worked on some technique to minimize the time required. Next we worked on our snuffer. The “snuffer” is a neat little gadget that allows us to lower a spinnaker and pack it into a “sock at the same time. A bit hard to explain but imagine a large ring at the top of the spinnaker that has a long tube of sail cloth attached to it. This ring and tube just sit at the top of the spinnaker while you use the sail, then when you want to get rid of the sail, you pull the ring down toward the deck with ropes and as the ring slide down gathering the sail inside of it, the “sock” is sliding over the now gathered sail. This makes for a long slender tube or “sock” which has the sail in it. Then we lower the sail to the deck and put that now packed sail into its bag. For short-handed sailing, this is a great tool as it allows for much quicker redeployment of the sail. If you simply drop the sail into the boat like you would on a day racer with plenty of hands available, it would take us a good 30 minutes of hard work for three people to pack the sail and have it ready to re-deploy. This particularly helpful in squalls as you often have to get the spinnaker off for the max gust but shortly there after you need it again. As you can imagine, there is a bit of technique to getting this gadget to work correctly and reliably in all wind strengths and this is something we are still working on perfecting. So we put a few hours in on that. We covered about 600 miles on our little trip off South Africa. Apart from the training that we need to do, we feel more confident in the boat now and the repairs that have been made. The Pearl feels solid and ready to go.

Tomorrow we will be part of the event that our partner Pescanova has organized for 1000 local school children. It will be a four hour program with all sorts of activities for the kids and of course a visit by a Pirate ship and real Pirates. We will have the honour of receiving a blessing from the Archbishop Desmond TuTu as part of the program. It should be a great day in Cape Town for all of us.

END PC

Pirates of the Caribbean

We have had a very good last couple of days here in Cape Town and The Black Pearl is all back together. As per the plan she went in the water today and the team is set to go sailing tomorrow.

Paul Cayard

The Black Pearl Skipper

The Black Pearl arrived in Cape Town yesterday, November 27 after an uneventful flight on the Antonov 124. She was then transported to “Pirate City”, in the harbor area, which will be our base of operations for the next four weeks. We again want to thank our partner Pescanova for their generous and useful support to the team by making the flight to Cape Town possible.

The shore team is arriving in Cape Town this week after getting a well deserved week off. Basically they had gone hard since early August without a break. The crew is taking this week off and will arrive in Cape Town December 7th. The goals of this week are for the shore team to install the new wedges and bomber doors for the keel and finish up a few other jobs on the boat. The plan is to be sailing by the 10th and then go offshore on the 12th for a few days of ocean sailing and sea trialing to make sure all is well with the repairs. Leg 2 will be one of the most demanding of the race for both the boat and the crew physically. I don

We have now been in port for 36 hours. I know there are a lot of stories, rumors and thoughts going on around the water cooler so I thought I would give you my perspective to add to your daily conversation. A couple of facts first:

1. This is a race on points not time. This is not the Tour de France. This is more similar to the Formula 1 season where over 16 races, Michael Schumacher may not even finish 3 or 4 of the 16 races and yet still win the World Championship. There are 23 “events” in this race ranging in points value from 3.5 to 7. The maximum number of points available to be won is 112.

2. These new Volvo 70’s are high tech machines. They are going to break down. Breaking down is not new to Round the World Racing. We are all learning about what it takes to keep these things together.

3. We are going to return to the race and I feel that we have a good chance to win this race.

Now, how to move forward.

Option 1: Put a bandaid on the boat, sail for three weeks to Cape Town and collect 1.5 points, or possibly a few more points if others breakdown on this leg, arrive 1 day before the inport race, and basically go into leg 2, one of the most difficult legs of the race, beat and not fully prepared.

Option 2: Ship the boat to Cape Town, do the repairs properly, proactively seek out and improve the structural integrity of the boat in areas that have not yet broken, sea trail the boat offshore for 3 days before leg 2, and enter the inport race and leg 2 properly prepared.

We are going for option 2.

As I said in my email of yesterday, I don’t think the breakdowns will be confined to Moviestar, Sunergy, and Pirates. I am not wishing any ill fate on anyone, it is just the nature of these beasts. In fact, I wrote a note today to all boats of the same design…Moviestar, Brasil and Ericsson, describing to them the damage we suffered and inviting them to call us or our designer for more information if they want. I got a couple of nice reply’s during the day from those teams also offering their assitance.

Now, when you have a challenge you find out what your team is made of. I like what I am seeing. First, our team has set up an operation here in Portugal is short order. Secondly, as tired as every one from the shore team is having given everything they had to get the boat ready for November 12th, they all changed their plans to go home and see their families for a week and rode a bus for 6 hours on Sunday night to arrive here at 0200 Mondfay morning. And finally Disney and Pescanova are coming through like champs. Our parnter, Pescanova, has offered to support the cost of the flying the boat to Cape Town, in fact it was CEO Manolo Fernandez’s suggestion. This will gain us 12 days over a shipping option which will be used to get more work done on our job list. Further we will attach other issue that are concerning us so that we can leave for the southern ocean with as much confidence as possible in the boat. For sure this is a luxury and we are greatful for Pescanovas help. I have been in touch with the Disney executives who sit on our board over the past 36 hours and they are 100% behind us, and more resolute than before. Here is an email from one of our Disney team:

Just want you to know the team here is following the events and supporting you from afar. Wish I could be there to lend a hand and help. If there is anything I can do from Ca. (doubtful I know) don’t hesitate to holler. Kimo I wanted to call you a bunch of times Day one, but felt best leave the phones open and let you guys get the job done. Seems all the boats are having their challenges, ours came early and thankfully close to land and the the shore team. You all know better than anyone it is a long journey to the end and this is nothing more than a minor set back. Remember coming from the rear is only going to make this better Pirate lore.

g

So this is all part of the story. No one tells you how the story is going to unfold when you start. You have to live it in all of its ups and downs….that is the beauty of it and you play your hand as it is delt to you.

Paul Cayard

Pirates of the Caribbean

Kimo Worthington, GM Pirates of the Caribbean.

The communication systems on board are not yet functioning, but I am in contact with Paul via satellite phone continually.

At 5am this morning, there was a strong vibration on the boat that lasted approximately 15 minutes. Erle Williams went off watch to do a boat check and saw lots of water around the keel structure. Upon closer examination he saw that the lid on the fish tank was being pushed up by the water pressure causing the water to come out. At the time, the wind was at 25 to 35 knots and the boat was traveling at 30 knots. Paul came to assess the situation and made the decision to slow the boat down, which took about an hour. After the boat slowed, the leak stopped. The boat is now headed to shore and currently about 106 miles from destination Cascais, Portugal. The storm jib and tri sail are up, wind at 40 to 50 knots. Shore team is on its way to meet the boat in Cascais. All is under control. We will contine to provide updates.