Still Rippin it Up

Still rippin it up. We did 480 miles on the Pearl in the past 24 hours and believe me we are trying not to go too fast. She is capable of leaping small buildings if you are not carefull and the landings are a bit brutal. She is not a balerina, more of a belly flopper. Not going to be a comfortable rid around the world. The 60’s were less violent that this baby. Awesome machine through.

We have had the full fire hose conditions most of today and in side it feels like you are getting dragged down a cobble stone street in a 55 gallon drum. All pretty similar to my other experiences. One difference is the constant speed. We are definitely going to get their quicker. The boat is very easily driven and wont need much sail area.

Typing is not easy in these conditions. I end up backspacing and retyping a lot.

We are honing in on 1500 of the 2000 required miles as I type this. We should arrive in Sanxenxo sometime around midnight tomorrow night by the looks of the forecast. Plenty of breeze off Finistare…force 8! We will try to line up correctly for that. No upwind testing there.

The crew are in good spirits and we continue to learn a lot about the Pearl each day. We will be at the dock in Sanxenxo and the boat will be just 12 days old, having done the roll over test and 2000 miles of sailing. Putting the pressure on the team to get this done this fast has jump started our program. Now we have a huge list of things to do to the boat, nothing major, but lots of little jobs that have to be done to make this a race ready yacht.

We have already sent our jobs lists created onboard off to our shore team so they can buy needed parts and schedule the jobs to be done.

While we have been at sea, the shore team led by Kimo Worthington have set up a new base of operations for us in Sanxenxo, Spain. New Pirates are waiting there for us…our team cooks, Mark and Jo Rehana. Mark was the head chef at AmericaOne in 2000 in Auckland. Mark’s assistant Harry is the cook for Telefonica MovieStar, the Spanish VOR 70 competing in the race.

It is dark and a bit squally tongiht on the Bay of Biscaye and I am on radar watch. We are coming up on the straight line between Finistare and Brest so we will be dodging some ships as we were last night. Naturally we are going through these lanes in the dark at 20 knots of speed.

Enjoy your Friday night. Have a glass of wine for us.