Hi speed chase continues and claims another spinnaker in morning

It looks like 2012 started just like 2011 had finished, with a big mess,
another spinnaker blown and trashed in the water, this time the masthead
A2 spinnaker, the biggest one… somewhere somehow there was a weak point
as it finally blew in mild 18-20 knots conditions, went overboard and gave
us a horrible time in trying to retrieve it… we did in the end, badly
trashed, torn in two parts…

During leg one we had kept the bastard up in 30 knots gusting 35 when we
established our best 24 hours run, for some reason the wear and tear of
materials is starting to show now, after 15,000 miles of hard core ocean
racing…

We still played our cards well it seems, despite the 45 minutes spent
trailing the kite in the water, we managed to get going again, the wind
built further within an hour so we kept good speed and are now only 46
miles behind Campagne de France… we will not overtake them, that’s
impossible as now we will be sailing within the confines of Cook Strait
with just 135 miles to the finish line, so in percentage terms we’d have
to sail 50% faster, which is clearly impossible once within the same wind
zone, but we feel good about the 700 miles we have shaven off their lead,
they must have felt nervous in the past few hours, before finding some
wind again and coming unstuck from the lee of Cape Farewell…

Anyone who’s raced knows there’s nothing you can do about the red mist,
even after 30+ days at sea the desire to overtake a boat ahead of you is
overwhelming, it’s a lion watching a gazelle in the savannah… so, we may
have yet another bill to foot, but we’ll know we havent held back, we
closed a gap of 750 miles to under 50 and feel honoured to be so close to
experienced sailors such as Miranda and Halvard who sail on a brand new
last generation boat whilst we whip this old fashioned lady as hard as we
think she can take it.

Meanwhile, back to the opera house for the last few miles, the show isn’t
over until the fat lady sings, really really looking forward to be safely
mored in Queen’s Wharf, Wellington, New Zealand.

If, by any chance, a Wellington based sailmaker is reading this and could
help our campaign by sorting out our sails repairs at mates rates, please
contact me in the next few days on marco.nannini@yahoo.co.uk or
+447866368248

Posted by: firstclass