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Old 13-11-2010, 10:16   #1
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Velux 5 Oceans

For those who haven't been watching.... the American, Brad Van Liew, is about a day out of Cape Town and barring serious mishap seems likely to win the first sprint of the race.

His nearest competitor is about 650 nautical miles back and in third place is the great northern hope, Derek Hatfield, who has been running into some frustrating air while the leaders battled it out.

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Old 14-11-2010, 10:04   #2
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Can't believe no one has a comment.

Brad has just finished the first leg, a couple of days ahead of the second place boat which is still 600-odd nautical miles form Cape Town.

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Old 14-11-2010, 10:40   #3
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Completely spaced on this. Thanks for the heads up. Been reading the blog posts. This one is just gut wrenching.

Gutkowski on 11 November:

Quote:
Today from very early morning I was thinking how to get up the mast and install the new halyard there. Almost whole day was preparing for the procedure and waiting for the wind to calm down a bit. As it went to 18 kn I decided to go up. Conditions still quite extreme – I couldn’t stay on my legs in the cockpit. So how it will be 25 meters up?

The waves were about 4 to 6 meters. Very sharp ones. Only a crazy man could go up – I knew that. Ok. I made everything ready for this „suicidal” operation, I will not write a line about my climbing. But I was praying to have enough physical power to stay with the mast. If I go apart – would never catch it again. I took a camera with me, but absolutely no chance to record anything.

Of course, when I am up, the self-steering gear goes crazy. First I hear the sound alarm, next my boat goes straight up to the wind and waves. “Nice. I’m dead now” – I thought to myself. It turned out, that somehow a MOB action got activated.
The lucky point was I had a remote control for the self-steering gear with me, so I managed to make the boat to bear away. I was back down aftersome 2 hours. Couldn’tfeel my handsorlegs. Completely exhausted, but happy to be alive and have the halyard fixed.

I checked the weather forecast to know if I could go with the 400m2 spi for the whole night. The wind was steady, 13-16 kn. But was darkalready, so I wanted to waituntil dawn. After a quick look on boat’s speed (6 kn) had no further doubt.
I hoisted it up, fired, trimmed – and after a short while I could only pick up a knife to cut the remains of my spi off. It blow out from its frame after one minute of work. Damnit. I was takingsuch a big risk for it! For nothing!!!

Again sailing like a tourist. Now words to describe it.
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Old 14-11-2010, 10:45   #4
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It's possible nobody's watching. Two reasons: 1) no tv coverage 2) poor website, which doesn't function properly on all browsers. It doesn't work right on my Explorer 8 or Firefox. I'm sure it looks really super on the webmaster's computer though.
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Old 14-11-2010, 10:57   #5
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Apple Safari 5.0.1 here. Looks pretty good.
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Old 18-11-2010, 10:17   #6
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Just FYI, for those not following this obsessively.

The second sailor, Gutek, has reached Cape Town and Derek Hatfield is about two and half days out, if he keeps up the 10 knots he has going right now.

The number four sailor, Chris Stanmore-Major, is about 350 nm back and doing two knots, which can't be fun. He has been having some trouble with his main.

And number five, Christophe Bullens -- who has had all sorts of troubles -- has just crossed the equator.

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Old 18-11-2010, 10:18   #7
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I'm using Firefox with no problems. Maybe I'll fire up Safari and see if there's a difference.

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Old 18-11-2010, 11:25   #8
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Thanks for the update Connemara - I can't get the site up on my browser either. Derek Hatfield is a real inspiration - in spite of his age (late 50's), lack of significant sponsorship/money and the problems he encounterd in his last two round the world races, he just keeps on trying.

In his two previous efforts he built his own boat (in spite of no prior experience - he is a retired RCMP officer) and was doing very well until knockdowns caused significant damage that forced him out of the running. Here's to hoping for a safe and successful race for he and all of the other competitiors!

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Old 20-11-2010, 08:02   #9
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Another update... Derek Hatfield is in port at Cape Town with third, which ain't bad. Two sailors remain at sea.

The Velux 5 Oceans website has been painfully slow these last couple of days. Perhaps they are getting a lot of visitors and haven't enough bandwidth.....???

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Old 20-11-2010, 08:13   #10
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No probs on Explorer for me here..... looks like 2 n 3 went to far South and lost time and distance.....
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Old 20-11-2010, 08:38   #11
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Windows 7 using Explorer 8 on a 64 bit 8g quad processser, works for me!
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Old 06-12-2010, 05:47   #12
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And... the first leg is over. Christophe Bullens was a few miles from Robben Island this morning. Video shows him under headsail alone in 40 knots of breeze. Water was pretty flat though.

Next leg (to Wellington) starts in about a week.

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Old 09-12-2010, 10:25   #13
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He made it in last night. EVERYBODY is pitching in to get him ready for the next leg.

I can't wrap my noggin around that.

http://www.velux5oceans.com/#/latest...n-arrival/1066
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Old 09-12-2010, 10:44   #14
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Quote:
Originally Posted by itchybro View Post
He made it in last night. EVERYBODY is pitching in to get him ready for the next leg.

I can't wrap my noggin around that.
It's call cooperation amongst competitors in the name of fairness.

One more act of civil behavior that is in short supply.
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Old 09-12-2010, 11:10   #15
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It's call cooperation amongst competitors in the name of fairness.

One more act of civil behavior that is in short supply.
It's not that, not that your remark didn't hit the bullseye, I should've clarified a bit. I can't wrap my noggin around the fact that Bullens is AMONG them working on 3 days of NO sleep.

Who does he think he is? KEITH RICHARDS?!?
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