Winsome ready for The Rolex Sydney-Hobart Race 2008 on Friday 19 December

December 19, 2008

Today most of the last jobs have been completed.

Frank arrived today at 0930 and seems in good health, though he is definitely missing my sun-tan.

The rigger installed the beautifull running backstays and possibly more beautifull forestay. He made great devices enabling us to put all stays away not hindering the other running gear in anyway. At the same time we ordered a new halyard for the mainsail and installed a new line between the boom and the mainsheet, to prevent any disaster during the race. Tomorrow the rigger will finish Joost Dantuma’s Daisy. He considered the furling gear bought in UK only good for moderate winds, but we did not consider at any stage to let the Daisy stay with more than 20-25 knots regardless.

The carpenter finished the upperwashboard, as I explained yesterday already. Today it will be varnished a couple of times. It will be on board tomorrow Saturday 20 December.

The installation of the HF radio was completed today. We could however not get the tricolour-light repaired since the devise on top of the mast is full with water and it looked very difficult to get it off, let alone to put a new one in. Since a tricolour-light is not compulsory we decided to let it rest since now we still have got the white anchorlight working.

The connection of the Iridium telephone has been checked and found faulty. Again there was not a proper connection made, like we found on the volt/ampere metre in Brisbane. Penalty points will be given out once back in Holland.

The reserve tiller came back on board after it got some new paint on it.

In other words we remain on schedule. Sunday will be used to sail Winsome to CYCA berth D13.

Monday at 1200 weighing remains unchanged. Thanks to our running backstays we will be able to loosen the backstay of Winsome which is an unexpected pleasure and relief at the same time.

Our Winsome Sydney-Hobart Race clothes have arrived.

I hope that Monday after weighing we will be ready for 100% and can do some sailing on Tuesday and Wednesday as training with the crew which hopefully will be complete by then.

Only good news today!

Will be continued.