Rolex Slownet Race. Day 5

August 13, 2009

We finally passed, rather close, Fastnet Rock Wednesday 12 August 16:30 British Summer time. Fortunately the repaired Genoa I stayed in one
piece in spite of the wind having increased to 17 knots.

We started a reach to Pantaenius Buoy, a distance of about 6nM, and
hoisted our Spi I. Wind holding well at 16 knots. The wind gradually
decreased whilst we observed all our competitors ahead of us getting
away from us making speeds of 8-9 knots. It rained practically all night.

Presently, Thursday 13 August at 14:50, we are making a speed over
ground of 0,9 knots with a wind of 1-2 knots. The competing boats have
meantime well passed Bishop Rock. Strangely enough boats behind us seem
to have speeds of 4-5 knots.

In short all our hopes for a reasonable ranking are lost, dimished, up
in smoke.

Spirit on board is good. We just took all our wet/dampy sailcloths
outside. The sun is shining. The computor, giving always the cruel
truth, says we need still 24 hrs to reach Bishop Rock but once the wind
will pick up we know this will be much and much shorter. Al least that
is what we hope the wind will do.

We have still enough food on board. For tonight our Maitre de Cuisine
has announced already Chilly con carne. Our bottle of Champagne,
smuggled on board by Frank, was consumed already when we passed the
Fastnet Rock so we will have to enjoy the mineral water on board.

Presently we are ranking #12 in our Class IRC2B and that wont be much
better I am afraid at the finishline.

Please note that we are unable to receive any messages from you on our
webpage so do not use that. Any previous messages are not received so if
you wish please resend them to harry@heijst.net

Next month this will be changed again and will it be possible again to
use the webpage to send messages.

The wind just increased to 2.2 knots our speed to 1.3 knots. Whilst
typing it decreased again to 1.7 resp. 1.0