Our first days into the race

09.08.09 00:50 UTC 1. Nacht im Rolex Fastnet Race: The wind is unstable and light. A bit later there is no wind at all. It is midnight and very quiete onboard Beluga Racer after the first slightly hectic passage of the 2009 Rolex Fastnet Race, gybing downwind out of the Solent in unstable conditions.

We start to drift back very quckly with the tide and rush to drop our anchor at 45 meters of depth attached to several sheets which we have to undo from the sails.

Yvons comment: „La Navigation est une activité très particulier“. We find ourselves anchored in sight of the land. Normally you would want to pull out the dinghy now and paddle ashore into the next bar. In fact this situation may be more important as we are aware of in the moment.

10.08.09 Our day of dramas: We sail in first place as a sail stowed on deck slipps over the side. I have to admit its my fault as I lashed it there. The sail is absolutely vital, our lightwind weapon, the „code0“ a huge triangular headsail. Eventually we manage to get it back on deck. It floats with air in its sack. How lucky are we? This could have ment the end of our fast jurney.

We slip behind Mark into second position. The manneuver costs us 250 Meters and it takes the whole day to fight Mark back into second and get into first again. We are within a couple of boatlengh all day with the team from the Normandy and also in sight with Tanguy and Liz on Novedia.

11.08.09 This afternoon for the first time I find some time to write and send text. People seem always more impressed when they here about our races far offshore. But in fact nothing is more tiering, complex, complicated and difficlut than sailing in sight of land and its more dangerous as well.

We have to deal with local effects caused by the temperature and shape of the land. We have to deal with currents, countercurrents and so on. One of the most difficult factors for me is themical wind. You may remember the finish of the third leg of our Portimao Global Ocean Race, we got caught during the night and lost the lead after 40 days.

Yesterday we lost the lead as well due to local effects that are so hard to predict. Tanguy and Liz on Novedia passed us with an option far offshore at the Cap Lizard. Like us the majority of the fleet tried to get rid of the countercurrent clos to shore and inside the bays. Obviously the wind offshore must have been that much better that it allowed Novedia to transform their risky gamble into a solid two mile lead.

As the sun risis we just barely manage to see them. We steer and trim and navigate highly concentrated and over 6 hours manage to get a quater or half a mile out of them.

How cool would it be to record the onboard conversations and to be able to play back the decisionmaking onboars Novedia yesterday evening. Did they have a theory of stronger wind offshore? It looked so much better for us for a long time. Did they really gamble or know? We will never know because luck lets every navigator look brilliant and bad luck makes you feel ashae sometime, makes you feel stupid.

The resolution to this inherent problem of sailing is to always play in the middle of the field. Like this you play average but solid. Thats how I would describe our line like now. Have a look on the tracker you should find our line without too sharp corners, too extreme detours and you should find us in the top3 I hope.

I hope because we have been „NL“ non located for a couple of pols now.

Also the tracker does mix and misscalculate the data sometimes, so do not rely too much on that but more on your face on us.

See you so back here online.

Boris

PS ETA Fastnet tonight 3 am