July 16, 2011
1400
Well what a great start to the race! Across the line with the fleet, and heading out to Gibralter. First mission was to dig out of the dirty air from the other boats. Then with clean air we worked on height and speed (a bit of a contradiction), but I didn’t want to fall back into the fleet and I wanted to protect the inside. After Gibralter I ran the autopilot for a while. Turns out the heading alignment and response needed adjustments, but no big deal. Everything else seems to be running well otherwise, except it seems that both checkstay fittings in the mast have flipped. They need to be sorted out so they are in alignment for when they get loaded. This means climbing the mast. It’s just a little under half way up, so no big deal. I’ll let you all know when I’m down, but as signal seems sketchy, don’t be alarmed if you don’t hear from me for a while! 🙂
Diane
July 16th, 2011 at 6:45 pm
Good work Diane. The Yellow Brick tracker is fantastic…..and showing you in excellent position with the fleet about 1444 hrs. I could see early on that you were a little slower as you tried to get away from other boats….and now you are good and clear. Your trip up to the “crow’s nest” should keep your competition “guessing” what’s going on for a while….lol. It’s great that you have the opportunity to communicate occasionally …signal dependent. GO OGOC !!!