Jules Verne Trophy - Orange II - Geronimo - Cheyenne zur Übersicht Monday 15 March 2004 - 0510 GMT 820 miles W/NW of Cape Horn: It was expected that the difficult repair to the damaged indexsail track 120' up the mast would have to wait for the shelter of the Falklands later in the week. But the thought of several more days' slow sailing, then to lose even more time while stopped was too frustrating after all the efforts of the past 5 weeks, and a full day's running repairs were begun Sunday morning to attempt a repair which would save the hard-fought lead over Orange's 2002 RTW record pace. Cheyenne's 346 mile run Sunday (avg 14.4 kts) meant their lead over Orange's RTW record track only fell to 1830 miles by Monday morning - with Steve Fossett and team now back up to 18-20 kts boatspeed. Steve Fossett reported late last night (at 2359 GMT) on the Sunday repair: "I can't believe these guys fixed the mast. With a "Do it now" attitude, the Cheyenne crew mobilized on Sunday morning to make the necessary repairs. As reported earlier, a section of indexsail track on the mast ripped off early Saturday morning. The initial repair plan was to anchor in a protected bay in the Falkland Islands to attempt the repairs. The suspense of not knowing if it was repairable was too great - and the crew attacked the problem at sea 3 days from Cape Horn. Justin Slattery and Dave Scully were up the mast for over 6 hours during the day. The first challenge was to remove the 13 screws which had sheared off. This required drilling and use of Easy Out tools. Then a similar section was removed from the the Third Reef location and fitted to the more important First Reef point. All this while suspended from the Man Halyard of the swinging mast. Meanwhile Mike Beasley fabricated replacement Third Reef track out of damaged and miscellaneous spares. Mike and Damian Foxall went up the mast to install the replacement. Without a successful fix, Cheyenne was limited to raising the indexsail only to the Second Reef, a restriction which would have made it impossible to sail fast enough to break the record of Orange. Sure, we lost a lot of time on this whole episode, but now we are again in the hunt for the record. - Steve (ed. - From those of us whose Sunday DIY home repairs list reindexs unfinished - despite the entreaties of patient wives, etc: - Thanks, guys.) © Nick Leggatt 2004 Fraser Brown on repairs at 53 South "A huge effort at 53 South:" My god the last 24 hours have just been insane. We had some serious head seas - the boat was like a cork - the on watch had a lot on with decision making as to just what was the best thing to do. If you reduce to 2 reef the boat speed is a lot lower but the angle on the waves is slightly worse. However staying at 1 reef is slightly faster - a better angle on the waves - but a little too fast for conditions. We stayed at 1 reef and eventually something had to give - and what a thing to go but in hindsight it kinda makes sense. The headboard car completely sheered the reinforced section of track off the mast at the 1 reef position which sheered about 12 M10 bolts, then the first batten car ripped off the track aswell under the extra load so we were pretty quick to get the sail down before we could have potentially unzipped it from the rig. The repair has been a mammoth mission, but somehow the weather gods prevailed (and at 53 South and so close to the Horn) we have been up the mast all day mostly 2 at a time repairing the damage. It was a momentous occasion to get full index back up again, once again we have pulled it off to stay in the hunt. However here are the hard facts of a breakage like this: we lost 200NM on Orange's record and have potentially gone from a 5 day lead at the Horn to a 3 day lead, however it could be a lot worse - at least we had some miles to play with. Well onwards and upwards. We are now sailing under full index and solent and back up to 20 to 22 knots and currently heading directly at the Horn, 850NM away, we have really gone the hard way around getting to this part of the world so we had better see it after all of this!! Fraser Brown Cheyenne" Copyright © 1996-2016 - SEGEL.DE