8 February 2012
Phesheya-Racing is on the move again
Following half a day hove-to with autopilot problems at 45S, right in the middle of the South Pacific, the Global Ocean Race’s (GOR) South African team of Nick Leggatt and Phillippa Hutton-Squire were back on the move with Class40 Phesheya-Racing at 19:30 GMT on Tuesday, but the duo’s fight is only half-won with a tropical cyclone tearing towards them.
Meanwhile, 600 miles to the south-east, race leaders, Conrad Colman and Adrian Kuttel on Cessna Citation and the Italian-Spanish duo of Marco Nannini and Hugo Ramon chasing hard in second place with Financial Crisis have finally hooked into southerly breeze after seven days of beating and are making rapid progress towards the southern limit of the bluQube Scoring Gate.
Friends and family of the South African team held their breath throughout Tuesday as Nick Leggatt and Phillippa Hutton-Squire hove-to for the second time in two days. Becoming isolated and exposed as Cessna Citation and Financial Crisis disappear into the Pacific to their east and with the nearest land a group of uninhabited, volcanic rocks 900 miles to the north at the southern limit of French Polynesia, Leggatt and Hutton-Squire must sail with boat preservation an immediate priority.
On Sunday, exceptionally confused seas forced the duo to heave-to and ride out a storm, but once underway as the maelstrom subsided, the autopilots on Phesheya-Racing continued to drop out, throwing the Class40 into a succession of crash tacks. The South Africans hove-to a second time and Nick Leggatt retired to the lazarette armed with a tool box and grim determination. “We spent much of the night hove-to with both pilots in pieces, emailing and phoning NKE and Raymarine to try and find a solution,” Leggatt reported soon after Phesheya-Racing was underway again on Tuesday night GMT. “With the time difference in Europe it was essential to work non-stop through the night to find a solution while the manufacturers were still at work.”
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