The Hatch

Back on track

04 April 2008

Despite the additional delays in delivering the equipment to the boats in Hawaii, which meant that we had to wait until Wednesday for all the parts to arrive, if work progresses as it has done on Thursday, when we managed to get six boats re-rigged, the last two of the re-rigged boats will be completed on Friday and the race to Santa Cruz will start at 1100 local time this Saturday.

It is too soon to say when Durban 2010 and Beyond and westernaustralia2011.com will be ready, but hopefully not long after, and they will then sail direct to Santa Cruz. Their new mast sections are now joined up and the new spreaders are due to arrive in Hawaii today. How we handle their passage to Santa Cruz will be dependant on how soon they are ready. It is very fluid at the moment with the whole Clipper Team plus riggers are working flat out. This will mean that these two yachts will have a short stay in Santa Cruz but we want them back racing with the others as soon as possible.

We expect the race to Santa Cruz to take about 14 days so the ETA is 19 April. We are asking all Leg 6 crew to be available in Santa Cruz for a crew changeover on or before 1000 local time on the 21 April. The actual re-start date will depend upon the arrival date and the race duration but is likely to be the 23 April. The Santa Cruz stopover will be no longer than 5 days, probably 4, and we shall plan that the re-start is no later than 24 April, but hopefully earlier.

Of course the times are weather dependant. The boats need to get north out of the Easterly trade winds, which means crossing the variables to get into the westerly trades, then it is a spinnaker run to California. The extent of the variables are, well, variable!

Our plan remains to try and get back on schedule for departure Jamaica. To achieve this we need some luck with the Panama Canal where there are delays at the moment, but we have been in contact with the authorities there. The original schedule allowed six days for the transit and obviously anything saved will be time in Jamaica.

A question being asked is whether the two dismasted boats will be penalised for equipment damage or receiving new sails? The answer is no.

The Clipper Sailing Instructions clearly state that no team will receive redress for equipment failure. As the dismasting was clearly not the fault of the crew, the Race Committee will not to penalise the two teams for the for the repairs or sail replacement that is required to get them racing again. The sails lost were a Yankee One from westernaustralia2011.com and a mainsail for Durban 2010 and Beyond. Ideally these sails would be replaced with sails that are in the same condition as those lost, i.e. half a round the world race old. For obvious reasons these are not available. The Race Committee feels that any advantage that the two teams may receive in having these new sails is mitigated by the fact that the new rigging that will take time to fully bed in and the two crews have to get used to and re-learn the slightly different rig and sail settings. 

We would like to thank everyone for their patience through this difficult time. Sailing boats always have difficulties keeping to schedules but this sort of delay is unexpected. I would also like to thanks those who have worked so hard to manufacture and obtain the spares required and then fit them.