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10 marzo 2006

"fINAL"..nOT fOR aLL!


Here a report from Movistar:

(courtesy of www.sailinganarchy.com)

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VOR On Board

The Real World

Only now you really start appreciating the canting keel on these boats. Currently having a steady 45 knots, with puffs up to 50 knots, and the water is just smoking the tops off. Just dropped the main, which had already 3 reefs in. But still averaging 21 knots with just the #4 jib and the stormjib staysail. movistar us difficult to drive with the keel in the center, the only advantage is that it seems that bow is popping higher out of the water as usual.

Last night we were just on the edge of a low pressure. Easterly breeze, but monster waves coming straight on the bow. We had to sail 50 degrees of course to prevent breaking the boat. Then the breeze clocked slowly around, and started to increase. We had already decided not to set a spinnaker,a s most likely the wind would increase rapidly. The barometer plummeted in one hour from 988 to 975, so we were guaranteed for some sting. The big gust just hit us like a hammer, a bit like the Southerly buster in the Hobart, and the first couple of hours were crazy, the sea state like a washing machine, waves coming from all directions, but we managed to get through it without damage.

Finally decided to take the main down, as we started to slam pretty hard, and even that I have confidence in the repair we did, it is not worth it to take any risks.

Relaxed right now, you can feel the boat is behaving better with less sail. A good time to catch up on some sleep.

Cheers,

Bouwe Bekking
movistar, ESP1


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