winter!

I said, I'll do the longest voyage in history

From NJ.com we learn that Reid Stowe and Soanya Ahma are planning to sail 1000 days. Not so special untill you realize it is non-stop!
How the food will taste after a year (or two) is something I do not want to know, also how everything is stowed away in the ship (will it float?). Or maybe they'll just rely on their water maker and some fishinglines.
The planning is loose, they target to visit at least 4 oceans in the just less than three years of non stop sailing.

Visit their site at www.1000days.net

Global Challenge in stormy waters

The Daily Echo reports that Challenge Business is not doing well. Challenge Business first hit stormy financial waters as far back as2004, when results filed with Companies House showed a loss of£620,663.
The races, which saw inexperienced seafarers pay £28,000 to race aroundthe world with veteran captains at the helm, were troubled by cashflow problems and failed to find a big money sponsor.
Five yachts have been sold off already. Although the Global Challenge name is still for sale it is unlikely you will see it in itsprevious format. Shame, I really thought it was a good initiative.

HoolaHoop Keel

Somehow and somewhat strange but I get a feeling this might actually work:

http://www.hmtmarine.com/keel/benefits/angle.php

the idea is to lift water to help stabilize your boat, with the keel!
Do take a look at their page, its something new! You will be surprised.

THE RELUCTANT ELECTRONICS ENGINEER

Yesterday, 25 days into the

At this morning's position update SAGA Insurance was 135 miles south of the Equator however Sir Robin was complaining about the present southeasterly winds that have his wide flat boat hard on the wind making a tough time of it in the lumpy conditions. "I am free of the
Doldrums, and the wind is southeasterly so it hasn't got an easterly slant on it yet, so I am beating." The forecast indicates that there is unlikely to be any reprieve for him until he comes parallel with Recife, the easternmost bulge in Brazil in around two day's time.

Health-wise Robin says he seems to be alright and the injury to his coccyx he sustained prior to the start of the race is no longer troubling him. "I can heave as I used to be able to. I'm just building my strength up. The real problem was that it stopped me being really fit during that month before the race started which is when I needed to build up my strength."

He is getting enough sleep on board, but the main annoyance is having spent the last weeks watching the race leaders disappear over the horizon. "Sleep? That's not a problem. The frustration is watching the leaders get away. It is very frustrating."

Since he became the first man to sail around the world singlehanded non-stop in 1969, the technological age has dawned and his Open 60 is bristling with electronics from navigation software to sophisticated satellite communications, worthy of the Space Shuttle. "My attempts to be an electronics expert have resulted in the main display no longer linking up to the GPS, so I'm not sure what I have done there," he admits and one gets the impression, he would be only too happy to rip out all the electronics and go back to basics, compass and sextant, rather than having to spend any more crawling around in the bilges with a voltmeter. "I could do without this right now. I would much rather be sailing."

Back when he circumnavigated on board Suhaili he would communicate by high frequency single side band radio, a fantastic technology where radio waves travel around the world by being bounced off the ionosphere. There was a whole art in picking the right time of day, the right frequency to suit the conditions and a friendly and often a familiar operator at the end of the phone who would patch you through o the telephone network. Sadly this form of communication has not existed for more than a decade now and while the new technology should in theory be much improved it is far from perfect, calls regularly being dropped.

Back to Sir Robin Knox-Johnston, electronics engineer, and he is still having on-going problems with his autopilot: "My main concern is the autopilot whether we can sort that out. I'm not too happy to just have one. I'd rather have a stand by which I don't have at the moment.
So that is worrying me a little," he says. On deck, his broken battens remain an issue but Robin says he has made a temporary fix. "The batten problems are slowly dissolving. I managed to fix two of them but they are not brilliant. They are better than nothing, but they are not making a perfect shape in the sail. But they do stop the roach flapping and that's the best I can say of it. I
don't think there is anything else I can do about it."

None of these issues, Robin says, will force him to stop. This just costs too much time as even if he put in to Cape Town to pick up replacement battens and a new autopilot he would still be required by race rules to stay in port for 48 hours as a penalty.

One Man, One Boat, One World & Starting Sunday

This year marks the 25th anniversary of this solo round the world race, know previously as the BOC Challenge and Around Alone.
The singlehanded aspect of the VELUX 5 OCEANS cannot be underestimated.
Sixty feet of highly powered racing boat is a handful to sail. The
mainsail alone weighs more than the skipper and hoisting it up a 28m
tall mast becomes a strenuous calorie-burning affair. Every time the
wind increases, decreases or changes direction so the skipper must
carry out a sail change on their own to keep their boat sailing to its
optimum. Hauling a large foresail through a small hatch has been
likened to dragging around a wet, double mattress.

Follow it on http://www.velux5oceans.com/ !

ABN AMRO not to participate in the 2008 VOR

18 October 2006
ABN AMRO today announced that it will not enter the Volvo Ocean Race 2008-2009. ABN AMRO’s participation with two boats in the 20052006 round-the-world race was a huge sporting and marketing success. This was ABN AMRO’s first global sponsorship project aimed at uniting the worldwide territories of the bank, raising global awareness of the brand and introducing the global tagline ‘Making more possible’.
Jan Berent Heukensfeldt Jansen, Managing Director of TEAM ABN AMRO commented: “The Volvo Ocean Race has been a great marketing platform for us and its impact will continue long into the future. We entered the Volvo Ocean Race as a three year, one-off campaign to meet specific objectives, promoting the unity and strength of the ABN AMRO brand to a global audience. We did everything we could to win the race, and with a combination of teamwork and professionalism TEAM ABN AMRO travelled the world reflecting all that the bank stands for. The results of the campaign confirm that all our objectives have been met, which is largely thanks to the outstanding effort made by the large number of people involved. The Volvo Ocean Race is a unique event with a global following, and one which we are very proud to have been part of.”

Read the article