Skippers log #6
30 41s 46 46w at 20:00 GMT
I charged the batteries for 6 hours yesterday, and again today they needed more charging. Running nav lights, telephone, CD Player, cabin lights, pumps and autopilot all chews up power, more so when batteries are down. So I am pumping more amperage in. My alternator is putting out 160 amps per hour, but soon it falls off. The wind has gone very light. I set the spinaker this afternoon and the autopilot is steering. The Autohelm tech-guru, Bob Simms, flew to Punta to sort out the systems on the boats and showed me a setting I had not seen before. We also increased the gain, and now the pilot steers under spinaker. Still, there is a sea left over and shaking the wind out of the sails. I dare not sleep under spinaker as it needs constant course tweaking and sheets need adjusting. I am tired, and going slowly in this dying breeze.
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Skippers log #7
29 07s 47 24w at 20:40 GMT with 5,140 miles to Charleston
The miles are coming down slowly. It has been over 22,000 mile s since we sailed out of the Port of Charleston. My boat is starting to show the milage. A leak around my keel has gradually become annoying. For the last 10,000 miles I have been pumping water out of my bilge. We tightened the keel bolts in Auckland, but it did not slow the rate of flow down. Going downwind it was easy to pump the bilge dry, but now back beating is a wet task as the water sloshes all over the place. To keep things dry I now need to pump every 2-3 hours which is just very inconvenient. Today I spent a lot of time on the Satphone doing live interviews. Each day I am getting busier with requests from the media for live coverage. Requests are being routed to me via Diane at NoBarriers@compuserve.com and I am taking the calls between 14:00 to 15:00 GMT. I had a long call from Dr. Katrina Lewis and Tony Bartelme, close friends. It means a lot to me hearing from my friends. Sometimes people forget that I am a human being and have needs just like every one else and do get lonely out here. There are days when I am down, just like other normal people, and need the support and understanding that comes from close friends. Also, to know how high a high can be, we sometimes need to sink into the canyons and experience a low. It is not all bad experiencing a rough patch. We learn alot about ourselves too when the chips are down. Many people have expressed that they don't want to hear this. As students we need to learn not only from the good experience encountered, but also the lessons taught during the bad experiences. Teachers, adventurers and sportsman are not Gods, but people who have emotions and feelings. There are things I will share in time with my audiences which are very hard for me... things like looking death in the eye and being so scared, disappointments that have happened during this race that will have an influence on my life after this race. This challenge is not about just glory and heroism, but also about dealing with situations that one sometimes prefers not to deal with. There are things that the youth can learn from others, that cannot be found in text books. There will be things that our future generations can only learn by experience, as we have. Many people have had a close, personal look into the lives of the sailors during this race. This race has taken people's lives, changed people and impacted outlooks. Without a doubt it is one of the toughest challenges one can undertake and it is full of lessons. In Punta one night I was looking out of my bedroom window having come home from a huge dinner. There in front of me routing through the bins was a man looking for food. I felt so sad having a full stomach and not being able to do something for him. It was a lesson to me, a humbling experience, not a bad experience, or guilt feeling. It was a lesson that if we make bad choices, or things go horribly wrong, we could be routing through the bins trying to survive. People make mistakes, people change. It is all part of life. A negative experience might leave one down at the time, but time heals and with the right attitude, time teaches. I am saddened by all the killings that are taking place in our world, by the selfishness of many people who claim to be humans, the lack of compassion. But I can't just ignore it and pretend it does not happen as its not happening on my block and I can't see it. Spare a thought for fellow mankind, and sometimes making a sacrifice for someone, not only helps that person, but helps you too.
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Skippers log #8
27 57s 46 18w at 14:30 GMT
The gale moved through quickly last night and brought a favourable windshift at dawn. A few hours after dawn I shook out all the reefs and hoisted a full mainsail, and set a full genoa, going along nicely with a confused sea and strong currents against me. I am sailing close to the course I want, and have opened my lead on Minuro. The leak continues to be an annoyance. The keel needs be re-bedded which is a huge job as it means taking the keel off to clean the surfaces, put new sealing compound on and re-tighten it. It is easier just to keep pumping out the water than go through all that trouble soon. It is not a life threatening situation, and one expected after all these years and miles this boat has done. I have to keep remembering that this is a wooden hull covered in fiber glass and leaks are always associated with wood. I was thinking back to the winter when we were preparing the boat for this race and had a huge task ahead of us. We were out of the water at the SC State Port Authority Terminal and many people from the harbor masters office and the port police were all helping. I remember the day Les Phillips arrived to quote on the job of sand blasting the deck and left as a sponsor of our challenge. In all of that I was also speaking in schools and travelling. I ended up meeting this guy Nick Puchetti at Springfield School where his son went and he offered to come out and help. Nick and Nicklaus spent hundreds of hours removing deck fittings, and later helping me laminate the new glass onto the boat, then the helped replacing gear, sorting out electronics. That was over 22,000 miles ago. Nick and I spoke on the phone today. Out of a chance meeting a lifetime friendship grew. I also got a call from Stu Kimball who has been able to help keep me focused on finishing the job at hand well and not to worry about the future too much and let it take care of itself. If only every school child can have the type of support and encouragement I am getting, they would excel so much more. They need to focus on their job of learning and discovery that success is in their hands and that they do have resources to draw from. They need to encounter their own gales to know that ideal conditions always do follow, and that they are never alone, and from those gales they too can grow and bend in the wind and not snap. Our lives are in a constant state of transition and change. This can be frightening, but it is good. Complacency can lead to mediocrity, which in turn can lead to apathy. Our weapons against this is sharing, caring and the applications of knowledge for the good of all.
