As of 1200 30th Nov.

The tactics are interesting this year because the NE trades are late and there is still a major low across the middle of the Atlantic, the obvious route across is not quite so obvious. A few boats, Sundowners, Carpe Diem etc, have gone north which given the position of the low is considered very high risk option. In fact, Geisha has had to pull out with a broken mast. Certainly less comfortable than going south. However, at the moment they are technically the closest to St Lucia. Those that have followed the traditional middle of the road, rhumline or slightly south of, are finding that it’s hard going through lack of winds. We, along with most of the fleet headed south, and then south again. We are now south of the cape Verdes- St Lucia line, but we still have good winds. So we have added something like 300 miles to our journey but we hope it will pay off with better winds for longer.


UHURU, one of the most southern of the fleet. Our old adversaries, the Oyster 665’s Acheron and Sotto Vento, are still in our sights after 8 days. They are faster than us but under handicap rules they have to beat us by about 1 1/2 hours per day. It’s going to be close. Especially now that its a full on drag race.

The next couple of days will make or break everyone, there is a large trough in the middle of the Atlantic with very little wind, there will be some flucky winds around which will mean that some boats will suddenly do well for no apparent reason. It’s how long you have to stay in this trough that counts. All our forecasts say the further south you go the less time you will spend in the trough. So we a are keeping our fingers crossed that this tactic will pay off. We should know by Friday!!

As I said the race is on....

All the best

Steve

1st Dec 2008


Steve Powell (Owner/Skipper)
UHURU of Lymington
steve {CHANGE TO AT} uhuru {DOT} mailasail {DOT} com
Mob: +44 7774 423 449
Boat Sat Phone: +870773150353

To track UHURU
go to http://www.marinetrack.com/

Log in using

User name: UHURUFriends
Password: 123456  (The world’s favourite password)

Then double click on the boat icon and it will take you to another map which shows you where we are. Usual zoom tools etc,. If you hold the cursor over the icon you will see boat speed and direction. If you want to see where we have been over the last few days go to the 'Tracker' tab and adjust the date range to how ever far back you want then refresh.

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