Calypso is underway in the AZAB!
Calypso's Web Diary
Joe Drury
Sat 4 Jun 2011 15:42
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So, 16:30 and I am underway, putting miles under my
keel, even if they are in the wrong-ish direction.
A big thankyou to all my friends who sent their
best, and to Dad, Catherine, Anne, Dave and Janet and Martin for seeing me off
in "Moneypenny". To my lovely Alex, thank you for helping me so much to get her
to the starting line. I miss my shipmate very much already.
The start was a bit unusual, all the Class 1 (and
some C2) boats were becalmed (and I mean, becalmed) just as we crossed the line!
after a morning of stiff NE winds the flow seems to have been replaced by some
strange sea-breeze affair, so am not making much way SW. Oh well, 1200 miles to
go to find some wind. We drifed with the tide over the line, all of us with
sails flapping and slatting. Very frustrating and so unfair! The Class 4's had
loads of wind not 30 mins previously and lets face it, they don't need much...
This old girl needs at least 10 knots of wind to get up to speed!
For the smallest boat in the race I seem to be
holding my own quite well, I have caught up to a couple of people already and
there are a few bigger boats behind me. The enormous class 4's and 3's have
disappeared but I am in a gaggle of yachts towards the back of the pack. I'm
pleased with this, I just wish the wind would change/increase! I think you might
be hearing that complaint a lot as the race goes on!
I made an early mistake, I thought i'd put up the
asymetric Spinnaker but the wind changed, and I had to take it down almost
immediately, wasting time and energy. I hope none of the others saw it and were
thinking I'd gone mad...
Oh well, I'll write a little something tonight when
it goes dark, to update you.
As always, if you have any comments to any of the
blogs, email them to calypso <at> mailasail <dot> com. and I will
post them on the next blog. Also if any kind souls would like to update me on my
standing in the race you can visit the AZAB website and have a look at the
tracker. As long as I'm not last, I'm happy!!!
Joe
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