Day 41, Thursday November 5, 1998

By the end of the day Mouligne was about forty miles from the finish line. He should finish early morning tomorrow. About 220 miles behind him there was a tough fight for second place. Garside moved from third to second place, then dropped back and again regained second place.

Magellan Alpha

Garside's last 24 hours had been unbelievably hairy as he described in his mail: ". I've had winds up to 50 knots and I've been surfing for up to 30 minutes non-stop at 24 knots hanging on for grim death. My third reefing line broke so I have had to drop the mainsail into an untidy mess hanging at about reef three in the lazy jacks. This was too much straining on one of the jacks which broke so a great bunt of my main is bouncing along on the water. Then the tack of the jib was torn off. Luckily it is tied all along the luff of the roller furling so it did not tear away. But I have had to roll it up. I'm using a few rolls of my genoa as a small headsail to steady the boat. I don't like doing it because it will damage the sail, but with my only pilot zigzagging all over the place and gybing from time to time. I have had to steer as much as I can to prevent these crash gybes. One laid me completely flat in 30 knots of wind. Getting back on my feet was not difficult, I just let the main sheet right out. But then, because we were screaming along at 20 knots in the wrong direction I had to try a controlled gybe with no running backstays on to avoid smashing the boom."

Rapscallion III © Foto Billy Black

Further back George Stricker was extending his lead over Robin Davie. Stricker described his trouble: "Scare for the day- at daylight I came below and looking forward saw water pouring in with each wave. From the pounding off the backs of waves the two handles had worked loose and the hatch cover opened. Water had filled up the bottom of the watertight door of the forward compartment. About 2.5 feet deep, 1,500 to 2,000 gallons." He easily solved this matter. He closed the hatch, tightened the handles and pumped out the water. He was leading the second part of Class II fleet with just over 1,500 miles to go. Davie, Petersen, Yazykov, Saito and Neil Hunter followed him.

Yazykov was continuing to make progress. He moved ahead of Saito and he was closing on Petersen. The last sailor Fedor Konioukhov was in contact with his son Oscar and reported that his leak was under control and that he was doing 12 knots.

© Foto Richard Konkolski

Positions:

Class 1

Class 2

Copyright © Richard Konkolski
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