Amer Sports One passes djuice

by Knut [Frostad] on 4 Dec 2001 Sorry to come late with the daily report, but we have had a bit on lately.
Right now I am so tired that I hardly can see the LCD screen. My hands are
swollen and my eyes are covered in dry salt. What a life. Ever tried to
cook yourself food, when the bowl you just left in the bottom of the sink
filled with noodles, make a jump out of the sink and lands too leeward? At
the same time you get pushed to the wall behind the mast so hard that you
hit your head on the deck beams just another time. Then trying to clean of
some blood from your head with toilet paper, only to find out that the
roll of toilet paper has jumped out of it's pocket and also landed in the
bilge. The bilge to leeward is constantly under about 20 cm of water.
Where does all this water come in? Sometimes it feels closer to be a
submarine than a racing yacht. Basically we are going upwind in 40 knots
across the Bass Strait north of Tasmania.

Yesterday we had a shocking experience. Early in the morning we where
almost parked in 2-3 knots of wind. The drifter [light air] headsail was
up, banging from side to side, suddenly Amer Sports One appears on the
horizon to the west of us, under a line of black clouds. She is going fast
and basically straight past us, maybe four miles away. We tried our best
to point at them, but to no use. Not until they had passed we got the
breeze, but our new breeze was even 60 degrees more headed, and we could
only watch them disappear. After having spent several days slowly sailing
away from them downwind, this was a huge disappointment. We had taken 20
miles out of Amer Sports One purely on sailing faster the last days, in
the same conditions. And all they needed was a black cloud line to hang on
to and pass us. At least we didn't lose to anyone else, and now we are
going to grind them back again. For some reason ASSA ABLOY went north of
King Island. That will cost them a lot. The fleet is definitely getting
tighter and everything looks set for a very exciting finish.

Good night, I am going to bed now.

djuice