Grundig 24 hour world speed record- Is there enough runway?

by The Sail-World Team on 21 May 2002 Tonight the fastest sail-boat in the southern hemisphere, Sean Langman's 'skiff on steroids' Grundig is sailing fast into the Southern ocean, attacking the World 24 hour speed record.

The current world record was set by the German Volvo 60 illbruck Challenge during leg seven of the Volvo Ocean Race when they achieved a 24-hour run of 484 nautical miles on April 29-30 2002, as they swept north along the American east coast, in the surging north flowing Gulf Stream.

Still sailing at record pace, Grundig is a third way into 24 wild and wet hours as she blasts south easterly into the Pacific. For the last six hours she's been straight-lining. She is now sailing into a slight southeasterly current, but it will only provide a fraction of the elevator effect that so advantaged illbruck.

Grundig, an extended Open 60, now with 66 feet of waterline is faster than the Volvo boats off the breeze and certainly has the capacity to take the record if the conditions are right.

'This record attempt will succeed if there is enough runway' says Ian 'Buggsy' Potter, Grundig's shore based master navigator.

Potter has been working closely with Roger 'Clouds' Badham, Australia's best-known offshore weather expert.

Tonight Badham and Potter were concerned that a number of small troughs embedded in the weather system could cruel the record attempt.

Now eight hours into the challenge, these light patches are beginning to show in the 10-minute average speeds, coming down from the satellites. 23.4, 19.6,18.2,19.8,18.00,19.6, 18.2,19.8,18.00,22.19,14.4,16.8, 17.6 not such nice numbers but are they sailing through a trough.

Buggsy's question is obviously the right one, is there enough runway?

www.Sail-World.com the largest sailing website in the southern hemisphere is tracking the progress of Grundig during this attempt.

On the event mini-site, www.sail-world.com/grundig there are examples of the datastreams we are receiving, There you will see the chart and the log data that is now on our screens.

Unfortunately the Inmarsat c data is not coming in a web-site friendly format, but Sail-World will update data at least hourly until midnight and again from 4am.