Round NZ Race: Leg 2 close to finish

Coppelia, Titanium and Motorboat at the start of Leg 2, 2019 Round NZ Race, February 2019 © SSANZ

Leg 2 of the Round New Zealand Race is close to an end.

The official race website reports that Titanium have turned the corner and are on the final run into the finish of leg 2 of the #RNZ2019 with a recent average speed of 5.4knots the crew should arrive tomorrow morning and all going to plan will be live streaming the finish!

From Coppelia:

#RNZ2019 Direct from the boat interesting weather Yesterday we did more sail changes before breakfast than on the rest of the leg in total. We gybed late on the evening of the 21st and headed to sea under zero, the wind increased and we went to the JT, ten though a front on to the #3, then # 1 and finally the make the set complete the # 2 as the wind started to increase. And so did the waves with giant lumps of cold Southern Ocean water at least 5 m tall roll through the course and make life a little unbalanced,. Another front with rain in the early hours of the 22nd, where Sally was on deck in the pouring rain and 30 knts. The back ground wind speed continued to increase until we went to #3. We all thought of how long it would be on the wind at this speed. THEN, the wind left. Just evaporated and we have spent the last 3 hours with Katana at the mercy of the waves. Finally we are out of it sailing down the line directly to Puysegur in a wind direction which is not in any forecast. Downstairs it feels like running with a bad driver as we roll along. So Sara - we did our best, got around the light on left, crossed the fleet to get to the next shift, UNDERLAID the mark, but unlike our Tuesday night where the layline is 400m ours is 200nm and weather seems to have decided it is not layline time.

From Motorboat after the breakage of their prod We are overwhelmed by all the offers of help and support from all over New Zealand, thank you. Bart and Luke from NZ Rigging are making us a new prod tomorrow, ready for delivery on Monday. NZ Rigging have been awesome in their help and support with our campaign so far - fitting 2:1 halyard attachments for us at the fractional and masthead sheeves, replacing the vang and gooseneck pins and bushes and washers and giving the rig a full check over for us. And now building a prod for us on a Sunday with just a few hours notice, can't ask for anything better than that! Thanks guys!! For now we are cruising our way down the Fiordland coast, spectacular scenery and a much better mood on board after sorting the prod for the next half of the race. Still a fair bit of sailing between us and the finish of this leg but we will do what we can with our limited sail plan and looking forward to getting there.