2014 everglades challenge

The tri looks very good, I think. I don't know how their amas balance re. wetted surface in light air, but I'd expected them to beat the Tornado and up until this last, fateful, leg I have the impression they easily outsailed them.

Swampmonkee has some 15nm remaining to the finish, and still has a good lead of at least 8-9nm. Frankenscot is still ahead of Mosquito as of latest updates 25 minutes ago, but my bet is that Mosquito will pass them.

 

The fact that Randy pulled off what he did this year is made all the more impressive when you discover that doublehanded teams are stopping to sleep on shore. He pulled off a miniature Joyon.

Mosquito looked good in that video, light and easily driven, and I agree that the Tornado had a lot of transom in the water.

 

^^^

A miniature Joyon? I like it!

Randy mentioned after the race last year that he hoped to arrange some rest with the help of an autopilot. This year it might have been feasible if the seas were calm and the wind steady.

 

For sure! I'm referring to Joyon's second rtw record where (if I remember correctly) the only record faster than his was by a boat with a full crew.

I suspect an autopilot would work okay with a dumbed down sail plan (twist, etc...) and as long as he was strapped to the boat somehow I'm curious which pilot he had installed and what his power source was.

 

^^^

I don't know if he now had arranged one (autopilot) or not, but it was on his list of things to do.

Apropos falling off the boat, Yvan Bourgnon said he rolled off the deck into the sea while sleeping on his way to Galapogos just the other day, he was happy to have been tethered.

 

I believe it, and the sleeping area on Scissors looks pretty small. Fetal position and a tether.

 

Ec

Mead Gougeon's canoe from SA thread:

 

Let's call it the umbilical?

I'm enjoying a terrific Scampi/pasta dinner at the moment, so this is telegraph style.

The distance Swampmonkee, north of Tavernier, has remaining to the finish line is the same as the lead he has on Frankenscot and Mosquito, south of Tavernier. They were all doing 5-6 knots (a half hour ago), but the only thing that can prevent said Monkees from a 2nd place finish is if the wind dies suddenly*.

As far as I can tell, it has been a very tight race for hours between the Frankenscots and the Mosquitos.

...

* There I was forgetting that they are allowed to paddle!

 

Ec!

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You eat dinner at 4 in the afternoon?
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I'm so glad Randy won! And I hope Mosquito can somehow get second-1st and second for trimarans would be very cool......

 

The start was at 7 sharp.

 

...

Victory in Sight.




4:33 pm, speed 3.35 knots

 

...

4:33pm, speed 4.12





Mosquito 1: You know, we had a six-hour lead on those guys this morning!

Mosquito 2: ... But it sure was a good nap!

Mosquito 1: An awesome nap... And we got out of bed, for this?

 

Well NASA did a study once back when Skylab was being planned on how to optimally balance long term sleep deprivation and functionality.

What they found is that after being up for 24 hours solid, if you start sleeping 15 minutes every 4 hours - NO MORE, NO LESS, you can go on indefinitely with only slightly reduced functionality. So you could easily set the boat up to run pretty safely for 15 mins on AP with a fairly simple GPS+AWA+NMEA Tiller AP. And then a really good alarm and off to take a nap every 4 hrs.

 

...

Leading in Class 2, Iron Bob and TheJuice have paddled through the interior all night, getting to checkpoint 3 early this morning.

 

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This is Sawhorse, leading Class 3 doing 6 knots at 0845hrs in his decked sailing canoe.