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Through Day 7: Week 1 ends with 457 mile day

Valentines Day present as Cheyenne further reduces deficit to Orange 2002

Watch Captain Brian Thompson reports as Day 7 ends:

"The big news here of course is that Geronimo has been forced to turn back after breaking 2 out of their 3 gennakers. They had a great start, having picked a better weather slot than us, and were turning in good average speeds in the tradewinds. It must be very dispiriting for them to head back, and expect to start again soon after arrival. That means they will be sailing 120% of the round the world course. The four of us who did The Race on board PlayStation in 2001 know how it must feel as we had to turn back from about 13S latitude with sail problems. We know a number of the crew on board the big silver trimaran and feel bad for them.

Although we have been thinking about Geronimo and aiming to stay ahead and extend our distance in the South, we have been sailing our own race up to now, and so things have not really changed for us. We are going to be able to send more reports and tactical information from the boat now, as previously that would have been useful to de Kersauson. Otherwise same as before, try to go the shortest route in the best breeze, keep the boatspeed high without breaking any equipment.

We have now completed one week of sailing and our average speed has been 15.5knots, we are 495 miles behind Orange but expect to catch up more today. Our forecast is for 15 knot tradewinds and 2 years ago Orange only clocked in 160n miles as they were stuck in doldrums.

No sail repairs today to the blast reacher, we did 2 gybes and one change from the blast to our current sail, the big gennaker. We have had a full main up since the middle of the Bay of Biscay.

Wildlife tally a little low today, saw a lot of flying fish, another one managed to hit me in the back, but he was lucky, as Adrienne picked him up as he wriggled in the cockpit and put him back in the water. He was about 7 inches long, although you can get some big ones over a foot, like flying trout..."

14 February French report from Watch Captain Jacques Vincent

"bonjour

Les iles du cap vert sont dans le sillage, le ciel est gris comme il peut l'etre a l'approche du pot au noir, les poissons volant frappent de toute part. David a ete touche deux fois a la tete et a fini son quart le casque sur le crane et des ecailles dans les oreilles. Mais que se passe t il a bord de cheyenne ? les rumeurs circulent d'une coques a l'autre. la coque tribord recoit toute les informations du monde exterieur et elles sont diffuses de bouches a oreilles . Geronimo retournerait dans sa reserve Brestoise....la pression retombe un peu . les Cheyennes enterrent la hache de la guerre mais aiguisent le couteau qui va peler l'orange.Le bateau est intact, les voiles sont en meilleur etat qu'au depart et l'equipage a maintenant bonne mine. Fraser est l'equipier du jour il rattrapper en plein vol une vis tombee du mat qui a ricoche sur sa tete ! Nick qui connait le mat par coeur a presque immediatement repere son origine, une poulie de cuningham de ris prete a faire le grand sault. Apres quelques empanages de nuit pour eviter les iles du cap vert et profiter de quelques bascules de vent nous sommes babord amure en route directe vers l'equateur et vers le Grand Sud. Un equipier, Mark, passera en jugement devant King Neptune. Vu son lourd passe il ne va pas s'en tirer comme ca. L'atlantique sud nous laisse esperer un passage de l'anticyclone de St Helene dans de bonne condition.

n'oublier pas de consulter le site www.fossettchallenge.com pour les photos du jours et pratiquer votre anglais.

Cheyenne 8 N 27 W a 9h jour de la st valentin"

Cheyenne continues push

Towards equator amidst flying fish - and news

Average speed over past 24 hours 19.45 kts

" We are doing very well. We admittedly didn't take the best decision on the start, but the crew is sailing the boat very well, with no significant sailing errors. Plus we have had very limited equipment problems so far, apart from pulling the head off the blast reacher. That sail is now repaired and we are using it without restriction."

"All great here - we are just passing the Cape Verde Islands as I write this, having had a good day's run of 480 miles down the track and 509 through the water.We have had the big gennaker up most of the time although both mornings we have gone to the smaller blast reacher as it has been unusually windy at that time.

We had to do one more piece of work to the blast reacher yesterday, the leech line broke and we had to drop the sail to the deck, fish out the broken piece and attach a new one. After we re-hoisted it Justin had to go up the sheet to the clew of the sail and do the final adjustment. On this sail the clew is about 15m in the air so he had his hands full hanging on as the boat pitched and yawed in the waves.

I was about to write how few flying fish we had seen - on The Race in 2001 we had hundreds an hour launching themselves at the side of the boat. Then in the space of a minute Nick got hit on the shoulder, one hit me on the back and ricocheted into Mark - and then at the same moment another coming cunningly out of the dawn hit Dave full in the face. He was driving at the time and, as he needed to look where he was going whilst the rest of us dove for cover behind the parapet, he called for a helmet.

Could be flak jackets later... - Brian"

Steve | © Claire Bailey 2004

Day 7 Begins: Our lucky day?

Cheyenne gains on Orange 2002 Day 6 position as Equator nears

Tradewinds South...

Chased by Geronimo to the Cape Verde Islands and the Equator

"A good, fast night of sailing under big genaker and main. We dropped the big one at dawn on account of too much wind, and put up the newly repaired blast. Shortly thereafter we dropped it again to make adjustments to the leach cord, flung it back up and sailed for several hours before switching back to the big one. An energetic morning in the sail trim department.

This big sail is the workhorse of our inventory when we are sailing free like this. In 20 kts. of wind it takes a lot of talent and concentration to avoid overloading it. A misjudged wave, or a lapse in judgement, will put us too close to the wind, and increase the apparent wind load on the sail to the point where it explodes! Not a happy thought, with all this VMG running in our future. At the moment though, the angle is good, and the speed is intoxicating. "

Day 5: Wind, Sea and Stars...

Watch Captain Brian Thompson reports on another busy day at the office

Working life aboard Cheyenne's RTW

"Day 5 was a good one, we fixed some potential problems, we saw some amazing sights and we finally got moving fast in the NE trades.

We got the blast reacher stitched up in the morning and had a good workout session getting it set on its luff rope to the correct tension. We rolled up the staysail, rolled out the solent, then furled the big reacher, hoisted the blast reacher, dropped it, hoisted it, dropped it, hoisted the big reacher, rolled the solent and then finally reset the staysail. We needed he exercise - and more importantly we reduced the luff tension on both of our gennakers, making them less prone to failure. Whirley thinks that the Cuben Fibre cloth shrinks about 3% over time so as this happened the sail was starting to take the halyard tension instead of the luff cables running up the luff of the sail.

Also in the morning Guillermo was looking around the deck and asked Dave if it was normal to see so much of a 2 inch diameter pin sticking out of the cap shroud link plate. The answer was no, the pin was about to fall out! What had happened was that a small rope used to hold up the block to pull up the daggerboard had slid its way between the eye of the rigging terminal and the fork that it was attached to and gradually prised open the massive stainless steel fork, rather like ice opening up rock.

Fortunately we saw it and within the hour we had pulled the fork back together and Mike machined up with our 240v grinder a new solid pin to replace the split pin that had not managed to hold the fork together. It took a couple of gybes to unload to rigging on that side of the boat, and Jacques re-lead the rope holding up the block so it was not going to happen again.

We did plenty of other preventative maintenance jobs through the day, Dave took apart a block that was seizing, Nick and I tensioned up the bolts that hold the front beam bearings in place, and the entire boat was checked over.

As we were working on the rigging problem we saw the spouts of whales and passed only about 50m from one whale, which was steaming resolutely the other way, just breaking the surface as it headed NE towards Europe at about 5 knots. It was a great sight. Later in the day Jacques spotted a turtle. Last night was another great night for stargazing with Venus bright in the Western sky and another planet, we think Jupiter rising to the East.

As the day progressed we steadily got more breeze and now as dawn breaks we have a steady 20 knots of NE tradewinds which should reliably push us down towards the equator. We have full main and big gennaker up, and are sailing fast but keeping the loads off the gennaker to make sure it lasts the distance.

All the best - Brian"

Adrienne briefing the duty watch: Mike, Fraser and Justin
© Nick Leggatt 2004

End Day 5: Sailing South Again

Night Sees Cheyenne Heading for Equator

Tropic of Cancer Looms Ahead

Still heading W/SW; rig doesn't fall down

"Sailing West, we have crossed the zone of weakest winds. Wind speeds are now back over 10 knots and should steadily climb to 15-20. The Blast Reacher repair is complete - after 24 hours of sewing the head of the sail back on. Now we are feeling better about the days to come."

Good Catch! | © Nick Leggatt 2004

"The sun rose on the sparkling sea this morning, to reveal that our rig was about to fall down. Guillermo Altadill, walking forward after his trick on the helm, happened to look up, and noticed that the large pin securing a link plate in the shrouds, had wandered part of the way out of it's mounting. Pausing briefly for a few Hail Mary's, we jibed, took a hammer to it, and restored our rigging to it's normal integrity. At some time, probably during our fifty knot upwind slog to the start, the split pin securing the big rigging pin in place had sheared, and the big pin had been slowly leaving the boat ever since. Had we jibed and unloaded the pin, our return jibe might have been made memorable by the graceful descent of the rig and sailplan. Thanks to the sharp eyed Catalan, we are not, at this writing, paddling to the Canaries.

Sailing today is pleasant, but not very fast. We are sailing downwind angles, jibing on shifts. The wind has picked up some this morning, but the pace is still a bit docile. Adrienne assures that we are sailing into more wind, and we hope she is right. No accurate position fix on OdK. We expect that he is totally becalmed somewhere around Madeira, wishing he had taken up accountancy in his youth, rather than sailing."

"This is where experienced crew pays off: the pin problem was concealed by black taping and was recognized only by a bulge in the tape. The crew set about securing the cap shroud pin so the problem does not recur"

Day 4 Ends: Cheyenne covers further 130+ miles overnight

Past 12 hours primarily devoted to getting position west

End Day 3: Nearer Madeira

So far a good ride on the milkrun South for 'Cheyenne'

Guillermo Altadill | © Stuart Radnofsky 2004

Watch Captain Brian Thompson on Day 3's run to Madeira:

"At present we have the standby team working with our sailmaker Paul van Dyke (Whirley) on the head of the blast reacher sail, the head having broken just a foot down from the top. He is putting on a lot more webbing reinforcement to take the massive loads on this heavily loaded sail. There is a lot of punching of holes in the material followed by handsewing. Whirley estimated that it could take 3 standby watches to fix, 12 hours. We are going to work non stop on it. Fortunately its not a sail that we need right now and it should be stronger than ever when we are done.

Today dawn is just breaking at 730 in the morning, we are at 15w so the sunrise is an hour later than if we had been at the longitude of Greenwich, the temperature is starting to rise and we are wearing thermals and foul weather gear, the middle layers having been put away for ten days or so. The sailing is smooth and fast, the seas are flat and the beam wind is speeding us along under full main and solent. As soon as it gets a little brighter we should see the islands of Madeira on our starboard side, a scenic bonus I amlooking forward to. I have only stopped once at these islands, about 20 years ago."

Brian
www.brianthompsonsailing.com

Paul 'Whirley' Van Dyke - Sailmaker

Day 2-1/2 position

Heading for Madeira

Day 3 begins

Heading South again

We've got company...

Day 2 Progress:

Slow through the High at midday, then improving speed this afternoon and evening

Tactical duel With Mother Nature continues as Cheyenne seeks Trades

Steve Fossett called in earlier tonight to report:

"We didn't actually stop for lunch, but we did hit an unexpected pocket of High pressure earlier today - and have missed one of our weather gate options. But we are finally going again and plan to head West until later tonight, when we will turn South and head straight for the Canaries, where we expect to pick up the Trades and a strong ride South. We'll be satisfied to get to the equator 8-1/2 days from the start."

Mark Featherstone in the galley | © Nick Leggatt 2004

Cheyenne - 1st RTW Day Completed

Tactical Drive South Continues
Brian Thompson Reports on Day 1

"!It was a memorable start. Some of the most difficult sailing we have ever had on Cheyenne was in the trip to the start line. We left Plymouth at sunset beating into the wind to Ushant. As the night progressed the wind built to 50 knots and then to 60 knots and we reefed down to only a triple reefed main, and tried to maintain the slowest speed possible, about 5 knots , just to stop the boat from leaping off the short steep seas. The tide was flowing in the opposite direction to the wind so that made the seastate particularly bad. The spume from the waves was blowing in spectacular white streaks in the moonlight.

This lasted for about 5 hours and then conditions improved to a mere 35 knots and we were able to start making progress to the line from our position in mid English Channel.

We saw the island of Ushant quite clearly in the bright moonlight and got to within about 5 miles before the timekeeper standing on one of the 2 main lighthouses could see us. He took bearings on us as we approached and at 5.10 he called us as having crossed the line. We had 2 reefs and the storm jib and were making 18-20 knots in a wind on the beam. The seas were still big from the SW so we had to keep the speed below 20 knots to protect the boat from the waves.

There was no great emotion at the start, we had had a rough night and it was taking all our concentration to keep the boat safe, we just had a good look at the island slipping past us to leeward, thats where we have to come back to after 60+ days.

We knew conditions were going to moderate through the day so during the day we slowly pulled up more sail. Now it is sunset on the first day and we have the full main and big gennaker up in a light breeze. The ridge of high pressure we were expecting has slipped over us from the south giving us light winds from astern. As the night passes we can expect the wind to shift more into the north and tomorrow we will be on the other gybe sailing in a Southerly wind. This first 3 days of our trip are going to be very tricky, there was the big wind at the start which we have overcome, next is the ridge of light air tonight, and tomorrow we have to shoot out to the west to skirt around a low pressure that is heading from the Azores to the Canaries. Once we have gone past these obstacles we will be in good running conditions to the equator, and we should be able to get back most of the time we will lose at the beginning.

All is good on board, we are starting to eat today, as it was tooo rough for the first 18 hours after leaving Plymouth. Justin Slattery the new crewman was amazed at how much these big cats twist and move in the rough seas, I suppose the rest of us are used to it, but the motion in the upwind conditions is incredible as the hulls lurch fore and aft as the waves pass by."

Cheyenne Making Good Progress Through First 1/2 Day

Fossett and Team Encountering Expected High Pressure Ridge Crossing the Bay of Biscay

"The first hurdle was to get to the start line by this morning. The next one will be to get through this High. The third hurdle will be to get west and south to catch the front.

The next 9 - 10 hours will be slow - I have spoken to Adrienne and Steve at about 1800z and so far we are getting exactly what we expected."

They're Off!

'Cheyenne' Crosses Start Line at Ouessant 05:10 35 seconds GMT

RTW Record Adventure Officially Begins

Steve Fossett reported early this morning:

"We crossed the line at Ouessant Island at 5:10 and 35 seconds. It wasn't even easy to get to the start from Plymouth. We sailed upwind overnight with windspeeds up to 46 knots with gusts to 59 knots.

The official observer from WSSRC told us that in order to break the record of Orange we need to finish by April 11 13:46 and 59 seconds. That's a reminder that it is a long way around the planet."