We’ve been having problems with transmissions on board and as a consequence we can’t get phone calls, nor the weather reports, neither send photos nor video. We can only send out short texts through the Sat-C.
But more important than that, we want to let you all know we are in good health, and even if we can not communicate with our families, each of us wants to send a big hello to each of our beloved ones. We hope we can get this sorted out asap, we can’t wait to hear their voices and read their mails. There’s still a long way ahead.
Day 8 and after five days of sailing in 20 knots wind, some gear has started to fail and break. The truth is we are really amused, but not in the best way one could imagine, for the time invested in repairing things could be used for getting the boat to sail faster for example.
Sailing without having the possibility to neither receive nor send data is quite difficult. Jean Luc is really limited in his work for he can’t download any data, let alone preview or work out the route for the near future.
But Jean Luc and I are really focused in the reparation work.
We got in touch with Race Control to report our problem and they immediately started giving us indications. But our equipment is still not working and we don’t know why.
As far as the boat is concerned, it goes really well, except the line which holds the base of the outrigger broke last night, so we have a new hole on the deck.
Ñeti got on the reparation work straight away; this leg the guy is really busy.
Willy’s hand is better now, not as swollen, and it hurts less as well.
Rob, one of our watch captains, said: “We are Day 8 into the leg, midway towards the trade winds. The truth is that we are sailing really well. All the boats are breaking things, so we are all sort of in the same game. Nothing is easy on board, and the speed of the boat isn’t the best. Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing made some miles on us. We have a lot of work to do and must keep in the battle.”
#vamosMAPFRE
Fran Vignale