The factory is in full flight

Hi all,

well as I sit here in a wind-embraced container on the coast of Africa, the vac pumps and hair dryers are whirring away in the background doing their magic on various pieces of composite. We can do these repairs now with our eyes shut. i actually don't want to make the repairs too strong as I would like to keep the damage contained... as this was. The beam is already mostly repaired as is the wing. We could be sailing within one week of the damage... but we won't be.

We will take this opportunity to do a full revision of the back of the boat. We would dearly love to get away from the complex and confusing system currently in place and move to something much simpler. We are looking ata variety of systems where we can use one rudder, slung under the rear planing surface to reduce ventilation, that can swing through 20 degrees for low speed work (foot steering) and then go to a 4 degree range (hand steering) for high speed work. That is a very brief summation of the variety of tasks it needs to perform. We are also considering having a temporary fixed skeg in place a safety system whilst we trial the new steering.

The fact is that we have never had a high speed round-up as long as we have had a fixed skeg in place. We have had reduced steerage through ventilation... but that has not resulted in smashed up boat. On Run 50 we had the Low-speed rudder tear off and take the skeg 'fixing' point with it... so we made the two systems fully independent. This time the aft planing surface tore off and took both systems out. Despite making 99% of the planing surface stronger... a weakness at the very leading edge lead to water getting between the hull and the planing surface and this tore it down. Normally this would ride higher and cleaner over 30 knots but due to the new shape... this wasn't the case... and here we are listening to vac pumps and hair dryers!!!

the good news is that our new team member 'Gorgeous' George has taken three months time out from Southampton University. He is here with us and right on the case of designing the new back end...and... malcolm is currently on a bus and only a few hours away from Walvis Bay. We are going to throw everything we have at getiing this boat to work. the back end is now a clean sheet of paper. firstly we will focus on reliable control. forget 50 for the moment... let's do 45 knot average runs with ease. Then 50 will come.

Cheers, Paul.