Greetings all,

well we have been kept pretty busy dotting the 'i's' and crossing the 't's'. All the TRIMBLE GPS timing gear arrived yesterday and getting all this sorted out is a mission in its own right. We have had some fantastic help from local surveyor Dirk Bindeman who has helped us putting it all together. Dirk has marked out a 500 metre course here on the Esplanade walk way using traditional surveying means. We will then check the accuracy of our TRIMBLE system against it to make sure it is within 5cm as specified by the WSSRC.

Whilst George and Helena try and get their heads around this system and all the data that it will spew forth, I am flat out trying to fit it all to VESTAS SAILROCKET in a neat and practical manner. The final stages are outside the container curing now.

It's been a slightly stressful week as we try and tie together all the loose ends which involves people running around in various continents e-mailing, skyping, couriering(?), flying, driving, training, meeting etc. Most of it is coming together... some parts aren't.

The RIB decided to do a big end bearing at the last possible moment. Thanks to the WBYC and Namibian Sailing Association for supplying another whilst ours gets repaired. The onboard camera saga continues. The company we bought it off sent us a replacement to our last broken one... and this one didn't even turn on straight out of the box!!!! These things are supposed to be bullet proof. So take my advice if you are looking for something to record onboard footage... avoid the ACR10 like the plague. I hope that they will see fit to replace it with another option as otherwise... no onboard footage or audio from the coming month. After spending quite some time and money on this one... my humour has run out.

VESTAS SAILROCKET herself is looking great and we continue to work on all the little details. The wind tomorrow isn't looking that favourable but the rest of the week is shaping up alright. I reckon we might get some good initial runs in. Last night the forecast looked epic with Tuesday-Thursday providing winds of 22,25 and 29 knots. It looked too good to be true... appears it was as it has toned down quite alot on todays forecast already.

I don't mind, the Walvis wind-tunnel will turn on at some stage and we can still spend time making sure everything is absolutely ready.

On another note, I noticed on the WSSRC notice that ISAF have chosen to not allow kite powered craft to hold the outright record. My first (and current) reaction to this is that it is wrong. I look forward to hearing their detailed reasoning. I certainly consider them sailing craft and wouldn't consider our project to have reached its ultimate objective until we were faster than them. Outright fastest is outright fastest... as long as we are on the same playing field using the same forces then I consider it all fair game. I believe that the various classes within speed sailing need to be updated but... well I won't shoot off until I have all the info. It was a surprise... but then again not really... I mean this is the same body that dropped the Multi-hull category out of the next Olympics!!!

The WSSRC commissioner is on his way down here and should only be a few hours away... so it's all getting pretty exciting. This is what we have been working so hard for. It's taken years to get to this stage. A ridiculous amount of work really. If we manage to bang off a couple of big runs early and the control is there... then I really think we can make it over 50. I certainly believe we can become the fastest 'boat' in the world... but as mentioned... that's not our ultimate goal. We are doing this to be number one.

Cheers, Paul.