The soldiers line up!

Greetings everyone as all the pieces begin to drop into place for no doubt another action packed VESTAS SAILROCKET speed session.

Tomorrow will mark the beginning of our second WSSRC ratified assault on the World Outright Speed Sailing Record. The rest of the team are currently on their way across the 400 odd kilometers of desert from the airport in Windhoek to the operations base here on the coast in Walvis Bay... along with Mike Ellison from the WSSRC.

We have been busy here co-ordinating all the bits and pieces necessary for such an attempt. Helena has been beating down the logistical mountain and chasing all those who need the whip...whilst I have been preparing the beast for what is to come. This has involved the careful modifications and fitting of the new curved main foil. It's quite a detailed process. Fitting fences is always a fiddly process on a straight foil let alone a curved one. We have three fences fitted at various angles and depths down the foil to prevent ventilation (air getting sucked down from the surface at high speed). Actually fitting the foil to the boat takes about a day and a half as we have to be very precise with every angle. The speeds and forces we are aiming to deal with are going to push this foil to its limits. In order to average around 51 knots down a course... we will need to be ready for peaks of around 55 knots, maybe more. Errors of a fraction of a degree will have a noticable effect. The lawn of the Walvis Bay Yacht Club was littered with Laser levels, digital inclinometers, rulers, foil alignment jigs and computer angle sensors. I hope Malcolm doesn't want to change anything in the near future as it is a long winded process.

The old and the new. I'm back on the '0' carb diet to get below 75kg's (1 more to go)

There has been very little wind since we arrived leading some of the locals to question what we are doing here. I'm glad to say that it has returned. Yesterday was a glamorous day wind wise... but the tide was low... so strictly one for the windsurfers. Today it is going to honk!!! It's windy already and I reckon it will hit near 30. Good ol' Walvis. Looks like we have hit it spot on. We have been here twice before at this time of year so we know it blows.

New team member Alex adams from Weymouth has been getting to grips with the boat as against his normal steed which is a Foiling Moth. This is going to be an interesting couple of months for Alex.

He can be seen here touching up the 'Down' flaps on the inboard end of the beam which will help keep an aerodynamic down-force inboard end of the beam at speed. You can see the larger outboard flap near Alex's left shoulder.

The wing-sail has been shrunk down with a heat gun and we are preparing to fit it to VESTAS SAILROCKET before it gets too windy. We hope to be ready for sailing tomorrow but we won't quite be in record setting mode as we will need to dial in all the rudder/control systems to the new foil. Hopefully we are heading in the right direction with this one. It might take a few days to get it sorted... but once it is, bloody well look-out because we're not going to hold back. We are here to finish this once and for all.

Let's see what happens,

Cheers, paul