The forecast is predicting winds from 19-25 knots and it has been pretty spot on for the past few days. The tides are perfect and VESTAS SAILROCKET sits patiently waiting outside. Big things can happen on days that start like this.

I feel that it will be my job today to try and rein it all back in a little. I will not go out there with a view to maxxing the boat out on the first run. We have only done one run so far and although it all looks good... we must remain cautious. I'm thinking that maybe we should focus on the nautical mile record as the required average is lower and therefore less risky. We have seen that we can do it on the Walvis Bay course... but only just. Our first attempt saw us stroll through the mile at an easy 36. something knots in mild winds. It would be good to get this under our belt before pushing for the higher speeds and associated risks of the Outright record. No doubt we will be learning and refining along the way. This can all change depending on the way the days weather develops.

Hight tide this afternoon is at near on 4 p.m. It won't be until around 6 p.m. that the tide starts to really fly out  of the lagoon. We need a strong outgoing tide as this makes the water run with the wind and hence makes it flatter out in the channel. The flat water in the channel is necessary because I need to use the entire 1.04 nautical miles of 'speed-spot' at full speed in order to do a good nautical mile average and hence I over-run the beach at the end at high speed and slow-down out in the channel. I don't want to hit a mogul course at 45 knots. I then need to sail for another mile across the lagoon to get to a beach where we can de-rig VESTAS SAILROCKET.

You can see in the above picture that the speed course isn't perfectly straight and this has an effect on the course sailed over a nautical mile if you want to stay in flat water. The closest place to park VESTAS SAILROCKET when I miss the end of the course is on the beach at the left hand side of the pic running vertically up the page. It's a bit of a saga that does nothing for quick turn-around-times. If the wind does hit it's predicted 25 knots then it will probably be around the time of high tide and therefore it will be both too windy and too rough to attempt the mile. We'll see.

BRIGHT SPARKS WANTED

On another note... for those of you who might be looking for work relating to our field... then it just so happens that one of our Team members/sponsors/designers, AEROTROPE, is currently looking for someone with the right skills to join his dynamic company and assist in a wide range of interesting projects... which will no doubt involve plenty of stuff relating to speed sailing and its ongoing development amongst other things. If you are interested then look at the following http://aerotrope.wordpress.com/vacancies/ and go from there. Who knows, the person that reads this now might be on his/her way down to Namibia in the not-so-distant future!

Righto, let's go. All the team is here and the show is on.

Cheers, Paul