"What matters most is that we all get to Fremantle (and ultimately Gosport) safely and do so in the spirit and manner of single-Service and tri-Service teamwork envisaged by the architects of Exercise Transglobe. So far, we are scoring exceptionally well in that area."
The three yachts representing the Navy (HMSTV Adventurer), Army (HMSTV Challenger) and RAF (HMSTV Discoverer) taking part in Leg 4 of Exercise TRANSGLOBE have around 2,000 nm to go to reach Perth, over half way through the toughest stretch so far for the TRANSGLOBE fleet.
On this particular leg, Discoverer (RAF) has a crew with a wide range of sailing experience on board including retired Air Marshal Sir Graham Anthony ‘Dusty’ Miller KBE, now a member of the Volunteer Reserves who just filed the following blog from Discoverer, or Disco as she’s known for short. Throughout this leg, Dusty’s and the other yachts’ blogs have been an inspiration, as well as a comfort to those of us back home. The reports have been full of details, quotable quotes and atmosphere as well as heartfelt ‘shout-outs’ from crew members to their loved ones back home. All the blogs can be read on the Blog pages linked from the home page at
www.exercisetransglobe.com
Excerpts from DISCO BLOG Tuesday 27 October 2009
“There is an almighty sense of achievement aboard as well as a slight sense of relief that we are at long last climbing slowly out of the Southern Ocean and into the warmer climes of the 2000 or so miles still to run towards Australia. The first week out of Cape Town seemed to deliver little progress while we battled to round the Agulhas Bank, and many of us were pleased to see Africa disappear in the metaphorical rear-view mirror. There then followed a period of chasing the wind, wishing for more wind then almost immediately wishing we had not done so, and again the milestones crept past very slowly. Now, having passed the nadir of the great circle route in the previous 24 hours, the wind has filled-in behind us and Disco is racing towards our destination potentially as little as 15 days ahead.
Adventure and Challenger have occupied a similar patch of this vast ocean to Disco throughout the trip so far albeit they had a little more luck with their weather decisions in the early weeks. The downside of being ahead was that they were the first to experience the dramatically horrible weather I described as a ‘bomb’ just over a week ago and we, hanging tactically in third place, were able to configure ourselves for the onslaught and just felt a little ruffled round the edges in the winds that touched Force 10, and literally huge seas. In the past couple of days, Disco has started to close the gap with our sister yachts by again taking a slightly different tactical approach to the wind and weather. Does any of this really this matter?
I think we would all like to be aboard the first yacht to cross the finish line at Fremantle but, and quoting one of the skippers during a week-one radio conversation, this is a marathon, not a sprint, and this applies to the year-long exercise just as much as it does to our own Leg 4. What matters most is that we all get to Fremantle (and ultimately Gosport) safely and do so in the spirit and manner of single-Service and tri-Service teamwork envisaged by the architects of Exercise Transglobe. So far, we are scoring exceptionally well in that area.
We have all had our share of technical problems even though the 3 yachts were very well prepared both from the outset in the UK and at each staging point along the way. Such is the nature of sailing the open oceans – even the most rugged installations are exposed to continual vibration, enormous physical stresses, salt water ingress including immersion, and downright pounding, so we should not be surprised when odds and ends decide to give up the ghost and stop playing.
Read any contemporary tale of ocean sailing or racing, the Vendee Globe being a good example, and you will read of exceptionally well prepared yachts suffering all manner of breakdown just days out from their home port let alone in the depths of the Southern Ocean.
Disco’s troubles have included the water maker which, to put it crudely, takes in sea water and squeezes it at very high pressure through a filter to provide potable drinking water. Ours stopped working and in an instant both Adventure and Challenger independently volunteered to sacrifice their lead in order to provide us with water.