General News - News from TJV Race
Date Posted: 14th November 2007 at 13:36 pm

Report from Shore Crew
The last 24 hours have been particularly interesting within the Class 40 fleet, with Fujifilm announcing that they have had to retire due to alternator problems, joining Ocean Warrior in the list of boats who will not be able to complete the race and the wind proving to make tactics ever important. As a result of the weather conditions the main fleet is being condensed back together, which is proving to be beneficial for the Concise sailors, Tom Gall and Dan Gohl.

Realising that both Tom and Dan are rising to the challenge of chasing the fleet, their sponsor Tony Lawson is hoping that they will ‘have a chance to pick up a few places, whilst there are still a group of boats to the west going nowhere’

Among the boats stuck to the west are fellow English sailors, Simon Clarke and David Lindsay on board Clarke Offshore Racing, along with EDF Energies and Nous Entreprenons.

So clearly, it’s still all to play for within the Class 40 fleet.
Report form Concise 49
‘Monday was a good day for us on Concise. We had a nice 'warm' north easterly all day helping us to hit 16kts boat speed at times! It was a good feeling when you know that the boats to the south west of you are doing 4kts! Hopefully we can now get some pay back after our disappointing first week.

We have now gybed on to starboard and are heading 230 with good boat speed and it's a really nice angle for the Code 0. The repair to the spinnaker is under way but it will take all day at least, maybe longer. Fingers crossed we have enough tape for the repair. Next waypoint for us will be the Cape Verde islands some 850 miles south off us.

It was a shame to hear that two boats have retired from the race due to gear failure. It brings it home to us that finishing this race is no easy feat. Resisting the temptation to push these boats to there limit is a challenge! You have to find that balance of pushing hard, but not break anything. Someone once told me 90% can sometimes be a 100%!!!’