Brasil 1 retires

Team give up trying to make Eclipse Island under sail reports Knut Frostad plus photos of their jury rig

Finally we had to give in, and officially Brasil 1 has now retired from leg 2. Obviously we could not make it to Melbourne, but for a while, we thought we could make it with the jury rig to the scoring gate at Eclipse Island. However, we are running out of time to make it for the inshore race, and even the restart of Leg 3 from Melbourne.

When we dropped the mast, I thought, thank God we're close to Australia. But 1,500 nm is a lot when you only have a six metre tall mast. It's taking longer than we hoped. Although we are getting a tow in about 24 hrs from now from a fishing boat, we will most likely get hammered with gale force winds from the southeast close to the Australian coast, and then we will have to wait for high tide to lift the boat out. By the time we have the keel off and get the boat on the truck, it could very well be 28th January. Then truck the boat across Australia, and hopefully arrive on the 31st. And then there is getting our spare mast from Europe...

We have three days to repair the boat, mount all loose fittings on the mast, rig it, re-mount the keel again, launch the boat, step the mast, tune the rig and be ready for the inshore race on 4 February.

Obviously we won't be 100% ready. We will have to prioritise what's important for inshore racing and what's more critical for the leg to Wellington. It's going to be tough, and for once we really need to have luck on our side. We pray that all custom officers, handling agents, truck and crane drivers, traffic police and kangaroos will be on our side
for the next ten days. We can not afford any delays anywhere.

So what's life on board these days? Since we retired from the race we have been partly sailing, partly motoring. We only have fuel for 36 hrs, so we have to be smart. Stu (Wilson) has made a serious fishing line, but so far it has only been a couple of albatrosses sniffing on it. We hope to get some fresh Tuna from the fishing boat meeting us tomorrow night. The card games on the computers on board are running nonstop. Chuny (Roberto Bermudez) is studying the sailing rules in English, Marcello (Ferreira) is
constantly playing with his food bags, and we have received hundreds for supporting messages from all our friends and families onshore - thanks a lot, it helps!

We have also started to remove all fittings from the broken rig, and prepare for the repairs to be done onshore. The mood is good, except when we receive the scheds and get the painful reminder that we are out of the leg. It's getting warmer by the hour and no need for sleeping bags anymore. We have been told that we better take good care of our freeze-dried food as we can't afford any other food ashore.. we should probably do some serious negotiations with the fishermen tomorrow?

For sure it won't be any holiday for us in Australia this time. Disappointing, as it is a favourite place to take time off, but on the other hand, we're not really in the mood for taking a long break now - we need to get back in the game. At least we will be well rested when we hit the shore.

From Brasil 1, Knut Frostad – Watch leader

More photos on the following pages...