Amazing recovery

Cheyenne covered 457 miles yesterday as her crew fixed the forestay

Position at 05h10GMT: 42deg 01.220S 08deg 06.820E
Course/speed: 106 deg 21.9 knots
TWS/TWA: 20 knots 236 degs

Hats off to the ingenious crew of Cheyenne who over the course of yesterday were able to effect a repair to the broken forestay fitting - presumably connecting it to the forward beam. Exactly what part of the forestay broke hasn't been revealed. Cheyenne is believed to use a Kevlar rod forestay. Fortunately the crew had on board enough spares on board to manage this while ploughing through the Southern Ocean.

Remarkably as they were doing this, the maxi-cat was forging on and in the 24 hours up until 0510 GMT covered an impressive 457 miles. The boat was on starboard gybing heading ENE for Cape Town and since fixing the forestay have gybed south again.

"Today has been a happy surprise. I thought for a while we were out of business, but we kept going. While under repair, at first we used just the staysail, then later when we were more confident we put up the blast reacher. The repaired forestay is supporting at original strength, although we can no longer put the Solent on the roller furler, so we'll need to hoist it now."

Versus Orange's record they are some 400 miles ahead of it and are lying considerably further south.

Weather-wise the maxi-cat is diving southeast in order to avoid a high pressure that is racing down from the northwest and could easily engulf them.