Yesterday Canadian Ocean Racer, Derick Hatfield, rounded cape horn safely. He's past the most dangerous point on the whole circumnavigation, and is headed for the next stopover port in Brazil.
He has had a challenging race. The first leg from L'oreant France to Cape Town South Africa started nicely, then he appeared to gybe to early and had less wind then the boats that went further off shore. The second leg he promised to be more competitive and it looked really good. He was first out of the port of Cape town, and was challenging for second place for much of the leg. Then the Polish skipper, Gutek, chose a better route into Wellington New Zealand and beat him in by a day or so. In this third leg he has rounded the horn and is within 20 miles of the second place boat. All the boats except for the Leader, Brad Vanlou are having issues on this leg. The keel on Guteck's boat in moving several millimeters from side to side due to a broken component on the outside of the hull. He has had to throttle down to stay safe. Derick has engine issues that lead to low power available for the boats pilots and navigation equipment, as well as a leak in a forward compartment. Then there is Chris Steinmouth Major. He has had a ripped main sail that resulted in a marathon sail repair session. He posted an excellent video of his work at the link below. Chris has consistently done good video and written blog posts. See them at the same site.
http://www.velux5oceans.com/#/latest-news/csms-sewing-marathon/1562
It looks like this will be Derick's last race. He has made several comments that he feels he has done what he needs to do with ocean racing. Time to go back to his young family and retire from his second career. He's not done yet though. The last leg from Brazil up to France is still to come. Hopefully he can cross the line with a second place instead of the string of thirds that he has got so far.
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