Nonfood items found inside the Albatross included;

5 Plastics Caps

1 strip of canvas

1 Wire Brush

1 metre of Monofilament

1 Pen Cap

1 Oyster Industry Spacer

2 Handfuls of Plastic

david@davidroseoffshore.com

or +64 21-737-116

1 An overview of the six week pilot education program Project Plastic Soup

dRo Project Plastic Soup program outline Final Draft 19.04.09

2. A video from PloMoMedia called Plastic Soup Don’t Eat The Fish

3. A video about the Velux 5 Oceans

4. A video about The Vendee Globe

This was a great experience for me as it was the first 100ft race yacht I had sailed on, in addition it was my first trans tasman crossing and I was sailing with one of New Zealand’s offshore legends, Ross Feild as skipper. I have to say Ross was very obliging with the many questions I put to him regarding how he got his campaigns off the ground, thanks Ross! and good luck with your Americas Cup team.

Sadly the journey turned out to be very beautiful, but not very eventful as far as weather systems are concerned, I certainly learnt just how much grunt is required when it came to sail changes and when the mighty Code 0 went up, getting it down was something else with a delivery crew of only eight people.

All told a worthwhile sail and yet more miles and learning under my belt.

dR

Fitness: To physically handle the IMOCA 60 and all that entails including the huge sails (Up to 10 for an around the world race) requires a high level of specialized fitness, particularly upper body strength, balance and endurance.

Nutrition: As with fitness the energy or food that the solo sailor uses when, what and how much is essential to ensuring he/she has the ability to continue for months at a time at the highest level of peak performance.

Medical: In the middle of the Southern Ocean with only yourself to attend to any injuries sustained, the solo sailor has to be thorougly trained to be able to handle most potential incidences, from stitching your tongue back on, cuts, bruises, infections to dealing with a broken limp.

Sleep Management: Quite possibly the most important of all the disciplines, the solo sailor is required to manage his or her sleep continuously for months at a time. The average solo sailor will sllep for four to five hours in a twenty four hour period of which any given time os thirty to forty minutes, at wakening the sailor is required to be at peak performance straight away.

Meteorology: Understanding the weather and further being able to read, predict and determine angles, points of sail, sail plan etc is absolutley essential on board an IMOCA 60.

Navigation: As with meteorology, the solo sailor has no one else to discuss navigation strategy with, they are on their own and need to be able to couple the learnings from the meteorology, information from the navigation equipment and what is going on around them to determine the best and fastest route along with the right sails  and balance on the yacht.

Sailing and Seamanship: The Solo sailor does everything on board, from bowman, mastman, keyboard, helmsman, navigator, fix it person and everything in between, so a complete understanding of everything there is to know is essential to both speed and safety.

The Mind: Sports Psychology is essential for solo sailors, when the body wants to give up or have a break the mind must take over and ensure the level of competitivness is maintained at the highest level.

Mechanical / DIY Skills: The solo sailor is responsible for absolutely everything on board the yacht, so if anything goes wrong there is only you to fix it. Training for all onboard mechanicals is essential.

As with any rum race the key is fun and from the outset we were going to get heaps of that as we were definetely at the very end of the SR26’s wind range with gusts up to 30 knots. We had the smaller cruising main and the number 3 up, for the entire circuit we were treated to a lot of spray, a thumping upwind and a great sail downwind (no kites aloud), at one point as we were coming to round the second mark Jamie decided to chase the waves and we had a great ride until we realised we actually needed to round the mark.

As with all these races I gain more insight and learning each time out and I have to say it’s such a pleasure sailing with a crew as well schooled as these guys.
dR

The Coastal Classic Yacht Race from Devonport Wharf to Russell Wharf in the Bay of Islands, is New Zealand’s premier fleet yacht race and has been held annually at Labour weekend since its inception in 1982.

The original concept was the inspiration of Roger Dilley from the then Auckland Multihull Sailing Association (now the NZ Multihull Yacht Club) loosely based on the speed record attempts by power boats dating back to the 1920’s over the same course.

Roger’s original idea developed into being a full on drag race with the first boat into Russell being the overall winner. AMSA then put the challenge out to all multihull and keeler owners to join this non-stop race to the bar in Russell, push their boats and crews to the max and overall have an exhilarating fun weekend.

Twelve intrepid skippers and crews took up the challenge and when Roger put the final magic touch to the race by dreaming up the name – the “Coastal Classic” had arrived. The fleet was divided into one multihull division and several monohulls, by length but no handicap. Boats ranged in size from the Peter Williams’ 62 foot Fidelis down to Alex and Mathew Flynn’s 24-foot trimaran Gulf Chariot.

The inaugural Coastal Classic Yacht Race began in light conditions at 0900hrs Saturday October 23rd with monohull Fidelis leading the fleet past North Head. Multihulls Krisis and Sundancer got into the action as the winds freshened once out of the inner harbour with their match racing and fierce competitiveness from there onwards setting the scene for all Coastal Classic races to come.

Krisis, skippered by Duncan (Cookie) Stuart was the first boat into Russell and his record of 18 hours was not broken for 4 years, although the armchair experts thought it would be easily broken. Andrew Wallace on his Farr 11.6 keeler Hawkeye waved the flag for the monohulls by finishing a creditable 50 minutes behind the first two speedy multis.

Headlines and quotes from 1982 -

“Where do you sleep on these things?” – “You don’t!”
( Experienced offshore skipper Ray Hasler asks Cookie Stuart of Krisis )
Tense Battle for Honours – (8 O’Clock News)
Multi-hulls show way – (Russell correspondent)
Krisis scoots in 3 hours clear – (NZ Herald)
Sundancer goes wrong way – (NZ Herald)
A Thrash from Devonport to Russell – ‘Terrific! In the middle of Piercy channel at midnight. The foam on rocks is only yards away. Ray, couldn’t we just go about now…..pleeease?’ (Shane Kelly from Seaspray onboard Krisis’)