Team Legato reports from The Race

by Barry Pickthall on 5 Feb 2001 TEAM LEGATO slices another 201 miles out of Polish lead as crew celebrate
passing Cape of Good Hope with a cake.

As TEAM LEGATO reeled in a further 201 miles on their Polish rivals on
Warta Polpharma over the past 28 hours, Tony Bullimore reflects on a good
week heightened by a cake baked specially to celebrate passing into the
Indian Ocean.

Tony reports: “The last few days have been hectic. We have sailed out of the
south Atlantic into the Southern Ocean, down to around 47S. It has been
exhilarating sailing, with TEAM LEGATO reaching speeds in excess of 30 knots
at times.

At the start of the race in Barcelona, we had to pack away all the food for
the race. This had to be carefully considered because there are 10 of us
that have to be fed for anything up to
75 days whilst we are racing around the world. My wife Lalel and Judith, the
wife of American crewman Mike Gettinger, took responsibility for organizing
this. They were given lots of help, particularly from several English
holidaymakers who rolled up their sleeves and got stuck in for a week. These
were David Stutchfield, Gill and Godfrey Whitehouse and Georgina Owen, the
wife of our navigator Jason. They were ace, working relentlessly into the
night to ensure everything was sorted. To top it off they got a wonderful
fruitcake made by Georgina's mother who lives in the Lake District, England.
This, they called the Cake of Good Hope and it was quite natural to cut it
up into ten large pieces when we crossed the longitude of the Cape of Good
Hope on Friday. Everybody really enjoyed this treat. To eat homemade cake
after weeks of dehydrated food was fantastic.

On another bright note, I am pleased to report that we have taken more miles
out of Warta Polpharma. THE RACE office which calculate the official
distances to go of all the competitors say that we are now 1,143 miles
behind. . This is tremendous when you consider that we were over 2,000 miles
behind them 6 days ago. The weather is typical for this time of year. We
have a Low-pressure system south of us and are around 700 miles from its
centre. We are reaching fast in around twenty-five to thirty knots of
breeze. Through some serious sized waves. I had TEAM LEGATO up to 32 knots
this morning. She felt quite comfortable. The boat is really holding
together quite well although we have one or two minor problems. Freddie had
to climb about 15ft up the mast to attend to a broken batten car and Paul
Larson and myself had to
re-lash the liferaft after they came loose. Apart from that all our other
problems are trivial.
The crew had a bit of a laugh at my expense a couple of days ago when I came
up on deck not properly dressed to see what was going on. An enormous wave
came crashing across the boat and soaked me to the skin. It took me all day
to get dry or should I say back to a damp position again.
Apart from that, It is good to be back down in the Southern Ocean.”




Leading positions at 11:00 GMT today
1. Club Med 10,545 miles to finish – Passed thru’ Cook Strait 2.02.01
2. Innovation Explorer +653miles – Cook Strait 3.02.01
3. Team Adventure 4,281 miles – LEFT CAPE TOWN ON 26.01.01
4. Warta Polpharma 5,060miles
5. Team Legato 6,204 miles Position: 47 31’ S; 34 32’ E
6. PlayStation – RETIRED 14.01.01

For further details, pictures and daily audio feed from the boat, contact
Barry Pickthall at the Team Legato Race office
Mobile Phone: +44 (0) 7768 395719