Starting off on the right foot

by Tony Bullimore on 6 Feb 2001 Prediction: Team Legato will be within 1,000 miles of Polish rivals by
Wednesday.

Tony Bullimore reports: 'The first job of the day was to repair Paul Larson'
s Walkman. One of the earphones had come off and it took us a little while
to solder it back. To do so, we had to turn the pod into a workshop. During
this delicate operation I dropped some solder on one of Jason Owen's socks.
Unfortunately, he was wearing it at the time.
He gave out a great yell. When we finished the repair, we set about the
equally delicate task of removing the solder from our navigator's sock.
After some debate it was agreed to use the soldering iron to re-melt the
metal. It worked, but not without burning an even bigger hole in Jason's
sock. He was not too happy about this either, but the rest of us could not
start laughing and eventually, Jason too saw the funny side of things.
A case perhaps of starting the day off on the right foot!

On a more serious note, the day has started with excellent winds and a very
kindly sea. We have been smoking along at around 25 knots, going up to 30
knots at times without any trouble. TEAM LEGATO is performing extremely
well - There is no doubt, she is a very strong boat and romps along in very
robust conditions. Rob Salvidge has spent time on deck taking photos of
Freddie Dahirel's brilliant helming. There is no doubt that he sets a
benchmark for the rest of us to try and match.

The barometer is reading 1016 and holding steady. We have a fast moving Low
700 miles south west of us which is moving East. We are trying to sit on
it's north east corner. There has to be a balance to our course. One thing
for sure; we do not want to sail away from it - it is giving us fair winds
to keep moving in the right direction. But at the same time we do not want
to go further South. This would take us closer to the centre of the Low and
the bigger seas would slow us down. If we play it right, we believe that
we will be within a thousand miles
of our Polish rivals on Warta Polpharma by Wednesday.'

Team Legato - Zulu Quebec Yankee Alpha Niner