Fedor bids 'au revoir' to the 'Furious Fifties' latitudes

April 28, 2008 by www.antarcticacup.com | 0 comments

Day 92: Fedor Konyukhov crossed Sanders Gate (90°E) overnight and now has the finish of the inaugural Antarctica Cup Ocean Race in sight – on his charts at least!

Day 92: Fedor Konyukhov crossed Sanders Gate (90°E) overnight and now has the finish of the inaugural Antarctica Cup Ocean Race in sight – on his charts at least!
The 56 year old Russian adventurer, who has spent the last 40 days in the freezing ‘Furious Fifty’ latitudes (between latitude 50S and 60S), is now within 1,600 miles of the Albany finish line, and sprinting towards the Antarctica Cup Racetrack exit gate (45°S, 105°E) at 11knots.
By the time Fedor’s 85ft yacht Trading Network Alye Parusa gets above 40°S in six days time, he is likely to have chalked up another record for spending 52 days inside the ‘Roaring Forty’ latitudes.
Konyukhov is hopeful of reaching the finish line in King George Sound on May 8 but knows that a lot can happen between now and then – especially if the winds fail to play their part.
Following problems with the yacht’s main communications system, Fedor spoke to his shore team over his spare Iridium hand-held satellite phone, pulled from his survival grab bag,
“The troubleshooting procedure shows that there is a problem with the antenna which, battered by following seas during the past week, has now given up. The line is clear with the portable sat phone but the one disadvantage is that I can only get a satellite signal when calling on deck. There is no coverage inside the boat.
The last 24 hours were quite challenging, after enduring strong northerly winds for almost 100 hours, someone turned the switched off. It was that sudden, dropping from 45knots to 0.5knots within minutes. The ocean swell continued, but the boat was left with no power at the mercy of the waves and the mainsail crashed from side to side. Before I could drop it, one of the stainless steel connecting pins attaching the mainsail to the luff traveler on the mast broke, and is now rubbing on the carbon mast. I have tried to unscrew the broken part, but so far this has been unsuccessful. The remaining bit is too short to get at with pliers. I have several spare pins and just have to continue working on the problem until it is fixed.
I am finally heading towards the turning mark at 105°E. The long range forecast suggests that I may have to sail east of this in order to lay Albany. Before the winds dropped, they delivered an unbelievable amount of snow up to 10cm thick on deck. The bottles of fresh water I keep in the cockpit were also frozen. I can easily imagine the conditions the first polar explorers experienced and can only hope to be out of these refrigerator conditions soon.”