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American Joe Harris along with Roger Junet are competing in the Globe40, a multi-leg doublehanded round the world race in Class40s. Seven teams were at the beginning on June 26, with five teams now on the fourth leg from Auckland, New Zealand to Papeete, Tahiti.
After starting on October 29, Harris files this report from onboard GryphonSolo2 on October 31, 2022:
We are underway again, and while the days leading up to the start were typically hectic, we had a great sea trial the day before the start to test all our repairs and two new sails with marine electrician David Minors and rigger Andrew (Tiny) Duff. Tiny did a masterful job refurbishing our six Harken winches and then went on to re-build a number of damaged turning blocks and Spinlock clutches. Thank you Tiny!
When we returned from the sea trial, my wife Kim and sister Wendie had returned from the grocery store and ships chandler with a long list of food and supplies and set about re-organizing the boats small interior to “fit 10 pounds of sh#t in a 5 pound bag” as they say. Thank you Kim and Wendie!
On the day of the start, we got to the boat early to clear NZ Customs and cast off the dock at 10:30am for a noon start just off the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron clubhouse. GS2 had a “glamour” start according to shoreside sources as we took the gun and roared out the main channel on a tight reach that quickly turned into a beat in squally conditions.
GS2 took a left out “Rangi Channel” while the rest of the fleet kept going, and the wind and seas quickly built till we were in one reef in the main and the staysail (J2) in 25k of breeze and nasty sea state.
When we came back together with the fleet a few hours later, we were roughly even and proceeded to sail past the last few volcanic, lush green, deserted islands that pepper outer Auckland harbor before reaching the open South Pacific. – Read on
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