Jaro has arrived. The yacht too. Jaro's condition is better than his yacht's.

Semptember 26th 2007

I am sorry for the delay, but after Jaro's arrival I had to switch from a PR specialist to a shore team member. I started with the estimations of the damages on the boat, listened to a detailed account on the efficiency of the devices and all new "inventions", which could not be tested thoroughly before the race.

General grade : B, perhaps with a little plus;).

We finally know what was the reason of Jaro's results (56 th place in general classification and 39 th place in Proto) in the first leg of Mini Transat. It was the yacht. Or - to be more precise - what happened with the yacht after an unidentified object had hit it.

According to Jaro: "I heard a hollow sound, as if something would have hit the left shipboard and after a while the left rudder. I don't know if it was a big fish or a sea mammal, but for sure it was nothing hard. I jumped from the interior of the boat and started to estimate the losses (it was dark and the automatic rudder was turned on). Holding a torch in my hand I started to check what had happened. The yoke and the steering skeg were in their place, but soon afterwards the servo-motor started to produce strange sounds. I separated it from the tiller and then I felt resistance at the rudder. And then all started.

The blow caused a deformation of the left yoke's lower ferrule. That is why the rudders lost convergence and resistance at the rudder occured. The servo-motor also got a huge "kick", hence these strange sounds. I immediately had to use the spare one. However, it also got worn out quickly.

Only in the daylight could I properly assess the whole situation. I discovered that the steering skeg got damaged, which was unnoticeable at night. I tried to straighten the ferrule with the tools available on the boat, but I needed probably a crowbar to do it well. My leg turned out to be the heaviest tool on the yacht . I straightened the yoke by kicking it as hard as I could. There was nothing left to do."

Due to the resistance at the rudder Jarek couldn't raise his best sails until the end of the race. With the wind coming from behind it was impossible to fully explore the potential of the boat. Because of the resistance also the servo-motor worked hard, using double amount of energy. After a few hours steering the boat manually became a nightmare.

Answering the question whether I could have done better I am replying: "Yes".

Greets from Madera,
Marek Goły Gałkiewicz