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Race Recon is an international venture capital firm that invests in high-risk high-speed athletes and expeditions. We are a team of experienced finance, risk management, marketing and extreme sports professionals that have a hands-on approach and assists in building world-class athletes and expedition teams, like Crossing the Ditch.
Case Study - Crossing the Ditch
Day 3 - 15 Nov 2007
Expedition Analysis
Crossing the Ditch have elegantly surfaced from a critical and potentially costly period of the trip but it's not over yet.
We started as discussed in the CTD Blog with an intense phone call focused on the trade off of getting the guys some well deserved rest after 12 hrs in the cockpit and preventing Lot 41 from getting caught in a current that would sweep them back towards Australia and away from their intended destination, New Zealand. Getting caught in that current could have cost the guys a week or forced them to abort and try launching again next year.
The team woke up at 3am and started paddling at around 4:15am. From reports on the sked tonight, morale was very very low when they awoke. Each sked the guys report (on a scale of ten) what their physical and mental condition is. We use this daily report to monitor their physical and mental well being. Prevention is always better than cure in our books and if we can see a physical or mental issue escalating over time or we have concerns over their self-perceived condition we can take measures to prevent a safety incident occuring or schedule a 'huddle' to motivate the guys and remind them that the whole world is watching them attempt something that has never been concquered before.
They paddled all day long, around 15hrs in fact, in an effort to get further east and avoid getting caught. The guys did a phenominal job paddling in excess of 120km! They did such a good job that they may now be too far north and tonight could get swept north which could also potentially add a week on to the trip. Looking at the currents above you will note that the currents are creating a vacuum effect which may funnel Lot 41 150-200km north before the currents abated and gave them the opportunity to head east again.
If the team can paddle as close as possible to the waypoint gates marked above they should have a relatively easy (as far as easy gets 300km at sea in 3.5m waves) few days navigating through the east drifting current tunnel marked below. On the other side of this tunnel they will lose the assistance of the strong currents and be faced with a hard slog on to New Zealand.
The forecast for the next week is as follows:
WIND
Wind back to NE and NNE overnight.
First significant front expected next Thursday.
FORECAST for 34-35S and 154-157E
FRI 16 N-NNE/10-15; N/2 then E/2
SAT 17 NNW-N/16-22; E/2 then S/2 to the north and E/1 to the east.
SUN 18 N-NE/12-16;
MON 19 NE/10-15;
TUE 20 NE/17-23;
WED 21 NE-N/20-30
THU 22 SW-S/20-30
End of analysis
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