"Jere Lull" wrote in message
news:2008111121584027544-jerelull@maccom...
"Battling" 10 foot seas and 20 kt winds? Battling? Good grief. It makes
it sound like he was beset with a typhoon and 150 kt winds. If he were
to finish, he'd have accomplished nothing.
20 knots is a welcome occurrence to most of the world-travellers I've
followed. That such caused equipment failure points to other problems in
the equation of equipment and crew.

Don't blame Zac for the journos hype - they're the ones trying to make a
hero out of him.
Zac's own words when describing the conditions we "I was going between
6-7 knots in a nice 25 knot Indian Ocean trade on the aft quarter. ... I
switched on the spreader lights and found my gennie 15 feet from the boat
held by the furling line and the sheet. It looked like a spinnaker."
(quoted from his blog on www.zacsunderland.com)

He goes on to describe a bit of a battle getting the sail furled. I can
identify with that - furling a hanked on genny is quite a handful in 25 kt
and with a wrecked roller furler must have been quite a challenge.

I agree that he has had rather more outside support than is normal but I was
listening to the Volvo Ocean Race crew at the weekend and they have
considerably more external support. Their bosses know where they are every
15 minutes and virtually rebuild the boat in every port!

John.