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6:14 AM Tue 13 Jan 2009 GMT
 | | 'Onboard Musandam - Day 1 Round the World record Attempt'
Oman Sail
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The crew on board Oman Sail's trimaran Musandam are having a dual celebration with the recent win of Oman's football team against Bahrain and in getting the generator back up and running.
The crew have already experienced rough weather conditions and with an average speed of 17 knots over the first three days, Musandam overtook the computerized 80 day pace boat yesterday (11 January). 'It's windy, the heat is incredibly increasing inside the boat let alone the humidity on deck which is far worse than I expected to face. It's been cloudy all day and the weather is changing all the time.' Mohsin Al Busaidi said in the videoconference with the Oman Sail's communications centre back in Muscat.
Sunday in particular proved to be an extremely tiring day for the crew 'Well, things are really starting to hot up onboard Musandam. The temperature inside the boat is almost reaching an unbearable 40 degrees and trying to stay dry from sweat is near impossible' Nick Houchin reported from the boat. The crew faced a problem with starting the generator (known by the team as 'George'): without it working properly, they would have faced serious problems in the cold of the Southern Ocean. 'We were looking for bags moving against a wire or something similar as the problem was lasting for different lengths of time - sometimes just a split second (hardly noticeable to the untrained eye) to a couple of seconds that was fairly obvious, but in the end we found a very simple problem of a loose connection from the main supply to the instruments, and a simple solution of making good the connection. It's been well made for so long - it does seem strange that it chooses now to irritate us,' Charles Darbyshire added. After a period of 24 hours working with a faulty starter switch for the generator, there was a celebratory atmosphere on board last night when 'George the Generator' was again started with a key.
Musandam officially left the Arabian Sea on Monday morning and progressed into the Indian Ocean. The night was wet for the crew with up to 25 kts of wind and a thunderstorm that lasted until the early morning. 'Our first major milestone is fast approaching (sometime in the next 18-30 hours we hope): THE EQUATOR. Each milestone is an important measure for us, and resets our shorter-term goals. The equator is going to be great to get across because much of this trip will be spent in the southern hemisphere, so it's great to arrive there.' Charles Darbyshire reported back to base today.
The crew have also sent back messages of support and encouragement to the Oman Football team. ' I am so excited by Oman's win the other night and I'm behind the team every step of the way' said Mohsin Al Busaidi in an email 'I was able to watch the match against Kuwait with my family the night before I departed and my prayers are still with them. I wish the team the best of luck and know that they have the strength and power to win. Go OMAN!'
Message from Charles Darbyshire on board Musandam - 11th January.
'Yesterday was a mixture of sailing and problem solving, one problem with the instruments needed quite a bit of testing to find the problem, as it was intermittent - and not easy to replicate, so you just had to wait for it to happen and then try to see what can have caused it - a common theme was everytime we went over a wave of a certain size. So we were looking for bags moving against a wire or something similar, also the problem was lasting for different lengths of time - sometimes just a split second (hardly noticeable to the untrained eye) to a couple of seconds that was fairly obvious but in the end we found a very simple problem of a loose connection from the main supply to the instruments, and a simple solution of making good the connection - it's been well made for so long - it does seem strange that it chooses now to irritate us. In trying to find the problem we changed a few things over so now we need to go back and put them back working so we can carry on in our standard set up.
'This hasn't had too much impact on our speed down the course, so far so good, we are getting taken a little further east than we might have wished, but with winds forecast to move round to the east tomorrow that should help us curve back a little and head to our equator/doldrum crossing point. We'll call George @ commanders for a little discussion later on how we take on the next part of our trip - the rotation around the high pressure and turn from south to east - all some days away now but important to set up for early so as not to sail too many extra miles, and not get stuck going up wind.
'Being on deck at night is really nice - it's a great temp, occasional wave - that you need wet weather gear for but it's so bright outside with the moon you really could read a newspaper!!!'
Date: 11/01/09
Time: 04:50:00
Posn: 1040.3462N 06529.0177E
Ave Boatspeed last 5 mins:17.39
Ave TWD last 5 mins: 035
Ave TWA last 5 mins: -125
Ave TWS last 5 mins: 15.6
Ave SOG last 5 mins:17.11
Ave COG last 5 mins: 160
Ave Pressure last 5 mins: 14.8
Sea Temp: 27.6
Air Temp Fwd cabin: -31.5
www.omansail.com/
by Oman Sail Media
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