You can't sign up for this race without first realizing that you are going to be in for a pretty wet year. If you do the whole thing, plus training, moisture, avoiding it, bailing it and generally learning to live with it is going to be a pretty big part of your daily routine.Get used to it. These boats are really wet, and in any wind over about 15 knots, water will be coming over the decks in some way. Of course on a boat this fast you would expect things to be a bit damp on deck. Keeping the boat dry on the inside is a constant battle and one that we, here on il mostro have had mixed results with. It often seems that no sooner have we fixed the leaks from the last leg than we have new ones appearing on the next leg. I'm sure it is no different on any other boat out here but that doesn't cheer you up one bit at three in the morning as you fill the umpteenth bucket of freezing cold seawater from the bilge. The big leakers are the rudders, which fingers crossed, we seem to have figured out and the mast collar (that is where the mast sticks into the boat). That we haven't fully sorted...even at this late stage of the game. Having said that, it's always a tricky spot to seal. Never a man to back away from a challenge Rob Salthouse (aka Salty) has taken on the mast collar as his personal nemesis. For a while on the first part of this trip it seemed as though he had in fact defeated the problem with a fantastic rubber gasket arrangement that would allow for movement while at the same time making a perfectly watertight seal. He came up with it during the stopover in Rio and it has worked perfectly. Sadly, three days of high speed sailing after the equator exposed another weakness in the mast collar arrangement. It is my job to make sure that the oat is dry inside and Salty takes his leaks very seriously. Of course, it’s impossible to fix while water is rolling across the deck at high speed, so we both spent a good amount of time and effort bailing out the galley for a couple of days there.
I've known Salty for ages. We first sailed together in the early nineties on a boat called WILL, and if I recall correctly we were both there for a near sinking of that boat at a race in Japan. By coincidence, Erle was there too. Salty never stops. He has to be doing something. Casey gets a ton of well deserved credit for many of the fixes on the boat and he is considered our team "MacGyver"- but check through the footage and pictures and you’ll see that Rob is always there helping out, usually hanging off the back of a grinder or cutting out pieces for Casey to laminate. And, whenever Justin has a sail to fix, who do you think is helping to feed the sail through the machine? Salty is religious about doing a walk through the boat at the end
of every watch, and has no problem letting you know if something you were supposed to do didn't get done or was not done to the exacting standard he sets for himself and the boat.Prior to il mostro being launched, the PUMA team sailed on a boat called Rambler. That boat is 90 feet long and has a crew of 18. We had a stellar year on Rambler, winning many races and breaking a bunch of records. The PUMA team slotted in around the Rambler team and while Ken skippered the boat he was able to use real race situations to asses potential crew and team dynamics. Salty showed up about halfway through the year and in short order bumped me out of the pit where I had been filling in! Nice one Salty, I forgive you. He stayed in that spot for the rest of the year on Rambler and continues to run the pit on il mostro. He controls the middle of the boat with an iron fist and is perfect for that position- super organized and possessing a booming voice that can pierce through the strongest of wind. A useful attribute and a good lad to have on the team.
Today the weather eased up a bit and so armed with a Leatherman, some sticky boat glue and a roll of duct tape, Rob was able to jump straight onto it. Fingers crossed, he gets it this time, sadly we won’t find out until we get into our next bit of bad weather, coming shortly to a boat near you.
- Rick
