The ABYC Member's All Day Work Party is upon us this coming weekend so there are numerous jobs that need to be completed to ready the club for the winter.  There will be a crew of people led by Sue Hamilton to direct you to the equipment and supplies you will need and in some cases a team leader to direct the work involved.  Please review the jobs in the Job Jar.  You should sign up for jobs in advance in order to lessen the demand on the club Job Jar computer.  You need to sign up for a job before you record the hours you put towards that job.  The Job Jar will also tell you if you should bring your own tools.

There are a number of projects that will extend beyond the All Day Work Party, like the Sea Wall Repair Project.  We need a group of dedicated members to work on this throughout the fall and winter if we are to achieve our goal of repairing over 22.5 metres of sea wall.  Please sign up in the Job Jar and speak to Stephen Trevitt.  You do not need to be skilled but you should be reasonably fit and be able to come out consistently.  We hope to run three shifts, Saturday mornings, Saturday afternoon and Sunday afternoon.

- Tim Hill

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After a fifteen day delay, due to a series of weather bombs, Diane and the rest of the 84 boat Mini Fleet departed Tuesday morning on the first leg of the Mini Transat.  Lest one think "nice weather for sailing", it's interesting to see the boats bucking out to the start with single and double reefed mains.  Boats were lost in wave troughs in the photos; not surprising, given the 6 to 7 meter (20/23 foot) seas.

A couple of collisions have seen several boats return to harbour.  Some to effect repairs; others, realizing it would take more then 12 hours to repair, have withdrawn from the race.  Several other boats with equipment failures have returned to get things sorted out.

This 1,257 nm first leg stars with a buck out to the Raz de Sein, a small gap in a 30 mile rocky shoal, famous for its currents and resultant ship wrecks. (Interesting to watch the fleet pass on the web cam.)  

Next up, and 400+ miles into the race, is Cape Finisterre.  The fleet must pass on the shore-side of the Commercial Shipping Traffic Separation System.  That will see the fleet within 15 nm of that rocky and inhospitable shore.  Forecasts have the tail end of the fleet, at Cape Finisterre for the next storm.   

A twelve hour limit for repairs mentioned above is not part of any Sailing Instruction, it's about lee shores and self preservation in this continuing weather story.

After Cape Finisterre, depending upon the weather - lower latitudes should get them out of these North Atlantic storms - it's south past Portugal, the mouth of the Mediterranean, North Africa to Lanzarote, Canary Islands.  

And that is just the first leg of this four year program, with tons of support from YOU, several fund raisers, donations in kind, great sponsors, short handed sailors... the list is all but endless, with a loving and supportive husband and one very tenacious and determined girl who is facing her ocean challenge.

Follow the adventures on Diane's One Girl's Ocean Challenge  

blog: ( http://www.onegirlsoceanchallenge.com/?page_id=32 )  

Facebook page: ( https://www.facebook.com/onegirlsoceanchallenge ).  

Links to fleet tracking ( http://www.minitransat.fr/cartographie?lang=en ), pix, English summaries of French weather stories and more.

See you on line!

NOTE:  To see Diane's position, there are 2 fleets (Série and Proto).  To select, you simply click on the down arrow beside either fleet name on the top right corner of the page (yellow circle) and select the fleet that you want to follow.    

Below is Diane's position as of 6:30 AM Toronto time Oct 30 (OGOC is the red boat).