Rupert and his Front End Burst Alarm
10:08, 16 June 2003
by Colin de Mowbray

The last 12 hourly schedule showed that finally all the boats had got the wind from the SE and have been making good progress. Yet again Jersey has topped the bill with 110 miles with Hong Kong close to them with 106 miles. Cape Town dropped a bit with a run of 94 miles and all the others were all around the 100 mark.

Liverpool will be relieved to see the back of the 'High' which has dropped them down the order from what looked like a safe second place two days ago. Possibly they will now have a useful windward advantage in the south as the new weather system comes in.

Bristol has seen their lead eroded by the Jerseymen in the north. Obviously Simon Rowell sees his miraculous recovery as a means to gaining citizenship in the sacred island. At 0300 GMT Jersey was in fact further west than Bristol (and nearer Africa) but still north of her by 36 miles putting them in second place by 18 miles.

Ross Daniel and his crew in New York have been doing great work in the middle and are holding a good third place and are ready to pounce when the leaders fall on their swords. Jersey's great northern run has left them well to leeward and this could present an opportunity for New York and others, such as Liverpool, to take the initiative again.

London is chasing New York and now Hong Kong has moved south again and is not that far out of touch behind these two. Cape Town and Glasgow are have continued their private battle further south and are in sight of each other. This pair are still some 15 miles north of Liverpool. Only 14 miles separates Liverpool, Glasgow, Cape Town and London and so it is going to be anyone's call over the next few days.

Most of the yachts are now reaching under number 1 or Number 2 Yankees with some reefs in. They are making 9 knots or so and should shortly start picking up the favourable current.

Rupert Parkhouse in Glasgow Clipper has been having fun and games with his MiniM communications. Being a sound seaman he has been able to solve most of he high tech problems by constantly turning his MiniM set off and on every time he needs to use it. If he does not to this the set gives him a message saying 'Front End Burst Alarm.' As he was concerned about both his front and back ends bursting he managed to find further guidance on page 5-36 of the manual, which says 'Burst alarm means that the front end has detected a carrier when sending in burst mode for more than 250ms. If the problem persists contact your agent.' Rupert sums up 'That's crystal then. Now do I turn to port or starboard to find my agent?'

Richard Butler's honest account of life on board sums up what must be a wonderful contradictions in feelings when listening to the radio schedule: 'The scheds are a very important part of the day and have a lot of impact on morale on board. Yesterday from the crew's reaction, you wouldn't have thought we were still well in the lead. The reason for the gloom was, of course, Jersey screaming up to the north, overtaking everybody else and now seriously threatening our first place. The weather data we have isn't refined enough to understand what wind they had yesterday and the day before, but it was definitely different from ours! They are now slightly further west than us so the race is really on to get to the Agulhas current first.!

Source: Clipper 2002/2003 Round The World Race Official Site