Jocara Newsletter
Aug 11, 2005

Jocara has finally set off (again) on her long passage east, nearly 1600 
miles, headed for Langkawi. The home-designed 9.2 meter steel mast is 
certainly an odd sight, with its blue-painted diamond trellice shape, but 
we're not complaining.  Just so long as it stays up in one piece.  It was 
'knocked together' by a couple of welders in the friendly local boat yard 
over the weekend, no plans beyond what John sketched out on a scrap of 
paper, all done by eye and inspection.  The rigging is 5 mm wire clamped 
together with rusty old turnbuckles, but it works. We've hoisted our 
modified Genoa (actually just the biggest single piece of Dacron we could 
salvage from our beautiful Rolly Tasker 130% Genoa) and find we can make 
about 3-4 knots in a light breeze from the NW, steering East.  The engine 
is running at low revs to keep our speed up - we have very little time now 
before we are due back in Singapore.  Our position at 12:00 UTC was 04 
deg. 16.6'N, 075 deg. 30.9'E, rolling gently in a smooth swell and light 
air.  We shan't be complaining if it stays this way.  The thought of 
dealing with squalls again gives us the shivers, especially with this 
jury-rig mast.  The radar alarm is now in constant use, guarding not only 
against collision with ships but also with squalls.  It feels good to be 
on our way again, after so many false starts and disasters.  Let's hope 
our run of three strikes (boom breaking, engine seizing and dismasting) is 
now over and that we can look forward to a less eventful couple of weeks 
on our way back.  We've tasted enough 'adventure' for the moment, thank 
you Neptune!

Cheers for now,

>From the crew of Jocara.

P.S. Don't forget to check out our website at http://www.jocara.net for 
updates, pics and short movies, also archived newsletters.  Anyone can 
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