Cutting the long chain in two. One part is being installed now and the second part will be kept as a spare should this ever happen again. You see that enormous swept back rudder in the water? It's the largest rudder we've ever seen on a 43 feet boat. Contemplating on having it re-designed. The boat was made to race and that fast, but some of the racing benefits that are on this boat, are not that suitable for safe cruising. We can easily make 170-180 miles per day with her even when fully loaded with water and fuel in the tanks plus all our belongings and extra crew on top of that, but she can also be very demanding to sail. 

We call her the Arabian horse as she's so beautiful, gracious and extremely fast, but at the same time she's a tad nervous and reacts at the slightest change of wind. Do we ever regret selling the old safe Hallberg Rassy 352, readers sometimes ask. And while there's no time for regretting, there are things we knew from the very early beginning when we found her, that we would need to have altered to make this beauty into a somewhat safe and sound cruising boat. Alex has done so much already in the past twelve months, but there are still many more details that we need to have modified and rebuilt before we are ready to cross the Pacific. 

We're planning on spending a month or so on the hard in Colombia to prepare the boat additionally for that long ocean passage. One of our greater dreams is to bring Duende to the Mediterranean where we imagine her belonging the best. Still a long way to go...

Read here to see what happened to the old chain / Emergencies at sea.