Robosail returned to Queen Anne's Battery Marina last sunday. The main reasons for retiring from the race were problems with the hydraulic system of the boomvang and the loss of the radar system. Here is Pieter's report:

'I was only three days in the race when we got some bad weather. Nothing extra ordinary but unpleasant. The week before the start we had several storms with wind force 9 and there was a big swell. Three days after the start we sailed in to a depression and the a pattern of short waves was superimposed on the long swell, which lead to a very unpleasant sea. The boat was banging like I have never seen before. I could not cook any meals any more. Just to make a cup of coffee I had to hold the stove in one hand and the kettle in the other. Otherwise the lid of the kettle would bang against the ceiling. Suddenly I heard a loud hiss and the whole boat was filled with a mist of hydrolic oil. Quickly I checked what was wrong. At first my idea was that the system to position the boom in front of the mast had broken down, but it was the normal boomvang. I could not believe my eyes. There are thousands of ships sailing with these devices. The tube at the bottom of the mast had chafed through as the result of a simple reparation we had done this winter. This is very unfortunate because I abolutely need the boomvang to trim the sail. Without the boomvang the sail is not better then a flag on a telephone pole. I decided to sail on and try to do repairs when the wether was getting better. The problem was that because of a lack of power in the sail, the boat was even banging more than before. I was afraid that we would have structural damage to the hull. A couple of days later my radar came out of its pole at the stern. I was in radio contact with the designer and the builder several times. As soon as it became claer that there was no way to do the repair at sea. I decided to return.'  

At this moment we are in Plymouth working on repairs. We will decide on new plans for this season by the end of this week.