The Price of Speed

Quick update to Al's last email.  Last night we were very conservative with our sailing, changing down from the kite to the poled out jib.  This morning as Al mentioned, we were rocking out to Led Zeppelin and the Presidents (Little Blue Dune Buggy) and absolutely flying.  One of those "moments we all live for".  Unfortunately the wind continued to build and with yours truly at the helm (absolutely ripping it, by the way) we got caught sideways and ended up damaging our spinnaker pole.  This slowed us down a bit, in case you noticed that on the tracker.  We switched to our other pole and waited for the wind to die down to a more normal 15-20 knots and then set the kite again.  Wind is lighter now, so I expect that our boatspeed will be a little down.  We also put a governor on the speedometer, because when one is leading the race one should not take unnecessary risks.  I expect this will mean that the Bats have locked down the top speed for the trip--19.6 knots.  Go Bats!  G BTW we think we have video of the aforementioned incident  Al