Twenty-four hours into the Rolex Sydney Hobart Race, the odds were against Aint Misbehavin. Since race start, everything went wrong for this struggling team. Although they were thrown constant obstacles to overcome, a strong confident captain held the team together. The spirit and hopefulness of this yacht’s crew was obvious when they were interviewed this afternoon from their boat off the coast of Australia. galley man Bass Pot was on the line to give us some of the details.

One hour before race start, their bad luck began. The first sign of their upcoming fate was when the navigation instruments failed. Aint Misbehavin’s Captain, JJ Provoyeur, calmed the crew by sticking his finger in his mouth, holding it up into the air, and telling them that he knew which direction the wind was coming from. “We don’t need any of those instruments,” he declared.

Then, just 30 minutes prior to race start yesterday, the SSB radio (single side band/long range radio) went faulty. It was fixed only moments before the official radio check, by one brilliant kick against the back of the electrical panel by one of the three British owners. This ingenious kick was said to have been accompanied by some ‘bleep bleep bleep bleep’ and ‘work you bastard’.

Then at race start, all the other yachts were running away from Aint Misbehavin with their asymmetrical spinnakers, the one sail that they didn’t have. The crew were a little disheartened by this, but decided to head out towards New Zealand and catch a warm current south. This current was never found, instead, more problems for the challenged crew.

Within three hours after the start of the race, their 2 primary headsails ripped. The No 1 Genoa was sent up as their first pick, and had to be brought right back down again.

Their recently repaired No 2 genoa also had problems and had to be brought down too. During all of the head sail problems, the crew lost a halyard and someone needed to be sent up the mast to retrieve it. In choppy seas, British bowman Giles McCallam stepped up to the plate and went up for it. He climbed up but had difficulty hanging on and came swinging all the way back to the deck. Giles showed excellent resolve and went back up again, this time retrieving the loose halyard.

Post retrieval, Giles was down below, covered in bruises and sewing feverishly. The crew was working double-time to fix the two sails, and at the helm, they were still looking for the elusive current with the No 3 genoa up.

After all the difficult pre-race instrument problems and early race mishaps, Aint Misbehavin’s ace Skipper, JJ, got the team back on track. “I don’t want to hear that we didn’t do anything well because of this reason or that one. We’re going to sail this race the old way!”

Although there have been a few down with some seasickness, the crew is feeling good. They are currently in 24th place, but think that they will be seen much higher up the line in a few hours as they get their game together.