From white knuckle pounding to sailing on a millpond. That's the difference 12 hours makes when you are racing across the Atlantic. At sunset last night the wind was still blowing hard, but the barometer was rising steadily and at daybreak this morning Joe was greeted by a flat calm sea and a few whispers of wind. "This is the worse kind of sailing for me," Joe said in a satellite call from the boat. "And to make it worse it looks as if Kip kept moving." Indeed a check of the morning position chart shows that Kip Stone on Artforms had kept his boat sailing well during the night and had opened up a 17 mile lead over Wells Fargo - American Pioneer.
The calm conditions were not unexpected, in fact it was clear before the fleet left England that they would have to deal with a ridge of high pressure extending up from the Azores High. The tactical trick when you are racing offshore is to position yourself to be the last boat to lost the wind, or the first to get the new wind. It seems as if Kip Stone has won the first round, but Joe is well positioned to gain back the precious lost miles. "I am well to the south of Artforms," Joe said. "It's my hunch that I will get the new southwesterly wind first." As Joe was talking he glanced at the instruments in his nav station and watched the wind pick up from the southwest. "There is solid new wind coming in," he said. "It looks steady and from the right direction. Now lets hope that we have it before Kip gets it."
Chasing weather can be a game of cat and mouse. Despite some of the most sophisticated weather tracing devices on board and years of experience, it's still hard for Joe to predict what the wind will do. One way to know is to look ahead and see what the boats further to the west are getting, but Joe does not have their information. We do, but in the spirit of the race we cannot pas it along to him. I can report, however, that the Open 60 monohulls that were sailing to the south were the first the get the new wind and they have made big gains on their competitors to the north. This bodes well for Joe and Wells Fargo - American Pioneer, but only time (and the next satellite poll) will tell if he is able to make back the lost miles.
Other than frustration, all is well on board. The start of the race was tough but it is already becoming a distant memory. "I had bad problems with leech flutter on both the mainsail and staysail," Joe wrote in an email. "I climbed onto the boom and tightened the leech cord on main, but was only partially successful stopping the fluttering. Same with the staysail where I got drenched tightening the overhead leech cord at the tack." In order to stop the headsail fluttering Joe had to clip his life harness on and make his way to the bow of the boat where it was pounding through the steep seas. For those that have never had the fun of being on the bow in those kinds of conditions, think about how it would be on a mechanical bull getting hosed with a fire hydrant, say nothing of ripping up $20 bills at the same time. Oh the joys of solo offshore ocean racing. Stay tuned to this website for the latest positions, or check the official race website. Also check sailmag.com under the news section for reports from Joe.
- Brian Hancock (great.circle@verizon.net)
