The start: 1400 hours, December 31st, 2000. Six boats have made it - ourselves, Club Med (Grant Dalton), Innovation Explorer (Loick Peyron), Team Adventure (Cam Lewis), Polpharma-Warta (Roman Paszke) and Team Legato (Tony Bullimore). As with most large projects, the journey to the start line is often the hardest. A sunny Spanish afternoon and a 16-mile windwardleeward starts us off at Barcelona amid the mayhem of a large spectator fleet. Cam Lewis leads the way with a clean display of speed. Trailing by a few miles by the last race mark, we're pleased to slowly haul back Loick Peyron and Grant Dalton on the straight as the fleet heads upwind, passing the east of Ibiza, a beautiful sight. The tensions of the last months fade away on an idyllic first night, a New Year's Eve of flat water, and 25 knots is perfect for falling quickly into our four-on, four standby, four-off watch system. Then, at three in the morning, bang!
The hull drops down and our speed dies as I turn to see our head sail flogging. We scramble to furl it. Hell, a blown-out working sail - our new Cuben fibre sail - one day into the race! We have to fix it. We back off on the speed and over the next morning Nick Moloney and Stu Wilson begin the process of repair. Overseen by Stan Honey, our navigator, and a spotter plane, we continue to trade tacks with Explorer, chasing the other two west along the south Spanish coast.
January 1st. With the help of each standby watch the head sail nears completion. Then, 60 miles east of Gibraltar, bang! A second reef clew has blown out of the new Cuben main sail. All hands, we scramble to stop the boom breaking the aft beam in half. All three watches then gather in the weather cockpit to look at the speedo - nine knots - and we realise that the full suit of sails which were to take us around the world are totally unreliable. Peyron tacks one last time on our bow and then sails off into the gloom. From despair, a growing resolve develops aboard. Fifty miles west of Gibraltar, still blowing 30-plus, we head for port. We phone our shore crew for the old and trusted suit of sails to be delivered to Gibraltar. Permission is granted by the race committee, along with the 48-hour penalty demanded in the race rules. It's not all bad, however, as a high pressure ridge will slow the other boats for the next two days, so that they will only have crept south at 8-10 knots. January 4th. We head back out into the Atlantic. It's light upwind, flat water and we're hungry to get back in the race. Our old sails sit at their familiar marks. January 6th. Awesome sailing. We tack south in the night at 28 knots. There's laughter as the standby watch jokes with the guys sailing as they get nailed by waves. There's danger too though - crossing the "tramp" (trampoline, a narrow webbing), about 60 inches wide, is no joke as green water screams past at 30 m.p.h.. January 8th. Somewhere off Senegal, north of the Cape Verdes, the ridge which had blocked the others has receded, allowing all of us to pass, but now we're all in the same weather pattern, the Trades, as we head south at 25-30 knots hour after hour.
All four leading boats put in 500-plus miles. The Poles (Polpharma-Warta) are still coming behind after a stop in Gibraltar. Bullimore has left and is now out into the Atlantic.
Settling in at the main sheet for half an hour, there's little to do. Brian runs the boat down the swells. The trick is to keep the speed up, 25 knots plus but to keep the apparent wind speed down to less than 18 knots. Finally, it's my turn. I clip into the helming padeye (a fitting on the deck) so as not get thrown off the helm. We change at 25 knots on a surf. The boat feels light at this speed. A big bear-away takes the speed up to 31 knots and I daren't look at the apparent wind speed. Nick, our sail maker, lets me know anyway. "You're not Eddie Irvine mate." Enough said. I settle back in, looking forward to a break, and the next guy on the mainsheet is waiting his turn on the merry-go-round.
Club Med led the race yesterday with Team Adventure in second. Playstation, with Foxhall aboard, has passed the Cape Verde Islands on a track from east to west and is on a parallel course with Innovation Explorer, which lies in third place. Both are trailed by Warta-Polpharma and Team Legato respectively.
