[Cierrabares ESP]

Tremendos relatos del temporal, y les persigue otro...

Conrad desde el Cessna:

Conrad Colman from Cessna Citation takes you right into the drama in the Global Ocean Race...

With the storm bearing down on us I set myself three goals as skipper and navigator. Most importantly was to keep us and the boat in one piece, important for all the obvious reasons but also because we only need to finish this leg in order to take the race on points. This leads to objective two, route the boat so we don't see over 40kts TWS and three, keep the boat in racing mode and optimise its performance so long as it doesn't get in the way of objectives one and two.

Well, one out of three aint bad, is it? It was all going to plan, the center of the low was 300 miles to our north and the warm sector of the system was pretty mild with stable southerlies. As the wind backed and the wind backed around to more to the west, we gybed over onto port to head north and make tracks in the post cold front train. All good, gusting into low 40s with two reefs and staysail so blew one of my goals but still safe and fast.

We had a great morning playing in the cumulus wake of the cold front with bright sunny skies and solid 35 gusting 40 so we figured we were through the worst of it. The waves were building and we were surfing up to 20kts, taking 3 hour watches at the helm as we have done since the start in Charleston. Then the clouds rolled in again, the gusts became stronger and the waves continued to get bigger. Swells were 8 metres by late afternoon when we dropped the staysail and took the third reef when we saw the full fat fifty knots in a gust. But with so little sail I felt we were at risk of being pooped by a wave when we were slow so up went the staysail again when the wind moderated back to the 30s.

By nightfall the seas had become phenomenal. We saw a series go past that were easily 11 metres with breaking crests. VMG running with 3 reefs and staysail was fun and manageable in the moonlight and we could skirt the monsters and surf the smaller ones to safety. Then the clouds covered the moon and it got scary. With sustained 40 kts I barreled down a monster wave and piled into the bottom, soaking the boat in sheets of water just as the wave we had been surfing broke over the stern. I was clipped on but ended up on my knees on the cockpit floor grabbing for the tiller to avoid a Chinese Gybe.

After standing the boat on its bow we took down the jib and ran with only the triple reefed main, again surfing with sustained 40s. I went inside and Scotty took the helm when 50 + kits came out of a cloud and threw us down the face of a huge wave where we came to a sudden stop. Scotty was ejected from the helm and landed on a pit winch and jerrycans, fire extinguishers and bags flew about down below.

While Class 40s are pretty indestructible and with 3 reefs it would be hard to do real damage, we had had enough and hove to with the storm jib to await sunrise and moderating conditions. The difficult thing with these light planing boats is that you can make incredible miles in even severe conditions because its easy to stay fast to aboid the big waves and if you're doing 20 kts at 160 TWA when its gusting 40 then the loads are pretty small and its still safe. But then when it goes pear shaped, it gets ugly.

We are now cruising along with our boat safe and our healthy lead intact. To have a look at just how complicated the weather is out here, check out this UK Met Office isobaric chart (http://www.oceanskill.fr/fr/Met.htm) to try to make sense of it all.

Marco desde el FC:

I've just had a dinner of rice with a thai green sauce and a peanut bar for desert, slowly recovering from the busy day. The gale we faced yesterday left us with a few issues to deal with. We had chosen a route that kept us away from the very worst of the deepening depression but as
we sailed deeper into the low the wind was steadily above 40 knots and gusting occasionally at nearly 50 knots.

We had been rather conservative in every step, we furled the solent quite early on when the wind was still building, unfortunately the furling drum was wrapped with a spinnaker sheet and it took a minute or two to resolve, when it came to furling the sail we were hit by a gust and the violent
flogging put a tear in the leach of the sail. We havent been able to assess the damage yet but hopefully it should be quite easily repairable, we just need to find a window of calm weather to deal with it.

The wind built rapidly and we spent a lot time with 3 reefs in the main and the staysail and still occasionally taking off massive surfs at 18 and occasionally even 20 knots. We were mainly below with the hatch closed as several waves broke in the cockpit...

The sea state deteriorated quite rapidly and occasionally we were hit by larger than average cross waves. All seemed perfectly under control until we sailed down the face of one of these monsters, we started surfing almost vertically until the bottom of the wave where we buried the bow very violently. Sergio in his bunk was thrown forward by the sudden deceleration but luckily was sleeping feet first and wasn't injured, the whole boat tilted diagonally and just in that instant where you think you're about to come upright the very wave that had sent us surfing broke
over the boat in a thunderous roar.

Eventually the boat re-emerged from the momentary sea burial as if nothing had happened, those were quite scary instants. We could have done a lot of damage but other than the fright we thought we had made it thorough unscathed, that's until I looked out I noticed we had blown the foot of the staysail, torn open by the force of the water breaking over the deck.

The staysail can be reefed and luckily the damage is contained below the reef point, so we reefed the sail and continue rather undercanvassed for the rest of the night. Today as the wind decreased we put the small A5 spinnaker and I took down the staysail to assess the damage. It's quite bad, with one meter long vertical tear starting from the foot, but I think with a little patience i can fix it, at least to make it serviceable in case we need it again...

With two headsails damaged in the space of few hours I spent the day needle in hand replaying our choices through my head. We had gained on Phesheya but sustained some damage, yet we had lost lots of miles to Cessna that seemed to be pushing through as if storms didn't affect them... that's until midday today, Cessna had clearly stopped in the midst of the storm, covering just a handful of miles in three hours, what happened? At the next report they were moving again, ruling out a dismasting but their averages were not compatible with the winds they were in... We reduced our deficit to them by nearly over 50 miles over the rest of the day and it is unclear whether they are sailing at full capacity or not...

The race continues, we lick our wounds, we repair the damage and press on, a final push towards Les Sables D'Olonne. Both men and machines are tired and we hope to outsail the next depression forming behind and avoid the strongest winds as its centre moves to the north, this time sailing fast is the best defence, suits me, i really want to cross that finish line, now just over 1500 miles away...

06/01/12

por estos valientes!