Paul Cayard's Whitbread Log
Leg 6: São Sebastião to Ft. Lauderdale
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The #4 goes up and we're near broaching while getting the big reacher down. It sounds like a big sheet of aluminum luffing and it takes all of us on the bow to wrestle it to the deck with 17
knots of fire hose trying to pry you off with the sail.
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Day 14 - March 27, 1998
Report #2
0208 GMT
22° 20'N, 069° 20'W
Place: 2nd; distance behind of 1st-place boat: 34.9 miles
Miles to Ft. Lauderdale: 632
From: Mark Rudiger, Navigator, EF Language
As Paul says: "We cleared the dugout this morning". Meaning all
hands on deck for full fire alarm. We had been running along with
the big masthead 1.5 oz. high of course and the recent sked
showed Silk having gained and sailed lower. So, we knew something
was up ahead.
I had just analyzed an infrared sat image and it
showed we had passed through the trough line with little wind
change and were in a clearing ahead of another cloud system. The
weather prognosis had the trough dissipated and fax pictures
showed it benign. The grib weather models didn't really show it at
all . . .
That's when it happened.
First, a little header and we set up to
peel to the masthead reacher. We had it up, but still in the sock
and more header. The clouds to weather looked a little ominous,
but not much different than what we had been through already. We
agreed maybe more puff header coming, so the call went forward to
drop the reaching kite back down and go with the big reaching
headsail.
We got that one tee'd up and, as it was going up, more
puff header. We just got the masthead kite down in time (the one
that Marco has already done two major rebuilds on during this
trip) when the first major gust hit. By now Stevie Wonder is
driving off at 17 knots, 30 degrees below course, and Curtis is up on
the bow cleaning up, and already knows there is another sail change
coming.
By now, reinforcements are on deck and the spray coming
back so hard it's all you can do to hang on and see what your
doing. More puff header we're way over powered.
"Get the #3 jib tee'd up".
More puff header.
"Scratch that, get the #4 tee'd up"
The #4 goes up and we're near broaching while getting the big
reacher down. It sounds like a big sheet of aluminum luffing and
it takes all of us on the bow to wrestle it to the deck with 17
knots of fire hose trying to pry you off with the sail.
Then comes the first reef. Then we get the poor little genoa
staysail down, which has been valiantly hanging in there loose-luffed until we get the big guys under control. The wind is
blowing the water off the waves now, and mixed with the rain it stings
pretty hard.
We're finally pretty happy for awhile and are
reeling off miles at the mark, watching the lightning show.
But these things go through pretty fast, so now we're in the
process of going through the whole show in reverse. There are
going to be some tired, wet puppies after this one is over, and it
will be an interesting sked. to see how all the various boats
dealt with this squall line from hell.
I'll be at my computer along with the rest of you to find out how
Paul Cayard and his merry globe-trotters fare on "From here to
Eternity", (which is a little how this race is feeling lately).
— "Rudi"
