The Russians Are Coming!

SILENCE. The boat swerves a bit as we straddle a wave.
SCREACH, SCREACH, SCREACH: - the grinders haul in the spinnaker sheet. Reverbrations echo throughout the boat, temporarily drowning out almost everything else, save the sound of our hull mashing through the seas.
RUMBLE, RUMBLE, RUMBLE: We careen down the wave. The water rushing past the hull becomes deafening, usurping the SCREACH of the spin sheet. Concentration varies between hard to impossible.
*BOOM* - we crash into the bottom of the wave in front of us. The entire boat shutters violently.
*WOOSH* - several tons of water come crashing over the foredeck and through the cockpit in the form of a wall of water that’s a full meter thick. Spray this is not.

"How'd we go on that wave?" the guys ask.
"Our best shot of the day so far: 30.3 knots," I reply.

(Silence)
"Send it boys, here we go again!" I call.

Two evenings ago, I blogged about the emotional roller coaster of sailing in this race. My objective for today was to avoid Code 10: Terror. Mission accomplished!

At that time, if you recall, we were downwind sailing on port tack flying our big gear. As the wind speed built to the mid 20's, we pealed to our A6, our small fractional spinnaker, and then we put a reef in the mainsail to reduce sail area. But the wind kept building and the waves kept building. So, we had a tough decision to make based on the following facts:

1) Sunset was only 2 hours away.
2) A major boat-handling maneuver in extreme conditions, in the pitch black of night, with our damaged rig and a spinnaker up would cause Code 10: Terror.
3) A cold front with 35-40 knot winds would pass us sometime in the AM hours.
4) The cold front would also bring a 100-degree wind shift, requiring a gybe (remember, so far with our jury rig we have only sailed on port tack, meaning that our starboard shrouds and spreaders were still untested.).
5) We could not be certain that our rig would stand up on starboard tack after a gybe or in a knockdown broach.
6) We had a 70-mile lead on the Russians.
7) The race leaders would be very difficult to keep up with, let alone catch, with our rig handicap.

So, we did what anybody would do in given these factors: we made a plan. We took down our big spinnaker and hoisted a manageable reaching Genoa in its place. This required us to sail a higher wind angle, taking us on an easterly heading while the rest of the fleet continued heading southeast. We also decided that we would wait until daylight to gybe. I spent much time reviewing the weather models and satellite observations from our midnight download and I concluded that the cold front was going to pass us at 9AM, and that we wanted to be set up and sailing for about an hour on starboard tack. At first light — around 7AM — we started restacking the gear to the new windward side. To be overly cautious, we hoisted the J4, our smallest jib, and took down the reaching Genoa. This process took an hour with the full effort of all 10 of us.

It was now time for the moment of truth. We gybed. The rig didn’t tumble. Deep relief! We loaded the mast and rigging by pulling in on the mainsheet. The rig stood: Our repair worked! However, as the engineers at our mast manufacturer told us, we are only safe on starboard tack as long as we don't fly masthead kites. With confidence, we hoisted the A6 - our fractional spinnaker.

With the rig scare averted, we were now heading for the cold front to tackle it head on. With little drama, a brief spell of 40-knot winds, and lots of water, we punched through it and were comfortably sailing yet again. Because we felt confident with our rig and now had a comfortable gap between us and the center of the low, I switched from “survival mode” to “racing mode”. At the 2200 position report we learned that the Russians had closed our lead gap to 25 miles. Time for Code 6: competitive intensity.

An hour later the windspeed dropped to the high teens. OH NO!I feared would happen when we reached the back side of the front! We were wallowing and need the power of our big, masthead spinnaker and our full mainsail. Code 7: Frustration. Given our mast situation, Code 6 was now impossible.

I had faith that we would be saved by the virtue of patience. Since we can't change our sails to suit the wind speed, we needed the wind speed suits our sails. I knew that more wind was coming but so were the Russians! Two hours later the wind built to the mid 20-knot range. We staved off the Russians, who are now only 20 miles behind us. Back to Code 6: Competitive intensity.

*WOOSH* ... "28.7 knots on that one"
Code 5. Fantastical thrill

This race is a rollercoaster!

Congratulations to Ericsson 4 for breaking the 24-hour distance record today. Brilliant work!!

-Matt out