SAILING: Jonathan Spencer Jones
THREE weeks into the third leg of the BOC Challenge single-handed around the world race and Christophe Auguin sailing Sceta Calberson has become the first of the entrants remaining in the fleet to round Cape Horn.
Auguin, who days earlier had notched up a record 350,4 mile 24-hour run, passed about 40 miles south of the Horn having dipped well south on the approach to avoid a high pressure system off the west coast of South America.
And it had paid off for he had gained a full 360 miles on nearest rival Jean Luc van den Heede on Vendee Enterprises who was on a more northerly course. “I’m very happy (I chose) this (southerly) option,” he said.
Following in third position, American Steve Pettengill on Hunter’s Child was also benefitting from moving south, closing from some 300 miles to within 139 miles of Van den Heede.
Holding fourth place in his class, South African JJ Provoyeur on Novell South Africa continues to make good progress, despite having lost the use of his radar in a knockdown earlier in the leg.
“It’s very serious,” he said, and although aiming to stay far enough north to avoid ice, days later sighted his first iceberg: “I was very excited and scared this morning (February 15) when right in my tracks was this huge iceberg!
“At first I did not recognise it as such but it did not take long. It is eerie to see and one realises how close we are sailing side by side with danger.”
And in class II, frontrunners Dave Adams on True Blue and Giovanni Soldini on Kodak are playing out a neck- and-neck battle with Adams pushed almost to 62 degrees south but appearing to hold the upper hand.
But not all the entrants were making such good progress in the stormy conditions and some 2 000 miles astern, Briton Robin Davie on Cornwall was recovering from a dismasting in a squall, losing all the rig apart from the two spinnaker poles.
“We rounded up a bit so the wind came forward of the poled-out genoa. (The genoa backwinded) and bang the mast gave way seven feet above the deck, one foot above the spinnaker pole fittings on the mast … a single clean break.”
Davie is now making for the Falklands under jury rig.
And another of the contestants is also out of the race – – Nigel Rowe, the BOC group executive who has played a major administrative role in all the races to date, retired barely a week into the leg.
“Several factors lie behind my decision,” he said. “Among them are the problems that forced me back to port just a couple of days into the leg.”
But tellingly perhaps, he added: “For me sailing is a hobby to be enjoyed, not a way of life to be endured. The race has been every bit as tough as I knew it would be, but I have not enjoyed the sailing anywhere near as much as I expected to.
“Still, my participation as a competitor has been an intensely interesting and rewarding experience in other ways, and my respect and admiration for those left in the fleet remains considerable.”