SAILING: Jonathan Spencer Jones
AFTER 29 days and 16 hours at sea, Frenchman Christophe Auguin on Sceta Calberson arrived in Punta del Este, Uruguay, to win the third leg of the BOC Challenge singlehanded around the world race with a new record, some one day 11 hours better than the previous record set by compatriot Alain Gautier in the last race.
But it was not all plain sailing as he had lost the use of his radar and was frequently sailing in conditions of poor visibility and less than a day from the finish, was virtually becalmed off the South American coast.
However, with several 300 mile-plus 24-hour runs, he had gained over 400 miles over nearest rival Jean Luc van den Heede on Vendee Enterprises, forced to reduce sail due to a damaged mainsail track after having made his fourth lone rounding of the legendary Cape Horn in a decade of sailing.
While Van den Heede reported of the passage “good wind, west north-west at 25 knots. Dark night, but I could see the rock and the light …”, for some of the competitors at least, Cape Horn, renowned for its high winds and huge seas, failed to live up to its reputation this leg with several of them stuck in light air in the approaches.
“All is fine,” reported JJ Provoyeur sailing Novell South Africa at the time. “The barometric pressure is 1030, which is one point higher than I’ve seen it in 25 000 miles of sailing in the last seven months. And I am at Cape Horn! With no wind! As they always say, it’s not normally like this!” And a day later, “unfortunately I was trying too hard and tore my spinnaker to shreds”.
Meanwhile in Class II, the two frontrunners David Adams on True Blue and Giovanni Soldini on Kodak are continuing their neck-and-neck battle, with the former maintaining a slender lead.
Reports of damage have continued, with American Arnet Taylor sailing Thursday’s Child nursing a progressively worsening crack in his mast after the base fitting failed and then suffering a knockdown.
“In 30 to 40 knots of wind, the port steering cable snapped at the sheave, turned us broadside to a 20 foot breaker and rolled us 180 degrees. Boy was I surprised to see the mast still there. The interior looks as if it were redecorated by Atilla the Hun …”
But later, undaunted, “we continue our steady if less than spectacular progress towards the Horn. No significant developments here, and that makes us happy”. Taylor has yet to decide whether to divert to the Falklands to repair the spar.