The Global Challenge 2004/05 Portsmouth-Kap Hoorn-Kapstadt-Portsmouth 03.10.2004 - 17.07.2005 www.globalchallenge2004.com - zur Übersicht 25.04.2005 The Toughest Leg of the World's Toughest Yacht Race Global Challenge Project Director Andrew Roberts reviews Leg 4 “We were on a liquid roller coaster and waves were turning the cockpit into a swimming pool." writes Samsung crew-member Dean Apps on Day 5 of Leg 4. "By 4 o'clock we had taken down our staysail and had put a third reef in the index. In short, we weren't laughing anymore. The blue skies and sun had disappeared. We were thoroughly wet and hanging on tight.” Fotos: On Edition The Photographers With the crews now safely enjoying their time ashore in Cape Town, it's easy to forget that to successfully cross the Southern Ocean once, let alone twice, is always a formidable proposition and never a foregone conclusion. Few go down to this part of the world, even fewer choose to tackle the prevailing conditions head on. Having now had an opportunity to analyse the yachts' logs and race statistics, Global Challenge Project Director Andrew Roberts reviews Leg 4 and assesses its impact on both yachts and crews: "Whilst Leg 4 did not produce some of the extreme highs and lows of wind speeds seen during earlier Global Challenges, this was a race when high winds seemed relentless and, strangely enough, produced some of the roughest and most awkward seas yet encountered by a Challenge fleet. "Imagine It. Done. Team Save the Children and BG SPIRIT all reported the consequences of exceptionally large and unstable waves south of Tasmania. BG SPIRIT and Team Save the Children both had their EPIRBs activated by wave action, which was very surprising as they are stowed under the companionway cuddy in a protected situation. During nearly a million fleet miles, including hurricanes, this had never happened before! Imagine It. Done.’s experience of dipping her masthead wind instruments in the water after being thrown off a particularly large wave was an almost unknown phenomenon on a Challenge 72’. "The relentlessness of the conditions is illustrated by the fact that yachts recorded a mean wind speed of moderate gale or more on 22 of the 24 days before the last yacht rounded waypoint Bravo. The average mean wind speed for the leg to waypoint Bravo was a little under 23 knots as recorded by Imagine It. Done. Her average mean wind speed for the whole leg was just over 20 knots and of the overall 40 day period the fleet were at sea, moderate gales or stronger were recorded on 31 days. The maximum recorded wind speed was over 60 knots (storm force) although some yachts saw little more than 45 knots (strong gale) which might seem relatively tame for the Southern Ocean but it must be remembered that this is bitingly cold, dense Antarctic wind. "The seemingly endless gale-force conditions were particularly hard on skippers and crew as there was little if any of the recovery time that generally occurs when a gale has gone through which allows preparations to be made for the next onslaught. An illustration of this is that at one point Spirit of Sark carried a fully reefed indexsail (3 reefs) the smallest yankee (or jib) and a storm staysail for over 36 hours. This sail combination would generally be carried whilst sailing to windward in mean wind strengths of 28 to about 40 knots depending on the sea state. On other occasions there could be as many as 7 or 8 headsail changes in a day and the index reefed or un-reefed 5 or 6 times, all of which is extremely arduous and exhausting physical work. "In these conditions the crew are totally dependant on the foul weather gear for their comfort and, to a large extent, their safety. The extreme conditions combined with hard physical exercise are very testing for foul weather gear and the Musto gear has performed exceptionally well. Continuous development by both Musto and Gore (breathable fabrics) that started before the 1996/97 race has resulted in outstandingly durable and comfortable clothing which make the extreme conditions quite tolerable. "Inevitably a 7,000 mile leg in those conditions is very hard on sails especially bearing in mind that each yacht has now been at sea for around 117 days and sailed over 22,000 miles in the race so far. However, Leg 4 was notable in that very few of the 57 fore and aft sails handed over to Tim Woodhouse and the Hood Sailmakers team required major repair. "Of the 33 spinnakers being repaired, 9 were blown but repairable and the rest were considered to have minor damage. Interestingly, during the race so far SAIC La Jolla have only required very minor repairs to one of their spinnakers and have the lowest number of repairs to their fore and aft sails in the fleet, so all their sails are in exceptional condition. The Hood team has worked incredibly hard in all the ports and even when the pressure is on the quality of repairs has been exceptionally high. The fleet’s sails will all be in very good condition when they sail away from Cape Town, which is doubly important because of the short stopovers in Boston and La Rochelle. "The amount of damage to the yachts was relatively small but general wear and tear was high. This is all easily repaired in Cape Town, where the technical team is being assisted by local suppliers, as well as UK representatives of companies such as Harken, who supply all the winches. In particular the rigs have come under very close scrutiny: a cracked spreader bracket has been replaced on Me To You and short sections of mast track replaced on several of the yachts. "Despite having extremely strong deck structures designed to withstand the onslaught of wave action, one aspect of the yachts that did suffer were the forward stanchions. Most yachts bent or broke a number of stanchions because of the resistance of the webbing safety nets fitted to the forward guardrails for this race. It was always considered that there was a risk of damage because of the additional ”windage”, however any disadvantage was overridden by the obvious safety advantage of the netting, which proved to be the case. Curiously enough no stanchions were damaged by wave action during Leg 2, which goes to illustrate the size and nature of the waves encountered on this stretch of the race. "One element of good seamanship is knowing when and how hard to push, and there were some very high daily runs during which there was no reported damage. Surprisingly the GPS 24 hour distance sailed recorded in the yachts' logs were as high as 270 miles or an average of 11.3 knots. The race reporting system can only calculate the distance sailed towards the finish between poles whereas the yacht’s GPS (Global Positioning System) records the position every few seconds so gives an extremely accurate distance sailed. "The average distance actually sailed during Leg 4 (as shown on the yacht’s GPS) was over 7500 miles and the average actual speed sailed was over 8 knots. SAIC La Jolla sailed 7235 at an average speed of 7.9 knots and finished 6th whereas BP Explorer sailed 7503 miles at an average speed of 8.4 knots and finished 2nd. Spirit of Sark sailed 7243 at an average speed of 8.1 knots and finished 1st. "For the first six yachts to finish Leg 4 within 20 hours is remarkable and closer than any other Southern Ocean leg in Global Challenge history." 25 Apr 2005 17:14 GMT Andrew Roberts/Media Team Copyright © 1996-2016 - SEGEL.DE