Oceanracing 2006 - VELUX 5 Oceans

Velux 5 Oceans - Alone-Round the World Yacht Race
www.velux5oceans.com - Übersicht

23.10.2006
HAVOC ON HUGO BOSS
The six intrepid solo sailors who left Bilbao, Spain yesterday afternoon on leg one of the VELUX 5 OCEANS could not have had a more brutal beginning to the 12,000 mile leg to Fremantle, Western Australia.

A strong southwesterly wind blowing over northern Spain's steep coastline is causing to gust violently by the time it reaches the boats. The wind strength going up and down so dramatically means hard work for the skippers, who are constantly attempting to keep the optimum amount of sail area up to suit the wind strength. As Alex Thomson put it: "Every sail I got up seemed to be the wrong sail. I must have made maybe eight sail changes so far."

Alex Thompson hat ersten trouble

But this has been the least of Thomson's problems. One such gust, containing 45 knots of wind, laid Hugo Boss over on her side, and resulted in a broken winch in the cockpit.

"When I tried to put the boat back down again the turn slipped off the runner winch which was sheeting the headsail and it has broken the top of the winch," said Thomson this morning. A sheet ripping off the top of a winch is indicative of the strong winds the boats are currently experiencing. "I have made it vaguely usable at the moment but I haven't really put it to the test because I am on the port tack and it is the starboard runner winch which is damaged."

The cockpit on board Hugo Boss has a central winch for the indexsheet and either side of this there are winches for the runners - the vital rigging restricting the forward movement of the mast. Having two operational runner winches is important, particularly when sailing singlehanded. When tacking or gybing the windward runner is eased off as the boat goes through the wind and the new runner must be wound on promptly as the wind fills the sails on the new tack. Thomson says that he doesn't have spares to replace the top of the winch and so he will have to find a solution that will work over the following weeks.

This was not the only issue affecting the skipper from Gosport. "Later on in the night I managed to get stuck in a net and it pretty much stopped the boat for a bit," continued Thomson. The heavy fishing net became wrapped around Hugo Boss' keel, the effect much the same as her dragging along an anchor. "I had to cut it away and then wait until the morning to remove the most of it from the keel. It was really difficult to see in the night. I just used the boat hook to pull off whatever I could get and cut whatever I could. Then I couldn't really see what was left and I had to wait until day light to see if there was anything left."

Dawn broke this morning and Thomson made a fresh attempt to shift the reindexing net. "There was a fair bit left still around the keel so I had to do a couple of back downs and finally got it off." While sailing boats are geared up to going forwards, 'backing them down', effectively going into reverse - while under sail alone, remember - is a delicate operation involving putting the bow up into the wind, and letting the wind carry the boat backwards, the skipper glued to the helm to ensure the wind doesn't blow the bow off.

Unfortunately while having to sort out these problems Hugo Boss has lost ground on the leaders and this morning was passed by Japanese sailor Kojiro Shiraishi on Spirit of Yukoh who was half a mile away from him at the time.

Weather-wise Thomson this morning said the wind was already blowing 25-30 knot and was set to build further. "It is going to get worse and the barometer hasn't even started dropping yet. So I am not really looking forward to the rest of the day to be honest. I am pretty exhausted and I need to get some sleep. One of the good things for me is that these things happen and I am conscience of the fact that sometimes you just have to go a bit slowly to sort things out and that is a good thing I need to learn."

A position update is expected shortly. A regularly updated leaderboard is expected to go live on the site later today.