5 April 2012
Gracias Punta del Este
The four Class40s in the Global Ocean Race (GOR) fleet tacked away from the Uruguayan coast in unison at 20:00 GMT on Wednesday with Conrad Colman and Scott Cavanough leading the fleet due east into the South Atlantic with Cessna Citation, beating on port tack in northerly wind.
For the South African team on Phesheya-Racing, hitching an extra tack north as the fleet cleared the coast proved a costly call. Phillippa Hutton-Squire – who has just been made Sailing Magazine South Africa Sailor of the Month – explains the tactic: “We have not even been at sea for 48 hours and already one bad tack for only three hours means you can lose a place or two,” she reported early on Thursday morning.
Throughout Tuesday and Wednesday, Phesheya-Racing and Marco Nannini and Sergio Frattaruolo on Financial Crisis were in close combat: “We were neck and neck with them swapping positions every few hours,” continues Hutton-Squire. “We tacked about 1.5 nm from the shore, in the moon light we could just make out the sandy beach; the sea was lumpy and the boat was crashing over the waves and we managed to position ourselves back in second place behind Cessna,” she reports. However, while changing down from Solent to staysail a hole was torn in the larger headsail. “We’ll have to fix it next time it is on deck,” she adds. “Our move to head north turned out to be a bad idea after we got headed badly once sailing east again and we will have to work hard now at our boat speed to regain the lost miles.”
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