Progress in the last couple of days has been fantastic. Last week we had to take a difficult choice to slow down to avoid the worst of a severe depression that was about to cross our path, as it turned out we saw some horrible conditions and had some damage to sails, Cessna ahead of us was forced to stop the boat during the worst of the gale as a safety precaution in enormous breaking seas, all in all we were happy with our choice although it had cost us quite a few miles to the leaders.
In the past few days on the other hand we’ve had the opposite scenario, the extra-tropical storm Beryl was behind us and threatening to give us a nasty battering and all considered the safest option was to try to run as fast as possible ahead of the centre of the cyclone which then hopefully would have passed to our stern on its northward trajectory… The picture shows the very active centre of the low that we are running away from and it’s predicted position behind us, and towards the north.
So, with a double incentive, avoiding a storm and getting as fast as possible to the finish line, we’ve been pushing hard and clocked some impressive mileage. Before the winds built up yesterday we were surfing along, fastest boat in the fleet, with the biggest masthead spinnaker, then before sunset the sky started to be covered in clouds, the wind was backing to the south and increasing, all signs of the approaching low pressure system. We changed to the smallest spinnaker, a very heavy number that we’d used extensively in the southern ocean and we kept riding the building seas and winds. During the night we had steady 30-35 knots with the maximum gust at 40 knots, a bit more than we expected but decided to ride it with the spinnaker up, the boat was surfing often at 15 to 18 knots in an exuberant power display, sometimes surfing at over 20 knots between two walls of spray it felt great and i just kept suppressing the thoughts of something going wrong at such speeds with the spinnaker up in that wind…
All has held together so far and the miles to go kept decreasing rapidly until earlier on we crossed the psychological milestone of 1000 miles to the finish. The wind is still strong but should start decreasing within hours and hopefully this will become another successful storm tactics pub story to tell!
I’ve just had a dinner of rice with a thai green sauce and a peanut bar for desert, slowly recovering from the busy day. The gale we faced yesterday left us with a few issues to deal with. We had chosen a route that kept us away from the very worst of the deepening depression but as we sailed deeper into the low the wind was steadily above 40 knots and gusting occasionally at nearly 50 knots.
We had been rather conservative in every step, we furled the solent quite early on when the wind was still building, unfortunately the furling drum was wrapped with a spinnaker sheet and it took a minute or two to resolve, when it came to furling the sail we were hit by a gust and the violent flogging put a tear in the leach of the sail. We havent been able to assess the damage yet but hopefully it should be quite easily repairable, we just need to find a window of calm weather to deal with it.
The wind built rapidly and we spent a lont time with 3 reefs in the main and the staysail and still occasionally taking off massive surfs at 18 and occasionally even 20 knots. We were mainly below with the hatch closed as several waves broke in the cockpit…
The sea state deteriorated quite rapidly and occasionally we were hit by larger than average cross waves. All seemed perfectly under control until we sailed down the face of one of thes monsters, we started surfing almost vertiacally until the bottom of the wave where we buried the bow very violently. Sergio in his bunk was thrown forward by the sudden deceleration but luckily was sleeping feet first and wasnt injured, the whole boat tilted diagonally and just in that instant where you think you’re about to come upright the very wave that had sent us surfing broke over the boat in a thunderous roar.
Eventually the boat re-emerged from the momentary sea burial as if nothing had happened, those were quite scary instants. We could have done a lot of damage but other than the fright we thought we had made it thorough uscathed, that’s until I looked out I noticed we had blown the foot of the staysail, torn open by the force of the water breaking over the deck.
The staysail can be reefed and luckily the damage is contained below the reef point, so we reefed the sail and continue rather undercanvassed for the rest of the night. Today as the wind decreased we put the small A5 spinnaker and I took down the staysail to assess the damage. It’s quite bad, with one meter long vertical tear starting from the foot, but i think with a little patience i can fix it, at least to make it serviceable in case we need it again…
With two headsails damaged in the space of few hours I spent the day needle in hand replaying our choices through my head. We had gained on Phesheya but sustained some damage, yet we had lost lots of miles to Cessna that seemed to be pushing through as if storms didnt affect them…
that’s until midday today, Cessna had clearly stopped in the midst of the storm, covering just a handful of miles in three hours, what happened? At the next report they were moving again, ruling out a dismating but their averages were not compatible with the winds they were in… We reduced our deficit to them by nearly over 50 miles over the rest of the day and it is unclear whether they are sailing at full capacity or not…
The race continues, we lick our wounds, we repair the damage and press on, a final push towards Les Sables D’Olonne. Both men and machines are tired and we hope to outsail the next depression forming behind and avoid the strongest winds as its centre moves to the north, this time sailing fast is the best defence, suits me, i really want to cross that finish line, now just over 1500 miles away…
I will certainly remember leg five of the Global Ocean Race as the one where time expanded, we’re not even half way and i feel like i’ve been on this boat for 9 consecutive months. Perhaps the anticipation for the imminent finish of the whole race plays tricks with my mind or perhaps it’s simply because we had some of the most frustrating weather of any leg…
After leading the early days of this leg we were as predicted overtaken by Cessna. We managed to keep quite close to them for some time until we very quickly lost lots of ground. We seemed to get stuck in a never ending sequence of twists and turns in the weather that slowed us down considerably, at first we were further south and we found lighter winds, further north we indeed found better winds but also an eddie of the Gulf Stream and sailed nearly 36 hours in an adverse current that peaked at 2 and half knots and probably cost us well over 50 miles to everyone else who still enjoyed a favourable current.
Then, as soon as the wind veered to the north Cessna literally took off at their strongest point of sail… We watched them burn the miles and disappear off the screen as our eyes started to focus on a different problem. There’s a very deep depression forming to the west of us which will hit us in a day with some very strong winds. In fact the weather model shows we’ll see at least 40 knots of wind but things could get quite nasty as the depression will continue deepening as it travels east.
Once more my focus shifted away from the race and towards our safety and that of the boat. Whatever position we finish in this leg we will secure 2nd place in the overall points ranking, but if we do not finish we could hand our 2nd place over to Phesheya. In other words, strictly speaking, our goal is simply to finish this leg. The boats are tired and frankly so am I, so we took the foot off the gas and instead of launching on a rather pointless chase of Cessna we actually decided to lose ground to the south and slow down so that we’ll avoid the worst of the gale force winds by letting the depression overtake us before it deepens and strengthens. The miles deficit to Cessna has grown very rapidly but we tried to not let it bother us too much.
I appreaciate this doesn’t sound very heroic but from a cold blooded tactical point of view this is the best choice, nurse the boat as if she was made of crystal all the way to Les Sables and enjoy the celebrations of a round-the-world-race second place rather than take any unnecessary risks with little or no upside. In fact for us to finish first overall it would take for Cessna to retire from this leg, simply beating them to the finish line would make no difference on points.
We are now moving further south and as soon as the depression will pass over our heads in 24 hours we’ll start running towards les sables, we should have 2 days of very strong following winds and clock some fast miles, hopefully we’ll get through without breaking anything…
It’s the fourth day of this fifth and final leg of the Global Ocean Race, we are still leading but by rapidly narrowing margin, just 4 miles over Cessna at the last report and it seems highly likely that we’ll soon have to hand over our crown, after giving them a good run for their money we are floating helplessly in very light winds and I think they’ll finally manage to squeeze past. After facing tropical storm “Alberto” the first night of the race the weather has changed in a maze of unpredictable winds, the conditions we met very often differed substantially from the forecast. Our tactical choices seemed correct given the available information and we’ve managed to increase our lead of the identical boats in the fleet, Phesheya and Sec.Hayai, to over a 100 miles. Much more difficult to keep Cessna under control, the new generation boat that is currently leading the overall points ranking in the race seems to always break through thanks to her better performance so it’s only a matter of time before they overtake us but we can be proud to have managed to lead the race for the early part of this leg. Only once before we had overtaken them during a leg, on the approach to Cape Horn but just for a few hours until they disappeared again over the horizon… we may not beat them but we sure enjoy teasing them. The difficult navigation of the last few days has made even more memorable the beatiful days spent at the Charleston stopover where we were welcomed very warmly by everyone we met. At our arrival in the heart of the night Sergio Fedelini, Honorary Consul for Italy stayed up till the early hours to welcome us on the committee boat, during the stopover he was of great assistance first of all in treating us to some of the best spaghetti alle vongole i had eaten in years but also with more formal aspects such as organising an event with the italo-american chamber of commerce in our honour and by donating a new italian flag after i learning i had shredded the one i had received from my home town of Torino before the start. My dual nationality, Italian and Slovak doubled the diplomatic welcome in Charleston, I really have to thank the charming Peter Korn, Honorary Consuyl for Slovakia that has hosted us at his house on Daniel’s Island for the duration of our stay and hosted a barbeque for the entire Global Ocean Race group. Both Consuls attended the prize giving at the Charleston Yacht Club which was made very special by the attendance of Slovaks living in South Carolina (including a duet of musicians, the Charleston Virtuosi) and a delegation of representatives of the Slovak Community living in the US who travelled all the way from New York to attend the event. Many thanks to Katerina Tomkova for organising the gathering and the Consul Peter Korn and his assistant Jeremy Stipkala for attending the ceremony. For many the most memorable event of the stopover will probably be the International Mustang Meeting organised by the Mustang Club of Italy, one of my sponsors, that was held the sunday before the start at the Charleston Harbor Marina & Resort. Some 50 Ford Mustangs attended the event despite the gray sky that threatened a downpour all day but luckily held dry. Salvo Mirabella, president of the Mustang Club of Italy and his son Alessandro travelled from Italy for the occasion, my brother joined us all from LA, i hadnt seen him in over a year and have to thank him for all work in taking photos and videos during his visit. I also had a chance to see my parents who flew in from Italy and my fiancee Ella who came from London for three very short days thanks to the generous support of my sponsor Ventana Group who once more covered the cost of her flights, we finally fixed the date of the wedding and discussed prepearations. Despite all the beautiful experiences this race has given rise to I am looking forward to the end of this extremely long period we had to spend apart. The Global Ocean Race is an enormous committment and I am quite relieved at the thought this is the final leg of the race. My parents must be relieved too after having to endure so many months of apprehension at every storm we faced at sea. A particular thanks to sailing legend Pete Goss and Vernon Keen, Chairman of the Truro & District Boat Owners Association who behind the scenes organised a fundraiser during one of Pete’s talks providing a much needed contribution to my empty race funds and allowed me to pay for such expenses as the repair of the alternator which had packed up the previus leg. A thank you also to those who contributed online to the funds through my webpage www.marconannini.com/help I cant stress enough the fact that without all this help I would have not been able to get to this final leg of the race. On this subject a reminder of the fact that my boat is for sale, I have some substantial debts to repay with the proceeds of the sale but beware that after leading the early stages of this final leg the price has clearly doubled! Just kidding. For any information please email Ella at connolly_ella@yahoo.com
Last night was tough, in fact some of the worst we’ve seen in the entire race. After we left Charleston we received a warning of an approaching tropical storm with winds potentially up to 55knots, the night was approaching and we had already reduced sail to 3 reefs and the staysail…
we had a tough decision to make, keep going and cross the path of the tropical storm or head inshore and hopefully avoid the worst of the winds.
The question played in my mind over and over, the sea state was deteriorating very fast and i had to chose among the lesser of two evils, stronger winds offshore or the risk of breaking waves in shallow waters inshore.
I decided to head offshore as i thought in big winds i could always ride the storm with plenty of room towards the south, but once in shallow waters it would have become difficult to get out of the waves. There was one more complication, the timing of the storm was crucial, if we had reached the gulf stream, which flows to the north-east, against the full blow of storm the seas could become horrendous: wind against tide makes for very steep dangerous breaking waves.
The wind built to a peak of steady 40 knots but we had occasional gusts of nearly 50 knots. We wanted to preserve the boat and avoid damage so as the storm worsened we kept sailing lower or even occasionally downwind.
We monitored the progress of the rest of the fleet and they didnt seem to be doing much better on the other tack so we kept going offshore hoping the storm would subside before the gulf stream but leaving us in its strong flow in the aftermath with a chanche to make big gains on the others. Luckily the timing was just right, as we reached the warm flow of the gulf stream the winds had dropped below 30 knots and although the seas were very confused they were not dangerous, only occasionally a wave came right in our path and we lept in the air and fell like no more than a little dinghy being dragged in the surf.
Today the wind kept decreasing and the seas calming down, everything is back to normal and we are now dealing with the opposite problem, lack of wind. The forecast is for very light airs for the next 24-36 hours which will make for some further interesting tactical decision.
I cant deny that last night, during the worst, only a very very small part of me was thinking about the race, we were simply making sure we’d get through the blow with no damage but i’m glad i stuck to my guns and headed towards the gulf stream.
We had done a very conservative start inside Charleston Harbour, I wasnt sure what winds to expect on our way out and I didnt want to have any problems whilst sailing in the narrow channel through the breakwaters, the result was however that by the time we were in clear waters we were last and as in every single leg of the race chasing Cessna and Phesheya who seem to always start well.
As I write we are leading over Cessna by 33 miles and over the duo of Sec.Hayai and Phesheya by nearly 50 miles, I’m very glad we reversed the early fortunes. The race is still long, over 3400 miles to go and just as we gained this lead we can lose it, in a couple of days we should have excellent reaching conditions, Cessna’s favourite, and my bet is they will burn these few miles in no time. Meantime let’s enjoy the the gentle afternoon wind, the pleasant breeze and the momentary lead in the Global Ocean Race, it’s only the second time we’re in this position and we are really happy with the work done so far and to have emerged with everything functioning and all in one piece.
There are many people I need to thank for the excellent time we spent in Charleston, and others who have helped me behind the scenes with my endless luck of funds, I will write a separate blog later, now it’s time for some supper and chance to recuperate some of the lost energies.
We have 340 miles left to Charleston, we are pleased with how things have gone in the past 2 days, after the tactical move to cover Phesheya we feel a little more in control of our destiny. Our advantage over them has plummeted from 120 miles to just 40 but has been fairly constant with only minor changes since the gybe.
Needless to say we are really looking forward to getting to Charleston, the wind is progressively decreasing so we hope the finale wont be too much of a light winds struggle.
We’re heading north west, a little left of the direct route in anticipation of the rotation of the wind and hoping to find the favourable flow of the Gulf Stream to help us run fast along the American coast.
We’be been sailing under a gray murky sky for the past couple of days, we’re hoping the cloud cover will break again and give us a gentle sunny ride into South Carolina.
The last 24 hours have been incredibly frustrating, the whole day we
>negotiated the passage of many rain clouds which played havoc with the
>wind, on average we had a lot less than predicted by the forecast and
>after each downpour we hoped things would stabilise but the never
>ending sequence of squalls followed by windholes kept going on and on.
>Even more annoyingly, we found an average of 1.5 knots of adverse
>current, only after midnight the counter flow seems to have started decreasing.
>
>The total effect of all the above has been dramatic on our advantage
>over Phesheya, the miles have evaporated faster than the cold sweat
>over my forehead at the thought of being overtaken after all this hard
>work. We dropped more than 40 miles of advantage in just one day. The
>forecast is inequivocable, being on the left side of the chessboard is
>an advantage at every point from here to the finish and we’ve been
>waiting for every opportunity to inch west and close the lateral separation to Phesheya.
>
>Tonight after sunset, stuck under a windless cloud bouncing around in a
>messy sea and just 10 knots of wind we decided that it was time to bite
>the bullet and head west, or rather south west, as that’s the best we
>can do, almost like a bishop unable to move sideways but forced to go
>diagonally… the goal is to go an cover Phesheya whilst hopefully also
>getting out of the adverse current, i’m not sure this is the fastest
>way to Charleston but once we are in front of them and pretty much in
>the same winds they will have a much tougher time overtaking us than if
>we leave the corridor to our left unsupervised. Ocean racing boils down
>to match racing once again, Cessna is too far ahead for any chance to
>catch them so the only meaningful priority is to make sure we position
>ourselves between Phesheya and the finish line. Sec.Hayai is out of the
>game with a 24 hour penalty for their pit stop in Fortaleza.
>
>Our advantage will have dropped dramatically by the morning but i’d
>rather swallow my pride now than live in denial of the fact that
>staying here is just too risky.
Just as I write, a big rain cloud on the horizon has brought a sudden windshift. This is the first we encounter since leaving the unstable airs around the equator and, unfortunately, it probably signals the end of the stable band of the trade winds… We have 1350 miles to the finish which will bring more variety and hard work.
Ahead of us a patch of really light airs which won’t fill for another two days and which has already caused us to slow down and forced Cessna onto the opposite gybe. This is of course all to Phesheya’s advantage, the longer we’ll suffer in this air bubble the more miles they will catch up, they have at least half a day longer to enjoy the stronger stable trade winds but they will eventually get to lighter airs and should pay a high price for the loss of their A2 big spinnaker.
My laptop charts still carry the log of all the races I did so far. I’m using the same laptop since the 2009 OSTAR in fact and right now I can see I’m crossing the track I followed on my way to Guadeloupe during the Route du Rhum 2010. I didn’t do very well, just 27th out of 45 boats, I had chosen the northern route but made a mistake around the Azores high which saw me dropping from 10th to mid fleet in a day when I got stuck in light airs. Interestingly Conrad Colman was racing that race too, and we shared the same strategy and the same mistake… we arrived in Guadeloupe together, i could see him just behind me and i believe he crossed the finish line just 6 minutes after me. He didn’t take it very well, that’s why he was quite annoyed when I beat him again in Leg 1 (by only 3 hours after 41 days of racing)… after that he has made no further mistakes and scored a perfect first in both leg 2 and 3 and is set to win again in this leg. So, hopefully, he has forgiven me for the earlier inconvenience I had caused.
I keep looking at the complex weather forecast ahead and I know I won’t find peace until we’re in Charleston. Getting stuck in a wind hole is my biggest worry since that poor performance in the Route du Rhum, we already dropped 25 miles of our lead to Phesheya in just a day and our
160 miles advantage does not seem that great any more… we’re all here to play till the end and I’m sure they’ll push hard seeing us slowing down…
The past few days have finally brought the fast ride we had been promised on the brochure, averaging over 10 knots in the right direction since saturday afternoon. I believe we’ve been the fastest boat in the fleet for a while, we caught up around 50 miles from Cessna’s lead and extended by about 15 on Phesheya since the beginning of the weekend.
During saturday night we had the big spinnaker up when we were caught by a squall, we hanged on for dear life as the boat lept off the waves surfing at nearly 20 knots in winds briefly gusting just over 30 knots, it was the strongest squall we had been caught by this far so admittedly we were unprepared to take down the spinnaker and we just rode it out in walls of spray through the total darkness of the moonless night. The wind seems to build and get stronger during the night, it may just be a coincidence, but last night we changed to the medium spinnaker and still held the fastest average, I really cannot afford to trash the big spinnaker again so we have to be careful and preserve the materials, we’ve been pretty lucky and are sailing in a band of “good wind” and with a good wave pattern that lets us get up and surf easily.
Other than a couple of sail changes there hasnt been much to report. The floating sargasso weed has been a very annoying problem, constantly getting caught in the rudders.
The sunshine during daytime hours has also been a worry, it is too hot really to be outside in the sun and down below it’s unbearably hot, especially now that the speeds have increased and we’ve been forced to close all hatches as too much water was getting in when hitting waves, only the night brings some respite…
There seems to be more marine life around here, plenty of birds of the flying kind this morning, you know with wings and all, I wouldn’t call myself an expert ornitologist though. I can just about tell the difference with flying fish, with the latter being blue and the former white or brown or gray. This morning there was a carnage of flying fish on deck, their survival technique reminds me of people jumping out of burning buildings, I can appreciate the thought behind the jump but it does help to give some thought as to the landing point and speed. But then I have never heard the expression “you’re as clever as a flying fish” although at least on paper sounds damn clever for a sea creature to be able to do.
All in all we’re certainly not complaining, we’ve been knocking down mile after mile in a relentless surf towards the Caribbean islands… Straight due West from us are St Vincent and the Grenadines, i sailed around there over 10 years ago, i wish we could stop for a beer! Such a shame to pass so close such beautiful places and just press on, I think the race format should include a piss up in a few islands along the way, the guys at the Royal Western Yacht Club have understood the concept very well when they formulated the Round Britain and Ireland Race, which pretty much forces you to a massive drinking session at each stopover and consequent hangover every 3-4 days of intense racing, that’s really hard core, never giving your body the opportunity to adapt to being at sea, not this sober business of sailing around the world!
I’m turning 34 today and this is definitely a birthday I will remember, my first at sea in fact. During my first watch, when it was still night, i started receiving the first birthday wishes, from Ella, from my brother, from Roberto, my sailmaker, then my friend Enrico called me on the sat phone early in the morning… Unfortunately i cant access facebook from here but Ella sent through some of the many messages, there are loads apparently. Thank you especially for those you sent directly to the boat through my website at www.marconannini.com/sms, they really cheered me up.
Many thoughts are going through my head today, this has been a rather special year. Twelve months ago this was something i was going to do, or rather I was hoping to do, the final decision had not been taken yet to sail around the world and here I am today. I feel as if a decade has passed. A big change in my personal life too, a year ago Ella and I were dating, today we’re engaged. A year ago I was working from nine to five in an office, I havent had to wear a suit or anything ironed for that matter since i quit my job and i dont feel like i’m missing out on much…
I skipped winter by sailing to the southern hemisphere and back as the seasons passed, a year of sunshine, of warm weather, of fresh air, beautiful experiences and fantastic memories… I wish only i could spend today celebrating with Ella, my friends, my family…
There’s no cake to celebrate, no candles to blow, it is scorching hot outside and on the cockpit floor only a couple of squashed flying fish. I thought i had stepped on something mushy whilst trimming the sails in the dark moonless night, yuk! So thank you for the thought to those who sent a round of virtual beers through the website at www.marconannini.com/help, I really wish I could hold even just one glass of ice cold beer right now!
It’ll have to wait, all celebrations will have to wait till Charleston, where a year older I will be one step closer to completing this epic journey!
