I have been following the Volvo Ocean Race of 2014-15. It’s an amazing 39,000 mile 8 month race around the world on identical 69′ carbon fiber sail boats. You can find the site at www.Volovooceanrace.com I highly recommend watching the 5th leg that’s happening now as they transit the Southern Ocean, the most remote location on earth. There is enough information and video online that you can mentally put yourself there.. so much so that in the back of my mind I keep find myself wondering who’s leading all day long…… I can feel myself speeding over wave after wave… watching that main so we don’t jibe in a crazy overpowered downwind run… but I’m doing it from the air conditioned comfort of my office…lol.
Having almost two trip around the world’s worth of ocean miles on a sailboat, it’s great fun to place myself in their shoes…. with the great coverage and graphics available on the VOR, I find it easy to “witness” the race in as much of a personal way as I ever expect to. I have NO desire to make non-stop passages across the open ocean. I can guarantee you that less than 10% of my sea miles were sailed at night. The short videos of the VOR boats managing those large southern swells interest me to no end. I can’t get enough of trying to catch some hint of what these highly skilled professional sailors are doing at the helm….. how they attack the ocean and angle over the giant waves.. not for best angles of comfort… but for the best speed!!! I feel like I am very adept at steering fast at sea. I understand and have tested the physics of it for many years…… most of it on a catamaran. That being said…. I am seldom in the company of anyone to learn from when it comes to ocean steering. Any scrap of information I can find on the subject is of supreme interest.
Most ocean sailors are more about comfort and navigation, and I get that but I like to go fast. In 2012 I was asked to helm a big catamaran “Alternate Lattitudes” owned by a charter captain to compete in the biggest race in the Gulf of Mexico. The race is called the “Harvest Moon Regatta”. It’s a 24 hour race from Galveston Texas to Port Aransas. The race is timed to sail at night under the full October moon (hence the name). The first 1/3 of the event carried just enough wind to make it feel like a race. Our chosen path (close to land) gave us our first advantage as we rode a nice current flow spewing out of a certain (not to be named) coastal estuary. We did very well on the first part of the race staying very shallow.. after all we are on a catamaran!
The weather gods had fun with us that year.. we all knew there would be a pre-frontal calm 1/2 way thru the race, followed by a strong Norther. All boats knew the last 1/3 of the course would be a fastest. I was at the helm quite a bit during the first third of the race, when the wind died I went down to get some sleep. Our main slatted and rattled as we waited on the inevitable wind from the North. Some of the sailors followed the last bit of wind as far offshore as they felt comfortable in an attempt to stay powered up, that turned out to be a mistake. They didn’t gain enough on the fleet to make a difference, and….. it did several bad things. It brought them well off the Rhumbline.. but more importantly… now since I was hugging the shore, I would get the heavy 30 mph wind half an hour before they would. My calm would be over much earlier! The third negative is that they now had to fight their way back to shore in heavy seas to make the finish line.
We expected 30 to 40 knots on the beam as the frontal boundary passed. My alarm clock was the boat itself….. the props began to windmill underneath me as we started moving again. I woke up when I heard the bearings start to roll. These cruiser type races are primarily crewed with invited guests, rather than professional sailors. A big part of the event is the comrade-re and fellowship… the enjoyment of doing the Harvest Moon. There was a Dutch gentleman on the wheel (an experienced monohull sailor) when I poked my head out of the cabin. I asked him if I could relieve him….. the wind and waves built quickly and were already whipping. He said no. he had it so I went about my business trimming sails to the ever building conditions. His response was to leave it alone, that he had it like he wanted… not wanting to waste the good wind I made my way back into the cabin.
I mentioned to the owner that I needed to be at the helm, there was speed to be had… but I didn’t want to be rude to the gentleman at the wheel. Hints were made, minutes passed like hours… lol. Then I tried again, but the Dutch fellow declined, this time I didn’t stop… I almost begged him to let me have the boat. During my more than obvious begging session, I noticed were averaging about 9 knots… not bad for a 44 foot 20 ton cat, but I knew there was lots of speed in those 3 footers building to 4. Then it happened.. he gave me the helm.
Scanning the instruments and GPS, I noted that our ETA at the jetty way point to end the race was just past 2pm. The crew set about trimmed her like I wanted… and I began looking over my right shoulder at the waves… hunting holes in the water behind the ever increasing waves, Alternate Latitudes immediately sped into double digits. As the waves came around on our rear quarter and got bigger.. the fun really began! We surfed well into the mid teens holding speed for quite a while each time we got running. I don’t recall our best speed exactly, but we saw over 17 knots more than once, not bad for a 25′ wide charter condo with 4 bathrooms! The owner had never seen over 14 on his boat since he owned it. Everyone on board was grabbing leather… lol. They couldn’t imagine a 20 ton charter boat making that kind of speed. I told them it was easy… I’m no genius.. if you putt 22 tons of fiberglass on a long slippery slope you WILL go faster for a short time. Eventually the waves came more on our aft quarter… and were at just the right angle, I could surf them for what seemed like minutes before the wave passed under our sterns. The tricks to make that happen are complicated with many points to understand….. then build on that to understand the skill of wave surfing in moderate conditions. Anybody can surf 8 footers, but surfing 3 and 4 foot waves is quite a challenge. I may take the time to explain my sail sets and steerage in detail on another post. It’s a multi-faceted subject with lots of “ifs” to consider.
As it turned out… we won the race by almost 30 minutes. We rounded the turning way point I talked about earlier at 1:30pm. We had gained just over the amount of time we won by, in the last 1/3 of the race surfing a 4 bathroom condo into the high teens. Just before noon, we were passing some of the first boats to leave Galveston, the big mono’s. It was almost comical how fast we went by some of them as we surfed by 8 knots faster. I’m sure there were jaws dropped all over the big monohull’s deck…. lol. I’m not disapproving or condescending when I say this.. but there is no physical way a cruising monohull can achieve the speeds we were making on those conditions.
Watch the Volvo Ocean Race.. it’s crazy! When I say the monohulls couldn’t keep up with Alternate Latitudes that day……. I was correct only because there were no 69′ carbon fiber ocean racers in it! They are 9 days into the 5th leg, and 5 of the 6 boats are less than 3 miles apart! Those guys hold the speed I instantaneously surfed to… all day long.
Sea Yawl Later !! Rusty