Boatmail- Leg 4, Day 12 Volvo OR- Corner turned!

by Various on board VOR Scribes on 3 Mar 2006 From: PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN QFB LEG FOUR DAY 12 (3)
Sent: 02 March 2006 20:22
Pirate Update-March 2, 2006

Ten happy Pirates heading north but parked. We rounded Cape Horn in 33 knots of wind and now just 47 miles east we have 5 knots of wind and a huge sea .

Very strange turn of events but I remember parking here 4 years ago with Grant Dalton on Amer Sports One. Eventually the wind fills from the northwest and we take off. At least we are headed directly where we want to go. La Maire Straight.. which is the water between the very bottom of Argentina and Island called Staten Island. Patience for now.

We had a magnificent day rounding the Horn. The day started with the very slow lightening of the sky that you get at high latitudes. I was on the helm from pure darkness through to daylight. That is my favorite moment out here. It was particularly windy last night so we took the spinnaker down just to play it conservative and make sure we did not have any major issues. Still, it was on the edge steering the boat at 25-30 knots of speed, down large waves, without any visibility. In those conditions, just the slightest bit of additional light helps tremendously and the fact that the light is coming so slowly, tantalizes you.

As soon as we could see reasonably, well before actual sunrise, we put the spinnaker back up. I was trying hard to make sure we did not have to gybe at the Horn but in the end we did and that cost us a bit. But it also did set us up to come very close to the Cape and enjoy the spectacularly rugged terrain of the Cape area. There are several islands other than Cape Horn, which is also an Island. I enjoyed this one much more than the previous two.

We took time to absorb the moment. Plenty of photos with the Horn behind us: the ‘first timers’, the ‘three timers’, the whole crew, the skipper and navigator, etc.

We are just moving along ever so slowly no, wondering what the others have. Is someone screaming along at 20 knots in some wind we won’t get? That is always the worry when you park. Hopefully it is something we all have to go through. The tough part is that this light patch is not on any forecast so we are just guessing and surmising what might have caused it.

We have completely restacked the boat to leeward now and forward, Craig did a mast check and found a screw had fallen out of a sheave so he went back up and fixed that, and now it is time for me to get some sleep.
Adios.

Paul Cayard - skipper
Pirates of the Caribbean




From: ABN AMRO TWO QFB LEG FOUR DAY 12 (2)
From: Duty Officer
Sent: 02 March 2006 21:53
Hi There,

It has certainly been an eventful 24 hours on our approach to Cape Horn, right now we are running downwind in massive seas, 45 knots of wind and at times upwards of 35 knots of boat speed. We have been buffeted by squall after squall in the last few hours making things interesting to say the least. Any hope of getting the cheesy photo in front of Cape Horn has been long since abandoned - right now we'll just be happy to get passed the thing, collect our points and head onwards to Brazil.

Things all started to get all a bit full on about 24 hours ago when the wind dropped enough for us to set the code 6 spinnaker, shortly after that the law of sod came into full force.

The chute was up, we were headed in the right direction and the numbers looked great. This was right up until we did a massive nose dive that is. We accelerated down an impressively large wave, the speed went into the thirties then all of a sudden Seb (Sebastien Josse) was left with nowhere to go. The bow went in, hard, and the boat stopped. Despite Hans' (Horrevoets) valiant effort to save the spinnaker by easing about 5 metres of sheet, it was a futile situation and as the bow went down the tack of the spinnaker was ripped clean off. Even at this stage it wasn't quite over as the wave that had caused the tip up now started breaking over the transom and was attempting to flip Seb over the handle bars, luckily Seb, in the midst of this, managed to execute a swift left hand down and steered the boat away from the point of Chinese gybing. What ensued was a tidy up and the realisation that that was it for the Code six for this leg as the tack patch conveniently tripped itself off the tack line and floated away.

We quickly got to work resetting the code 0, thinking that despite being a little higher it might be a tad safer and easier to drive and there would be no risk of a blow up. Sadly though with Sod's law, now in full force at this stage, the zero only lasted about half an hour before the tack line snapped sending it and the metal furling unit flogging behind the boat. The furler did a spectacular job of beating the s#*t out the sail and the sail repair list got even longer.

After this it was back to the reacher once again and the reluctance to accept we were going to have to be slow for a few hours. However the wind didn't stay light for long and we made it through the night in OK shape. The generator faired somewhat worse however and now refuses to start. Another thing to put on the repair list once we make it round the corner. We are feeling pretty lucky though having heard in the middle of the night the distress call from Movistar - we might have been having a bad time of it but their situation was a whole lot worse.

Luckily though by the time we made contact and readied ourselves for a potential rescue, the message came from Capey (Andrew Cape – movistar’s navigator) that they were OK.

From there onwards it has been some pretty hair raising sailing until we arrived here, we've just passed Cape Horn - albeit out of sight. I think the wind is slowly starting to ease now and we can slowly turn northwards to Brasil...

Cheers,

Simon Fisher - navigator

From: PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN QFB LEG FOUR DAY 12
Sent: 02 March 2006
Pirate Update-March 2, 2006

Position: 56,3.22S , 67,6.61W
Speed: 25 knots, Course: 56 deg.

Ten happy Pirates heading north!

More later.

Paul Cayard - skipper
Pirates of the Caribbean




From: ABN AMRO ONE LEG FOUR DAY 12 (2)
Sent: 02 March 2006 15:34
To: Duty Officer
Subject: Cape Horn

In an hour or so we will pass the legendary Cape Horn. As one of the two Dutch boats that are part of Team ABN AMRO, I felt it was my job to maybe share a little bit of information about this famous landmark and what the strong connection that ‘we’ as sailors on Dutch registered ships have had as Cape Horn rounders.

Cape Horn is the southernmost point of land closely associated with South America; it is located in the Hermite Islands, at the southern end of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago.

It marks the north edge of the Drake Passage. One of the main reasons for the Cape's fame is the strong winds and the massive seas that often run there, The strong winds are often due to the Westerlies that run across the Southern Ocean, which then hit the Andes Mountain range in Chile and are forced to accelerate around the Horn. With big winds often come big waves, but they have two good reasons to get even bigger right here, the vast expanse of the Southern Ocean that is so often pushed by the Westerly regime of winds is forced through Drakes Passage that is only 440 nm wide and then it also shallows up drastically so it is a narrow gap between South America and Antarctica.

Cape Horn was originally given the Dutch name ‘Kaap Hoorn’, in honour of the Dutch city of Hoorn. It is commonly known to sailors simply as The Horn. Founded in 1357, Hoorn rapidly grew to become a major harbour town. During Holland's 'Golden Century', Hoorn was an important home base for the Dutch East India Company ( VOC ) and a very prosperous center of trade. Even though I am not a great novel reader, I have become pretty famili