Usuario:Cresques/vela/Whitbread Roturas de mastiles

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Southampton, England, February 7, 2002 Day 12

No room for error in harsh wastelands

To describe the feeling of breaking a mast, 1200 miles from land, deep in the remotest ocean on the planet is almost impossible. The crew onboard SEB are numbed but resolute. Hopes and dreams are washed over the side with the remains of the rig as it is cut free to prevent it from punching a hole in the hull of the boat.

The crew are clearing the decks and making the best of, what is for them, the most despairing event to have happened in the race so far. But, we must not forget. The Southern Ocean is not a forgiving place. It is the most hostile of oceans, where the seas have claimed lives and not just masts. Carnage is rife in this place and many, many masts have been lost over the years in pursuit of the glory of winning the world’s premier ocean race. It was, very simply, SEB’s turn to make the sacrifice to the Gods of the sea. Pen Duick VI with Eric Tabarly as skipper began the tradition on the first leg of the race in1973 – 74, in the middle of the South Atlantic. The mast was re-stepped in Cape Town and the crew just made it to the start of leg two. British Soldier then followed suit with a dismasting of the mizzenmast. After leaving Australia, Tabarly dropped the main mast for a second time, this time sinking it in the Tasman Sea. Team SEB doesn’t even hold the record for losing the first carbon mast. Heath’s Condor in The Whitbread 1977 claimed this privilege –78, while Peter Blake was onboard as a watch leader. The yacht had a carbon top fixed to the aluminium bottom section of the mast for reducing weigh aloft. At this time, there was little or no experience with carbon masts and the top section behaved like a whiplash and finally broke off the African coast near Liberia.

The 1981-82 Whitbread saw true carnage with nine yachts losing their masts. Rolly Go finished under jury rig; La Barca Laboratorio lost her mast and sailed to Recife in Brazil. 33 Export was able to make it to the French territory of Kerguelen Island. The yacht was subsequently put aboard a supply ship direct for Marseilles. Both the Spanish Licor 43 and European University Belgium were dismasted further along the course and both made it safely to Tasmania. The latter was only able to use a spinnaker pole as a jury mast and risked being wrecked in an onshore gale. A rescue plan was put into operation and European University was finally towed into Bicheno harbour by a fishing boat. Licor 43 broke her mast for the second time in a 60-knot gale. Thirteen hundred miles from Auckland, Gauloises III lost her mast and decided to go north to the tropics and Tahiti. The final yacht to lose her mast was FCF Challenger, whose mast broke at deck level between the Azores and England. So far this was the highest number of rig failures.

Peter Blake again lost the rig again on Ceramco New Zealand. New Zealand’s prime hope of a race win came to an end, when on September 21, 150 miles north of Ascension Island, under small genoa and a reefed mainsail, the yacht was dismasted. The port intermediate shroud had parted and the mast had broken in three pieces. The crew didn’t give up and they were the 18th boat to finish in Cape Town.

The next race saw the emergence of the modern maxis utilising Kevlar material for hull and sails, which put much more strain on the mast. Atlantic Privateer was the first victim and lost the mast in a southeasterly gale off Cape Town. NZI Enterprise then kept the Kiwi tradition when breaking the mast in two pieces. It took the crew six hours to clear up the mess and head back to the Chatham Islands east of New Zealand.

In 1989 - 90 the figures stayed low. First was Fisher and Paykel under Grant Dalton to lose the mizzenmast on the way to Punta del Este in Uruguay. The most spectacular dismasting happened at the restart in Auckland when The Card’s mizzenmast hooked the masthead of a 28ft cruising boat and pulled her horizontal, and ripping the mizzenmast out of the boat within hours of the start. It was salvaged by a third party and later shipped to Punta. The Card sailed on as a sloop.

On the last leg, Steinlager came as close to disaster as possible. After winning every leg of the race, the steel chain-plate that held the mizzen and main masts broke, and only the quick reaction of helmsman Brad Butterworth, who crash gybed the yacht, saved the masts and the victory of the red ketch.

The 1993 -94 race saw the emergence of the 60 footers and only one mast was lost. This time it was the leading yacht, Tokio, who put the mast over the side of the boat in reaching conditions off Brazil after a convincing performance over the course of the race under Kiwi skipper Chris Dickson.

By 1997-98, the racing was becoming closer and closer, with every boat pushing hard to break records and win legs. Gone were the restrictions of allowing only fractional spinnakers to be flown in the Southern Ocean. This time, the W60s could carry much more sail, and fly spinnakers from the top of the mast. The girls, onboard EF Education were the first victims, damaging their rig badly on the leg from Auckland to Brazil and having to sail conservatively in order to preserve it. Meanwhile, Lawrie Smith, pushing Silk Cut to the limit, went too far and the top section of the mast collapsed whilst spinnaker reaching in 30 knots of breeze at night. They jury-rigged and raced on for some days before retiring from the leg some 870 miles from Cape Horn and using their engine motored into Ushuaia to effect repairs.

The wind gods finally stopped smiling and after nursing their stricken yacht for nine days, the girls fell victim in 35 knots of wind and lost the mast between the first and second sets of spreaders. They finally retired from the leg 34 days after the start of the leg. Skipper Christine Guillou said, “Everyone onboard is bitterly disappointed. We gave it our best shot, but we have to be realistic. It is a very bad feeling to retire. We hope that our fortunes change.”

There are still many miles ahead for the crews in the Volvo Ocean Race and drama and destruction can lie in wait for any one of them, just around the corner.

Southampton, England, February 7, 2002 1600 GMT

SEB’s Mast Broke In Broach

SEB is sailing eastwards under jury rig making six knots. “A severe storm gust coming from a snow quall made us wipe out and in that moment we lost the rig. Sea conditions were very difficult. Nothing in the rig broke before the wipe out,” Gurra Krantz reported on the cause of losing the rig.

In a move to position themselves further to the south for the approach to Cape Horn, leading yacht illbruck sailed to the southeast, followed by Amer Sports One and Tyco who made gains in the stronger winds they sailed in. Due to the wind shift over the last 24 hours, ASSA ABLOY and djuice could sail a slightly shorter distance, narrowing the gap on illbruck to under 100 miles. News Corp is still the most northern yacht after their escape from the ice two days ago. There is a good chance that they come back into the race for the top places in this leg of the Volvo Ocean Race during the difficult approach to Cape Horn.

Amer Sports Too was enjoying their Southern Ocean sailing experience as Lisa McDonald, the yachts skipper wrote: “These waves are phenomenal and definitely only ever seen in the depths of the Southern Ocean. It's a big bubbly boiling cauldron amounting to enormous mountains of water that pick you up and take you for a ride.”