DAY 43 - Club Med has Passed Cape Horn, now in the Atlantic Heading for Marseille. Fleet has a Night of Little Calamities, Team Adventure to Stop in Wellington
News - Sunday, 02/11/2001, 11:00 AM GMT

Position	02/11/2001 11:00 AM GMT
1st	Club Med (6925 nm from finish. Has passed Cape Horn, heading for Marseille, avg speed 20.0 knots)
2nd	Innovation Explorer (821 nm from the leader. Will have a rough Cape Horn passing with 50-60 knot winds, broke bracket for the steering cable sheave, broken snap shackle caused solent to drop, avg speed 23.0 knots)
3rd	Team Adventure (5158 nm from leader. Making her way across Tasman Sea, will stop in Wellington, avg speed 16.6 knots)
4th	Warta Polpharma (6041 nm from the leader. Steady progress past Cape Leeuwin, put distance on Team Legato, avg speed 18.0 knots)
5th	Team Legato (7065 nm from the leader. Buried bows last night, Jason Owen bruised ribs, broke a batten, avg speed 14.5 knots)
6th	PlayStation DNF

Club Med passed Cape Horn, the tip of South America, at 04:30 GMT this morning, and is now sailing into better weather in the Atlantic, heading towards Marseille, France with 7000 miles to the finish.

They cruised downwind along the Chilean coast jibing periodically, hugging the coast line, passed Staten Island to starboard, then they went through the Lemaire Strait before heading north-east. They are now 800 miles from the Falklands, doing 25 knots on relatively calm seas, under main and solent. Weather conditions for the next two days should be similar.

Club Med's navigator Mike Quilter: "We passed Cape Horn at four o'clock this morning in a 25-knot west-southwesterly wind, running the big gennaker and big topsail. It is a beautiful, clear night and we could see Cape Horn clearly. Now we shall be able to pee into the wind!" (Note: see Day 42 for an explanation of this nautical tradition).

Dalton on the next week of sailing conditions: "We have a really mixed bag of weather coming up. Unfortunately we are a couple of days too late to slip through the myriad of depressions and ridges this part of the world is famous is for. We will inevitably be headed and have to go upwind along here soon. This is the worst place in the world to go upwind. This is where the damage has been done in many previous round the world races, broken masts, delamination and structural failure."

Innovation Explorer has a bit less than 900 miles to go before reaching Cape Horn, they are on a direct easterly course, and can anticipate unpleasant conditions with winds of 50 or even 60 knots. A major low pressure system (955hPa) to the south-east of the Horn is generating winds of around 50/55 knots, gusts exceeding that speed, combined with a big swell.

For Innovation Explorer, the day has been fraught with small calamities.

Elena Caputo on Innovation Explorer: "A drizzly freezing rain has characterized our day. In the early morning, I was literally just dozing away into some (I think) very pleasant dream when something loud snapped right next to my ear. Thierry Douillard, in the bunk under me jumped out immediately and I barely had time to open my eyes with some strange vision that the bulkhead had cracked open".

"No, it was only the bracket for the steering cable sheave at the bottom of the pedestal (which is right next to the bunk) that broke away because of a delamination problem".

"On deck, Mouette (Olivier Lozachmeur) jumped quickly to the leeward hull and began steering from there. It took the better part of the morning for Jean Phi [Saliou] and Skip [Novak] to relaminate and especially reinforce the bracket. The helmsmen had to get well geared up to steer to leeward bombarded by spray".

"We ran the heat in the port hull for quite some time and it became uncomfortably hot inside, but once the 'job' was well dried, we put the cables back in and all was back to normal".

Then the solent came crashing down on deck out of the blue.

Julien Cressant had been up to the top of the mast only a few hours earlier for a routine check. He had to get geared up with helmet and climbing harness for the second time today to go pull the halyard down.

The damage was minimal - a broken snap shackle simply let the sail collapse from the halyard. Another 30 minutes of maneuvering went by before we were back to full sail.

Innovation Explorer has ballast tanks in the aft that keeps the bows up - 'snorkeling' in two tons of water ballast in aft tanks keep the bows riding high on the waves.

Novak: "Last night, just as we were filling the tanks, the boat hit a wave and I was thrown forward down the length of the cockpit and landed head first near the hatch. This was a frightening experience and totally unpredictable to guard against. It was a miracle I didn't split my head open on the grinder pedestals".

From the NOW live tracker, www.now.com

Innovation Explorer is in turqoise Club Med in yellow Team Adventure is green

PlayStation is in red Warta is orange Team Legato is blue

Team Adventure will stop in Wellington, more beam damage - 60 hour penalty.

Lewis: "We have made a thorough examination of the inside of the main beam. There is no sign of weakness regarding the repairs and modifications made in Cape Town. Having said that, the outer layer of the forward beam is peeling away seriously over an area of about 20 sq ft which is constantly battered by the waves. As long as the beam is structurally sound, we have no choice but to stop to repair the outer layer. While we are there, we will also have a look at the rest of the boat to see if we can identify any other potential problems".

According to Larry Rosenfeld’s estimations the boat should reach port in New Zealand on Tuesday morning, local time. American composite specialists are flying in to carry out the repairs. Cam Lewis expects to be able to complete the work within the mandatory 60-hour minimum stopover time.

They will also replace their drowned SAT B unit, and send off new photos and videos.

Team Adventure was aiming directly at New Zealand's Cook Strait today as she passed by the Southern tip of the island of Tasmania in towering waves with winds gusting to 50 knots. The winds are diminishing as they enter the Tasman Sea east of Tasmania, this can be seen by their gradual drop in speed.

Lewis: "We have three reefs in the mainsail and we are flying the Solent jib. Yesterday we had a huge wind and wave day - too much wind to have any real fun. The top wind was 55 knots and the biggest waves looked like 50-footers when you looked back at them".

Warta has put some distance between herself and Team legato today.

Team Legato has now passed Cape Leeuwin.

Bullimore: We’ve got one or two problems, we’ve broke a batten while putting a reef in the main. We’ve lost two or three hanks in the solent and we’ve lost one of our wind instruments, for giving us wind direction and wind speed". The wind instrument is repairable.

"When you’re screaming along it does get a big hairy, especially if you’re in a following sea like we were. In the daytime though it’s quite a lot of fun, quite enjoyable. We think the low we’re hanging on to will dissipate, break up in the next few hours, then the wind is going to get a bit lighter. We hope the sea will flatten off a bit fairly quick. I think we’re over the worse of this little blow, a lot of wind behind you doesn’t do the trick if you’ve got too big seas".

Jason Owen, navigator, was badly bruised in the ribs when Team Legato buried her bows in a big wave - he was thrown onto the chart table.

From the NOW live tracker, www.now.com

Innovation Explorer is in turqoise Club Med in yellow Team Adventure is green

PlayStation is in red Warta is orange Team Legato is blue

Three main causes for the combination of violent sea and wind conditions by cape Horn.

1. The short distance that separates Cape Horn from the Antarctic peninsula forms a funnel, called the Drake Passage, for the millions of cubic feet of water which pour through the 600-mile gap between the two land masses.

2. Shallower seas: The depth of the sea goes from about 13,000 feet in the Pacific to barely 330 feet in some parts of the passage. The long Pacific swell crashes into these shallow waters, becoming compressed and causing enormous and hazardous waves which rise almost vertically out of the sea.

3. The succession of low pressure systems which generate storms and flow around the planet from west to east. As these systems hit the Andes they are pushed south towards the Horn. Winds are frequently as high as 40 knots for five days in every week and if the wind-guage reads 80 knots, it does not necessarily mean you are imagining things!

Map images courtesy of Virtual Spectator, click here to go to The Race site for a free download of the software.

Club Med in blue Innovation Explorer is in green Warta Polpharma is yellow

Team Adventure is in orange Team Legato is in brick-red PlayStation is in orange-red

Map images courtesy of Virtual Spectator, click here to go to The Race site for a free download of the software.

Club Med in blue Innovation Explorer is in green Warta Polpharma is yellow

Team Adventure is in orange Team Legato is in brick-red PlayStation is in orange-red

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