Bobst Group / Armor Lux a été mis au sec et en chantier pour réparer la délamination de sa coque sur tribord avant

Photo : Billy Black / Rivacom

First of all, better late than never, I hope you had a good Christmas, and I wish you happiness and health for 2003. For me, the year got off to a very good start. Let’s hope the wind keeps blowing the right way for us all.

In a few sentences, here is a short summary of the stage between Cape Town and Tauranga.

The start wasn‚t that brilliant. In the half-hour, which preceded the race, the wind was fairly strong and constant. With my team’s help, we put in place two reefs in the mainsail and the staysail. And then just ten minutes before the starting procedures got underway, the wind abated and it was too late to do anything about it. As for Thierry Dubois and Graham Dalton, they had their sails set for these conditions and were the first to cross the starting line. As I was under the lee of the other boats, I didn’t raise any more sail immediately, because there was the danger of not rounding the point in one tack. As soon as I extricated myself from my difficult position, I sent up the rest of the mainsail and changed the staysail for the solent. As the wind continued to weaken, Bobst Group Armor Lux rapidly made her way to the front, while the others took their time in raising their sails. That was the little regatta we had together before rounding the Cape of Good Hope, and before each of us set off on the direction we had chosen during the preparation for the race.

There were several options. We could hug the coast and get close to the direct route, which was the choice Thierry Dubois made. Or we could go a bit further south, without going too far away from the direct route, and at the same time pick up the westerlies and sail along the southern low pressure areas. That’s what the other competitors did. The final possibility was to head off to the south or even south south west to pick up the westerlies from the southern low-pressure areas down between 40 and 55° south as soon as possible, which was the choice I made. The final option held me back a lot in the position board for the first few days, but it was well worth it for the rest of the trip.

After three days racing with Thierry Dubois in the lead, we picked up the favourable winds we had been hoping for, and we realised there was nothing to choose between the two options, as both of us, Thierry and myself, found ourselves more or less in the same position. It was best to be close to land or way off to the south, and certainly not in the middle. I was sure I had chosen the right option, and missed what Thierry Dubois had seen, so I didn’t dare take the route he had chosen. As a result, we ended up in the lead together, with a large gap already between the other competitors and us.

At that point, the organisers warned us of a very deep approaching low-pressure area, which would soon affect the whole fleet. Once again, there were several possibilities concerning our choice of route. We could head off to the north to avoid the worst of the winds, or weather it out staying on course, or head for the centre of the low-pressure area to take full advantage of the change in the wind direction, while there was the danger of losing out on the strong winds for a time. For a while, I chose the latter solution, but as time went by, I could see that the others were all heading off north. I had some doubts about my analysis at that point, and for a dozen hours or so headed off north myself, as much to keep an eye on the others as to keep moving and watch the weather.

After those twelve hours, which I largely spent in front of the maps, I still couldn’t find any real reasons for going north and I went back to my initial choice, which proved to be the right one, because once we had gone through the low-pressure area, I extended my lead over Thierry. Under the terms of the race, we had to leave Heard Island, which is to the south of the Kerguelens, to the south of us. That happened quite naturally, as I even went to the north of the Kerguelens.

Next, the second compulsory element was a « gateway ». We had to go at least once to the north of 46°S between 105° and 120°E, which is more or less to the south west of Australia. It was a little more difficult to get up there, because at that point in time, there was a high-pressure area forcing me to hug the wind, in order for me to continue towards Tasmania. Thierry was now 250 miles behind me, but as a new low-pressure area was approaching, he would pick up the favourable winds before me, and find the stronger winds as I entered the system. As he was way off to the north, I had to keep an eye on him. I thus set a direct course for Tasmania to make sure of things. The low-pressure area built slower than expected, and as I was directly south of Tasmania, I dived further south again to get in the right place for the high-pressure area in the Sea of Tasmania. It was vital to do that as quickly as possible, in order not to be becalmed between Australia and New Zealand, and things worked out fine, and I left the high-pressure area behind me.

After that, there was just Cape Reinga to the north of NZ to go around before heading for Tauranga. I thought that it was just a formality, but my course took me into a deep low-pressure area, which was rather nasty for the boat. Immediately after the Cape, the winds got up, and the headwinds reached 45 knots. The sea became rough, with heavy seas rapidly developing. The problem was the space between the waves hardly increased, while they grew to 7 or 8m high. As I had 450 miles lead over Thierry, I reduced the sails, making it heavy going, but the least worst scenario was to adapt the sails to the weather, which meant 3 reefs and the headsail. The sail began to tear under the fourth reef, which forced me to pull it in. Every thirty seconds, Bobst Group Armor Lux rose up on the waves and crashed down again making a horrendous noise.

Some base wedges began to break, the sliding mechanism, which enables us to move the heavy equipment to the other side of the boat broke and slid across the boat. It was impossible to stand up in the boat without holding on, and suddenly the boat went right over. I quickly saw there was a problem with the steering. When I got into the steering mechanism compartment, I could see that the bit that holds the spindle to the rudder coupling had broken off the hull. I didn’t know what to do for a moment, and felt unable to do anything to repair it, even temporarily. Then as the rudders were moving about violently and could easily break everything, I realised I had to do something and very quickly. I drilled holes all around this little room to put screws in, then I fixed it all in place with pieces of vectran, that I got by pulling off a bit of the reef from the gennaker. In fact, while I was trying to keep the system in place to avoid any further breakages, I found a way to continue my journey.

All that happened to the north of Great Barrier Island, an island, which protects Hauraki Gulf on its western side. While I was in the boat repairing the damage, Thierry Martinez, a sailing photographer, flew over the boat in his helicopter. As they approached, they saw Bobst Group Armor Lux in the wind, in heavy seas, with no one on the deck. I didn‚t hear them immediately, because of all the noise in the background, so as soon as I got back out on the deck, they were clearly relieved to see there was still someone on board. He will have taken photos of the rough weather, rather than the sailing. I managed to get back on course, and that night, as I crashed into a wave, the boat must have hit something that was floating around, and the hull on the starboard side in the bow section started to delaminate.

Finally, the wind agreed to turn, and I finished the rest of the trip broadreaching with 4 reefs, the small jib, and I managed to unroll the solent to get it over with. The visibility was extremely low and I only saw the finishing line 100 metres before I reached it. Just after crossing the line, my team and a few others came on board, and when I tried to turn the boat into the wind to haul down the mainsail, the tiller came off in my hands. The moving around the previous day had already damaged it a little and the tiller gave up 50 m after the finishing line. We carried out the final manoeuvres in a special mode with the automatic pilot, which was a bit like steering a cargo vessel !

Even in this nasty weather, a few boats came out to welcome me. There were a lot of people on the landing stages to see me in. All these people had to wait until I had found the boat’s papers that customs were impatiently waiting for, before I could set foot ashore.

The reception was really very welcoming and continues to be so. We’re staying with host families, who are doing everything they can to make sure we have everything we want. Since then, Benoît and JC have started on the repair work, the boat has had her mast removed and she has been taken out of the water. As for me, I was invited by the Alinghi team to spend two or three days with them. Tomorrow, Sunday, I‚m getting down to the major work, which concerns the hull repairs. I’ll send you a few lines about my trip to Auckland, and keep you up to date as the work progresses.

Until next time,

Bernard"

Information RivaCom / http://www.bernard-stamm.com