Maiden, Leg 1- Ocean Globe Race 2023

 Leg 1- Ocean Globe Race 2023

Southampton, UK to Cape Town, South Africa

10th September 2023- 21st October 2023

7951nm

41 days

After a whirlwind 8 months of hard work to get the boat and team ready, we finally crossed the start line! And what a start it was- so many boats out on the water to see us all off. We crossed the start in style with a spinnaker hoist and quickly cemented our place in the leading section of the fleet, with Pen Duick VI, Translated 9 and Spirit of Helsinki. We had some beautifully executed gybes from the team before the wind came forward on us near Yarmouth. I made a bad call when we hoisted the JT instead of the J1. I thought the change in wind direction would be more gradual which meant when it came round too close for the JT we had to tack to do the peel to the J2 which ultimately lost us ground. Spirit of Helsinki had vanished off into the distance and headed out past the needles, Pen Duick VI had opted for the North Head passage, so that left us and Translated 9 match racing to the needles.

We encountered poor visibility in the English channel and upwind conditions. When the fog lifted we were in sight of Pen Duick VI! Crossing the Bay of Biscay was uneventful with some quite pleasant downwind conditions. We were in sight of Helsinki, T9 and Pen Duick VI for a long time, which focused our efforts. The wind came further aft and we struggled to make good course and speed with our asymmetric pushing us further East then we really wanted to be. We ideally had planned to go to the west of the Canaries but were just not making the course needed and we didn’t think that a gybe out would be worth it. So we opted to go between La Palma and El Hierro, hoping to make use of some acceleration effect between the islands whilst also being very wary of the wind shadows from the islands. I think on the whole we did manage to get some acceleration however the wind shadows forced us to put in a couple of gybes which wasn’t ideal. 

If I remember correctly it was around about the canaries where we began to be able to hear Passage Guardian Radio all the way from New Zealand! It was extremely faint and barely readable at times but Peter was able to give us some much needed basic weather information. As we were the only boat who could hear him enough to make sense of it, we passed this information into the fleet during the daily fleet HF calls. You will hear more about the wonderful Passage Guardian in the blogs about Legs 2 and 3. Unfortunately we were only able to hear him a couple of times near the Canaries and then again as we were approaching Cape Town during Leg 1.

The next tactical decision of the Leg was to go East or West of the Verde Islands. We ended up staying on the favourable gybe and going to the East of them along with Pen Duick VI and T9. Helsinki took quite a westerly route which was paying off for them. 

The next big challenge and arguably one of the most important decisions of the leg was where to cross the ITCZ (Inter Tropical Convergence Zone), known to many sailors as the Doldrums. This part of the Atlantic presents a challenge of light winds, unpredictable squalls and hot conditions. Finding the best place to cross it in order to spend the least amount of time with no wind is imperative if we wanted to do well in this leg. We had managed to get some pretty good HF high seas forecasts from the Canaries but we soon were out of their range and Passage Guardian was unreadable so we headed for the point that was suggested to us by Christian Dummard- an expert on weather and routing that we had talked to before we had started the leg. We had great luck when we were called up on the VHF by CV26! A Clipper Round The World Race yacht- they had seen us on their AIS as they were headed to the doldrums themselves. Nano, the skipper of CV26 spent a long time on the VHF giving us some really detailed weather and current information. Over the next couple of days there were a few more Clipper yachts passing who all called us up for a chat and gave us updated information. We had very squally conditions but managed to get through the doldrums without stopping too much with T9 in sight or in VHF distance for the whole time. 

We then started to focus our sights on the St Helena High. A big high pressure system that dominates the South Atlantic and stands in between us and the finish in Cape Town. We would have to go around it but needed to accurately find out where it was and it’s movements to take the shortest route around it without getting stuck in it’s light winds. We had got some information from the clipper boats about where it was and it seemed very far to the Southwest making it difficult to go around. 

Exiting the doldrums we were upwind, the wind started to slowly increase. We were putting in our 3rd reef when I noticed a tear in our mainsail. So in the dark, with over 20knts of wind and a moderate sea state we had to remove the mainsail from the mast and get it down below to be fixed. This mammoth task took the whole team around an hour, most of which myself and Molly were gripping ourselves onto the mast whilst also pulling the individual cars up and over the track, a very physically demanding task. Once the mainsail was down below, we set up the trysail and were still managing to make 8knts! We discovered that it wasn’t a rip but the stitching on the seam had come undone. The sailmaking team and several helpers quickly got to work re-stitching and securing the seam, and checking over the rest of the sail. Once it was day-light and the conditions were safer, we re-hoisted the mainsail and were back to full speed again. 

The St Helena high pressure was still very south and very west. We could see that there was a possibility that it would move NE, but nothing was certain in the forecasts. So there was two potential tactics either we went West in order to go around the high pressure, catch the more favourable downwind conditions and hope that it moves NE so we don’t have to go too many extra miles. Or alternatively we head straight for Cape Town, but knowing that we will be upwind and slow for the next 2-3 weeks. It was a tough call the make and ultimately me and Rachel came up with the plan to head directly South. Try to not compromise speed but not give too much ground away to the west in case we needed to head on the more Easterly route later on. A kind of stay in the middle until we were closer to the high or could see a more definite trend in it’s movements. 

As we got closer to Cape Town, we were beginning to pick up forecasts from SAMNET and these were able to give us a better idea of what was going on. Although they were only for 24-48hrs in advance, we could see the positions of the high. We could see that it had moved NE so going around it was now going to be a better option, so we cracked off and stuck to our decision. The wind came further aft as we came around the high and we were finally able to ‘turn left’ and point closer to Cape Town. It seemed like the end was in sight. We couldn’t relax now though- we needed to do everything we could to make sure we didn’t get stuck in that high. We used the daily HF chats with the fleet to gather information on the conditions that were being experienced by the boats ahead of us. The plan was if they got stuck we would dive further south to escape the light winds. When we started to not hear from Pen Duick VI, we were suspicious that they had got stuck in a wind hole. We erred on the cautious side and headed a little further south. We eventually heard from Marie and she confirmed our suspicions, they were becalmed and frustrated to hear us and Spirit of Helsinki and Translated 9 closing the distance on their lead. 

With the sight of land came 45 knts on the bow. We sailed into Cape Town bay with some pretty brutal upwind conditions- the worst conditions we had seen since the start! We crossed the line at 12.43 on the 21st October after 41 days at sea. 4th over the line and 3rd in IRC- we were happy with the result, we managed to keep up with the leading pack and showed the other entrants that we mean business!

Photo credit to Kaia Bint Savage and Najiba Noori @ The Maiden Factor