Inside a waterspout

illbruck skipper John Kostecki describes what it was like when illbruck was struck by a tornado

A pattern is starting to develop on illbruck. The first day/night of a leg we get extreme conditions and encounter an experience that we will always remember for the rest of our life.

We got off to a nice start out of Sydney in a building sea breeze. Eventually as we worked our way south, all the Volvo Ocean Race boats encountered a calm spot about three hours after the start. This was the transition between the sea breeze and the gradient breeze from the west. The westerly gradient was a hot desert feeling wind with a lot of pressure. We had 25-35 knots of wind as we reached down the coast.

As we were cruising along at 16 knots, we started to see cloud build up to the southeast of us. We were expecting this as the southerly change, with cooler air from the south started making its way up the coast. As the cloud got closer, I quickly noticed a waterspout about three miles to leeward of us. We knew the change was about to hit.

At the same time I saw the waterspout to leeward, Richard [Clarke] noticed one developing to windward of us. This one developed quickly and formed a vertical funnel cloud down to the water. It was an incredible sight. Those of us who have sailed offshore a lot have seen several of these, but normally from a distance of 5-15 miles.

This one developed quickly about two miles from us and started racing right at us. So we tightened sheets and tried to make some windward gain on it. The spout started moving to leeward of us at a quick pace of 40 miles an hour. Then, it started changing direction. I guess the southerly winds started to steer it more and it was headed directly at us about 1/2 mile away. It was a scary sight.

We bore away and tried to run away from it and we dropped our jib. The wind built to 50 knots as the waterspout got closer to us. I asked for everyone onboard to have their harnesses on and to be ready for anything.

We started running away from it and it appeared to be passing to windward of us, but then suddenly it changed course again, the warm westerly winds started pushing it offshore directly at us again. Now it was only 400m away, blowing 60 knots and this huge spiralling cloud was nearly on top of us. We had to change course again, 90 degrees up so that it could pass to leeward.

There was a moment where we were all just silent hoping that it would pass by us. It came very close to us, about 200 meters, and it slowly passed in front of us and went to leeward.

We saw 63 knots on the wind speed dial at that time. We had a helpless feeling, where this freak of nature was chasing us down. Nobody onboard has ever experienced anything like this and we all hope we never do again.

The damage? No one was hurt fortunately, but we ripped the jib on the way down, from excessive flapping in 50 knots of wind. We also ripped the main as well. We had a reef in the main and we never thought we could drop it in time before this thing came near us. So, we ripped the forward fold from the reef as it came loose in the breeze and just shredded about a five foot piece of the luff of the mainsail.

John Kostecki
illbruck Challenge