The Race - 0630 - 28/2/01

It remains a fiercesome struggle at the other end of the fleet, with Cam Lewis' Team Adventure and the Polish boat Warta Polpharma still wrestling with the worst the Southern Ocean can throw at them. Even the normally irrepressible Lewis seems to have been impressed by this one.

"We have transitioned from hurricane-force winds over 65 knots waves bigger than your house and hail pinging off the deck to mellow seas and the Southern Cross shining bright overhead," Lewis said today.

"The past few days have been a wild ride wide through the vast South Pacific, isolated by thousands of miles of big blue water from any kind of shelter. We have been dealt the full brunt of a reasonable size low-pressure system, pretty much normal sailing conditions for this part of the planet.

"Some waves were so large even I would not point the bows down them and would turn, bail out at the last second as the front 50 feet of the bows hung in the air ready for the plunge. Turning, safely into the wind, my self-preservation instinct kicking in. Thank god for that! You can surf most of them most of the time, but sometimes down here there are such big waves it is just too scary.

"The other morning at dawn o'thirty with three reefs tucked in the main and still flying the staysail in 48 knots of wind I felt relatively safe. Lionel Lemonchois asked me for my hot drink order. I had no sooner said "hot chocolate" than my foul weather gear pressed hard on my back and the rigging shrieked.

"I bore off down a wave with some pace and watched the sea erupt in white foam. The anemometer peaked at 67 knots. Cancel the hot chocolate and smoke the staysail halyard!! Get it down!

"We hit 38 knots boat speed dead down wind. Safe, but a little hairy, with some flashbacks from my last experience down here where we saw 82 knots of wind. Welcome back. If you want to pass the Horn, play the game!

"Finally 24 hours later we started hoisting some sails this morning, first storm jib in 50 knots, then staysail in 35 and finally mule up and main to one reef when the wind settled in around 25 this afternoon. The seas have gone from large, fast moving 30-plus-footers to a mellow rolling ten to 15 feet. Those were very impressive conditions and, with due respect, some waves that I would rather not see again.

"This cat is one fine seaworthy boat and I could not imagine being more comfortable or confident in any other boat in the toughest conditions we saw." Cam the man - and an impressive tribute to the Ollier boats.

But although the breeze has moderated, this storm is forecast to do some pretty weird stuff over the next couple of days, with little low pressures boiling and bubbling around the Horn (right).

Although Cam and his team should be safely around ahead of it, the kind of scenario we can see for Friday - headwinds blowing off the Horn against a huge sea that's choking and piling up as it rolls into the Drake Channel - isn't one the much smaller Polish boat will want to experience.

They've already been having a much harder time of it, "We're battling with the biggest storm we have ever seen. The wind hasn't dropped below 40 knots for over 20 hours now. In the night we experienced several hours with a wind averaging 50 knots. For most of the time it is blowing 60 knots, or between force 9 and force 11!

"The waves are 15 metres high. We sailed under bare poles for 14 hours and our speed under mast alone was 12.5 knots! We have prepared lines to trail out astern in case we need to slow the boat down when surfing down the waves. These winds are forecasted to last another two days yet. We hope it isn't true!" reported Jarek Kaczorowski from Warta-Polpharma - we're with them on that one.

Standings (at 0300 GMT, 28/2/01)

1 Club Med 1548.7 nm to the finish
2 Innovation Explorer +1003.3 nm
3 Team Adventure +5899.2 nm
4 Warta Polpharma +6374.6 nm
5 Team Legato +8500.4 nm

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