Great American crosses equator

Wilson and Biewenga converge with Volvo fleet

Rich Wilson and Bill Biewenga aboard their Nigel Irens-designed trimaran Great American II crossed the Equator two days ago, stepping up their record-breaking pace on a non-stop voyage from New York City to Melbourne, Australia.

Today the 53ft trimaran with its crew of two was 205 nautical miles east northeast of Recife, Brazil. It's position was 6 degrees 58 minutes south, 31 degrees 42 minutes west. After crossing the Equator, 19 days and 22 hours out of New York, Great American II, was one day ahead of the track of the clipper ship Mandarin, the vessel that has held the sailing record for the 14,000-mile voyage for nearly a century and a half.

Her two crew Rich Wilson and Bill Biewenga are out to beat Mandarin's 69-day record, set as she carried prospectors to the Australian Gold Rush in the
winter of 1855-56.

In an e-mail sent today, Wilson said his thoughts were never far from the ghost of the Mandarin forging down the Atlantic Ocean nearly 150 years ago.

"I imagine that great and enormous ship charging along under a cloud of sail in all the conditions that we have encountered. Those were great sailors indeed," he said. Wilson reported a swift but strenuous passage through the Doldrums, stretching east and west in a band just north of the Equator.

"Previous to that, we had several days of very high speed sailing," Wilson said. "These were effortless, soft, easy miles with the northeasterly trade winds on our beam steadily driving the boat at 12 to 15 knots for hour after hour. We were able to close many miles on Mandarin's lead. We had fallen behind the ghost of the flying clipper by two days but we hoped to speed things up through the Doldrums and arrive at the Equator with a one-day lead.

"The doldrums were challenging, with no wind one minute, and too much wind and the need to reef the sails the next. Mix this with 100-degree wind shifts, and with only one man on deck most of the time, and it makes for a real mental and physical workout.

"You know you're working hard when you scarf down a Power Bar in two bites, as if it were an hors d'oeuvre at a cocktail party. Deal with a 45 knot squall, with painful, piercing rain, like a sandstorm on your face, and going from full sail to three reefs in the main, and no jib, and you have a worn-out crew."

Wilson said that after they broke out of the Doldrums at 3 degrees north of the Equator they were hit head-on by a southerly wind that got stronger and stronger.

"Our course was supposed to be due true south, we were down to two reefs in the main and the staysail, and still sailing at nine knots but only achieving about four knots in the direction we wanted to go. We were going nowhere south fast, and hammering the daylights out of the boat to boot.

"A day of that punishment finally changed with a slight wind shift to the east that was the first indication of the southeasterly trade winds and more moderate breezes. When we crossed the Equator had the one-day lead on the Mandarin we'd been aiming for."