Disappointment on leg 2

British Mini sailor Andrew Wood recounts his frustrating second leg of the Les Sables-Azores race

There’s no doubt about it, Horta is definitely a great island to stop and recharge your batteries after a long hard sail, but there are only so many ‘Ginto’s’ that can be drunk in Peters Bar and soon it comes time for the home run.

With most repairs carried out and all provisions aboard, the start line at Horta presented us with a blustery 25 knots and bright skies as the fleet prepared itself for the 1300 mile return leg to Les Sables. Most were carrying 2nd reef which was certainly needed for the first evenings beat north between the islands. I had a great start, third off the line along with Brossard and Adria and planned to keep going on the northerly tack until clear of the islands.

By nightfall, most of the fleet had started to put in their tacks to the east and I was pleased when Peter Laureyssens on Ecover passed behind me, but didn’t follow suit as I thought we needed to get a little further north. Around 0200 in the morning I was well clear of the islands and dropped the keel over to port to start the tacking procedure which takes a good deal of planning on these thoroughbred machines.

Still in squally 20 knot conditions, it took me a little while to find the right settings on my very adjustable Navman Giropilot, but when I got it right, the hydraulic ram had no problems keeping a perfect course even with the massive sail area that I was carrying, and I settled down for a few hours sleep. The next day brought slightly less breeze and easier conditions, but the pressure was still on to keep plugging east and get ahead of the encroaching high pressure.

Although she was sailing nicely, I had this nagging feeling that domosofa.com was just not quite at full revs, but couldn’t figure out what was the problem. It may have been something around the keel, or it could have simply been down to me, but no matter what I tried I had this constant frustrating feeling I was slowly loosing places. This was soon to become apparent when I slammed straight into the back of the high and speeds dropped down to a painful 3 or 4 knots for the next 3 days!

The leaders had just managed to keep ahead of this wind hole and although the high was always snapping at their heels, the leading five managed to keep moving at good speed with kites, while the rest of the fleet were left struggling to wriggle their way underneath or over the top of this massive block between us.

After three exasperating days, the wind shifted round to the southeast, and I knew this meant I was somewhere near the bottom left hand side of the high, but with no clear weather info other than some barely audible SSB broadcasts from Monaco Radio, I was reluctant to take the risk of leaving the rhum line and heading north over the top of the system in order to try and find the westerlies.

After four days of sleeping on the foredeck trying to keep the fat stern out of the water, I finally felt a new breeze from the north and got domosofa.com back up to speed in the filling breeze. At last, I was starting to overtake boats again, after a slight heading of the wind it was time to switch the gennaker for the solent. As is often the way with the gennaker, I had some problems furling it and had to hoist it back out again in order to roll it properly, as I was doing so I heard a slight crack in the rigging and my heart sank. I stowed the sail and climbed the rig to find the leeward, upper spreader fitting had cracked.

The gennaker must have been caught around it and with me pulling as well as the wind it couldn’t take the unnatural forward load. Still with 600 miles left to sail, I was now left with some tough decisions; I had to complete this race as it was my last chance to qualify for the transat, yet I couldn’t afford to take the risk of breaking the mast again!

I climbed the rig again and found that the diagonal shroud was still properly attached and as long as I kept all sails below the second spreader, the mast would still be fully supported. So, the race was over, but under two reefs and storm jib I could still complete the course.

It took me five days to cross the finish line and I can honestly say I have never been so bored in my life! However, I am now ready to enter any quiz on IRPCS and radio regulations with full confidence, courtesy of the Reeds Almanac! I could probably even tell you most of the ingredients of a Mars Bar in Arabic!

After such an inspiring first leg, crossing 9th in class, I was really excited about the return leg, so it was a real disappointment for me to finish my last race of the season so far back in the fleet. But, on the bright side, I’m now fully qualified for the Mini Transat next year and am free to set to work race practicing and developing the sail plan on domosofa.com, something I’ve not had time to do this year what with hitting whales, dismasting, breaking spreaders and repairing the hull!!

To this I must add a really big thank you to my sponsors and everyone who’s helped me fight all these fires, and a big thank you to the ever helpful Mini fleet especially 444, 510, 509 and 419 who although they had plenty to do themselves regularly gave up their time to help me get the boat in the water and ready to race, thanks!