Pyewacket and Morning Glory, with the weather mark
in the foreground
What you’re seeing here are the first ever
published photos of the two hottest racing boats in the world,
battling head to head, for the first time ever. It all took place
this morning at the Heineken Regatta in St. Martin.
Pyewacket reached by at perhaps 18 knots.
The photos were taken by Vincent C. Rubino
from aboard Latitude 38’s catamaran Profligate. For
whatever reason, the race committee started the multihulls in
front of the hot monohulls, which resulted in both Pyewacket
and Morning Glory rushing by us not 25 feet away on the
second leg. We’ve seen a lot of spectacular boats, but these
two MaxZ86s, charging along powered by 25 and more knots of wind,
were sensational.
Morning Glory
Roy Disney’s Pyewacket had a slight
lead right before the weather mark, at which point Hasso Plattner’s Morning Glory was blocked by Rocketeer, an Atlantic
55 catamaran we’re pleased to say we’d rolled a few minutes before. Pyewacket crossed the finish line first, but perhaps by
only seconds more than she’d lost by being inadvertently blocked
by Rocketeer. In other words, these all but identical
boats were almost identically quick. At this point it’s unclear
to us whether or not Pyewacket beat the maxi cat PlayStation’s
around the island record.
The Chris White-designed Atlantic 55 cat Rocketeer, sailing
in the first leg Photos Vincent C. Rubino
By the way, Stan Honey, who sailed on PlayStation
(now Cheyenne) in the Heinie last year, and was aboard Pyewacket this year, says one of the biggest differences
between the boats is that Pyewacket tacks in 78 degrees,
while PlayStation tacked in 120 degrees. Yes, 120 degrees!
We were able to see Pyewacket nip Morning Glory at the finish because we’d had to drop out
after being beset by heavy weather-related problems. We were
initially slowed by the screecher tack pulling loose. Then the
clew reefing shackle failed. We repaired both of these, but when
sailing upwind at over 10 knots in winds gusting to 34 knots,
the cover on the core of the jib halyard failed. We figured the
writing was on the wall and we’d better drop out to be able to
be sure to make the last three races.
John Haste’s San Diego-based Little
Wing is also racing, with a lot of crew from Mexico. We’d
managed to get good lead on them until we had to drop the main
to repair the reefing. But we later saw them with a man atop
the mast in the windy and sloppy conditions, so we don’t know
what happened to them. That’s it for now, as we’ve got repairs
to make, parties to go to, and three more races to sail in.
Profligate’s Progress
March 4 – St. Martin
The Heineken Regatta in St. Martin starts
tomorrow [Friday] and two things have been happening: boats have
been signing up like crazy and the wind has been honking all
week. At last count, something like 258 boats had signed up.
The glamor boats, of course, are Roy Disney and Hasso Plattner’s
new MaxZ86s with canting keels and canard rudders. As for the
wind, the other day the French Meteo forecast was for 29 knots
of wind, with gusts to 40 in squalls, for the following three
days. The wind has been going from calm to 25 knots in a matter
of ten minutes, with big seas.
Upon arriving at St. Martin, we had a chat
with Stan Honey, navigator aboard the new Pyewacket, Roy
Disney’s MaxZ86. He says that the new boat points higher than
the old one. It will sail 11.5 knots going upwind, about a half
to three-quarters of a knot faster. Robbie Haines, who manages
the Pyewacket program, says they reached speeds up to
27 knots in 26 knots of wind yesterday. The canting keel has
4 buttons with 3 speeds each, and has to be worked constantly,
wearing out the operator’s fingers.
Roy Disney is needed back in the U.S. for
the goings-on at Disney Corp., so he will have to miss this first
meeting of these cutting edge boats.
Stan Honey normally sails aboard Steve
Fossett’s Cheyenne, and he says it’s killing him not to
be with them in the Southern Ocean, as they approach the halfway
point in their Jules Verne Trophy attempt. Honey talks to Fossett
about three times a day, usually helping him with questions and
problems regarding the catamaran’s electronics.
In other news, Antonio des Mortes, our
former captain several times on Big O, and self-proclaimed
‘Terrorist of the Caribbean’, banged on the hull last night and
insisted we come over and meet this incredible sailor friend
of his from his hometown on the Galacian coast of Spain. When
we learned the fellow’s name was Javier Babe – what image does
that raise in your mind? – we have to admit we weren’t sure if
the visit was going to be worth the time. Well, it was. It turns
out that the 55-year-old Babe has sailed across the Atlantic
23 times, and has sailed around the Horn twice, all on his own
boats. His wife Christina has been across the Atlantic 17 times.
His 13-year-old son Oscar has been across 13 times – and not
against his will. “The sailing life is la buena vida,”
he told us.
13-year old Oscar – who has crossed the Atlantic 13 times already
Antonio, Terrorist of the Caribbean, and often times Captain
of Big O, with Javier Babe, his friend from childhood
on the Galacian coast of Spain.
Initially a captain in the merchant marine,
Babe became frustrated with stopping at great ports only long
enough to load and unload cargo. Plus, he’s a dedicated diver.
“I am passionate about sailing, diving and the sea.”
So he bought and ran a three-masted 110-ft schooner. After several
years, it was going to break him financially, so thanks to the
help of Mary Crowley of Ocean Voyages in Sausalito, he sold the
schooner, and acquired the 65-ft Frers-designed Argentinean-built
ketch Peregrina, which means ‘female pilgrim’. Anyway,
he now runs back and forth across the Atlantic doing sailing
and diving charters.
But not next year. Babe and five others
will be sailing across the Atlantic on a traditional 26-ft open
Galacian fishing boat. Everything used in the boat will have
also been available in the 1700s. So not only will they not have
a GPS or radar, they won’t even have a sextant. When we asked
what Babe would use to navigate, he pulled out a crude astrolabe-like
device he made from the cardboard from a beer box. “With
this, I can get my position, without tables or a watch, to within
60 miles.” Babe looks forward to this extremely risky expedition
as much as a five-year-old looks forward to Christmas morning.
Javier Babe and the navigation device he’ll use to cross the
Atlantic later this year on a 26-ft open boat with five others. Photos Latitude/Richard
Babe is as good a diver as he is a sailor.
The last time he was home, he did a lot of drinking in the bars,
and when it came time to pay, bet the local fishermen the cost
of drinks that he could hold his breath underwater for over three
minutes. He did it for 3 minutes and 15 seconds, so he got to
drink free of charge. His son Oscar is also an enthusiastic diver.
He currently free dives to 50 feet.
We’d have gotten much more information
on Babe and his incredible adventures, but he was leaving a few
minutes later on a night passage to Culebra. If all goes well,
we’ll meet up in the Virgins at the end of this month for an
interview.
Babe also had some news about a sailor
we’d known from the past. About eight years ago, we did a wild
Antigua Sailing Week with Big O, with lots of topless
women as crew. One of these women was a beautiful young Spanish
girl who was cruising with an older Spanish gentleman. Although
we could never prove it, it appeared the guy was physically abusing
her for racing with us. It was a tricky situation, as she wouldn’t
admit she was being beaten, so all we could do was warn the guy
that if he wasn’t careful, a bunch of people were going to beat
the shit out of him.
We’re not sure what has become of the girl,
but the fellow, Isadoro, left South Africa singlehanding on his
42-ft sloop in 2003, and began sending strange messages to Babe
and other friends. Over a series of reports, he advised friends
that his boat was being taken over by witches and dwarfs. In
fact, it was getting hard to navigate because the compass kept
transforming into a dwarf’s head. The troubled fellow’s boat
was later found without him aboard. It’s believed that he went
mad and committed suicide.
If you think life if boring, you’ve clearly never spent much
time living the sailing life or meeting the characters in the
Caribbean. And Lord knows, there will be plenty of excitement
this weekend in St. Martin.
Rise No Faster than Your Bubbles
March 5 – Marshall Islands
Blair Grinols, sailing his Capricorn
Cat in the mid-Pacific reports on an unnerving diving incident
in the Marshall Islands: “We were down about 40 feet when
the problem started. We were diving a sea mount out in the lagoon
at Aur atoll. The air intake tube on the Hooka pressure pump
(the pressurized air breathing system we had employed for this
dive) had toppled over into the water. One minute myself, Joanna,
and Rixzene, (Karmaladen crew and owner) were on a beautiful
dive, then our regulators were full of water. I turned to Rixzene
and Joanna and gave the signal to surface. They did not need
any coaxing. Air under pressure increases in volume upon rising
so we expelled air (which I did not have much of anyway) and
started the assent. We had only been down eight minutes so the
nitrogen in our systems had not had much of a chance to rise.
We know people who can skin dive without air to 60, 70, 80 and
even 90 feet, so we didn’t panic at the thought of reaching the
surface. It certainly was unnerving, but we all laughed when
we popped out of the water! The rule of diving is to rise no
faster than your bubbles, but we were leaving ours far behind.
Ash (Karmaladen crew) and I immediately disassembled the
Hooka pump and rinsed the salt water from it and straightened
the little flapper check valves, and it was ready to go again.”
YOTREPS
March 5 – The Pacific Ocean and Cyberspace
Who is out making passages in the Pacific
and what kind of weather are they having? The YOTREPS daily yacht
tracking page has moved to www.bitwrangler.com/psn.
Looking for current as well as recent wind
and sea readings from 17 buoys and stations between Pt. Arena
and the Mexican border? Here’s the place – which has further
links to weather buoys and stations all over the U.S.: www.ndbc.noaa.gov/Maps/Southwest.shtml.
Pacific Winds and Pressure
The University of Hawaii Dept. of Meteorology
page posts a daily map of the NE Pacific Ocean barometric
pressure and winds.
