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Blogging While Sailing at 30 Knots

The MOD70 Phaedo 3 with her afterburners on, as seen during a record-setting run around St. Maarten.

© 2015 Tim Wright

Brian Thompson, known to a number of Bay Area sailors for his time around here with Steve Fossett’s trimaran Lakota, sent the following report on the excitement of the Royal Ocean Racing Club’s 3,000-mile race from Lanzarote in the Canary Islands to Grenada in the Eastern Caribbean. He’s sailing aboard Lloyd Thornburg’s MOD70 Phaedo 3. Lloyd is from St. Barth but spends a lot of time in Newport Beach. Paul Allen of Santa Cruz is part of the crew.

"It’s pretty incredible sailing here, with MOD70 trimarans tearing across the Atlantic Ocean at 30 knots, spray flying everywhere, and long streaks of white wake shooting off our transoms.

Phaedo 3, up on her heels during Les Voiles de St. Barth.

© Les Voiles de St. Barth / Christophe Jouany

"It’s Master and Commander stuff across the high seas — playing cat and mouse with each other, dodging and fencing as we zig-zag downwind. Not to fire cannons and capture each other, but to be the first into Grenada, and to have beers ready for the second boat to the finish.

"Right now there is just 30 miles between us, which is hardly more than an hour’s sailing, so it’s incredibly close at the halfway mark of the course. We are now 1,500 miles from both Lanzarote and Grenada.

"Conditions are great — 19-23 knots of wind, puffy tradewind cumulus clouds, six-foot waves, which we are punching through at 30 knots. We first got into these conditions when we gybed at Mindelo in the Cape Verdes, and it was pretty full on. Spray everywhere on deck, and it was hard to even stand up down below. It was impossible to sleep. But we adapt, and now this is the ‘new normal’. Water shrieking off the propeller leg, boat jumping around as we bounce from wave to wave, and now we are sleeping fine in our off watch — until we have to gybe.

"We had better be used to it, as these are the conditions we’re going to have for the next 1,500 miles, which is a little less than three days of sailing on this boat. Everyone onboard is great, and loving driving this machine downwind in these conditions. It’s a challenge to keep it fast and safe, and it requires full concentration on the helm day and night.

"Flying fish are everywhere, and every hour or so one will land on the tramp and jump around before using one of the holes in the netting to dive headfirst back into the sea. Some are as big as good-sized trout, but not as good to eat. Anyway, better get out the sextant for the noon sight, break out all sail, holystone the decks and stay ahead of the pursuing Royal blue ship to the line!"

— Brian Thompson, skipper
Bye for now from Brian and the Phaedo crew.

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