Randall Reeves Re-Rounds Cape Horn

We got the following email from Randall Reeves not long after we posted ‘Lectronic on Wednesday: 

Well, Mo is around and has passed for the second time this passage under Cape Horn, thus completing her circuit of the Southern Ocean via the Capes, non-stop and solo. It’s been 110 days since we saw Cape Horn for the first time, and better than 15,000 miles at 45°S and and higher have passed under Mo’s bum in the interim.

At the very last minute, I decided to come north of Diego Ramirez [about 65 miles west-southwest of Cape Horn] and over the shallow water for a close run to The Horn, this after writing a blog post regarding why that was a bad idea.

And it WAS a VERY bad idea to come north of Diego Ramirez in the wind we had. Overnight, we had 40+ for five hours. No sleep. Came in over the shallows at dawn. Seas stacked up like I’ve never seen. Many surfing runs. Several times laid over. Seas over the boat. Heavy, heavy break (which I tried and failed to get on film) and 30-35 all day. Forecast all wrong again. Sun is almost down as I type and I’m still carrying 30+ knots in a forecast of 20.

But, am glad I came north; we survived, I got to see the cape in sunshine. Wow. And get some photos. Now I need the weather gods to give me some wind for the run N in the Atlantic.

Last week, after obsessing over Reeves’ tracker as he made the final approach to Cape Horn, it appeared that he made an about-face and was headed west to avoid some bad weather. But according to his blogs, no such maneuver appears to have taken place (that’s the problem with doing journalism based on trackers). We will have a full recap of Randall Reeves’ final Southern Ocean leg in the April issue of Latitude 38.

We also recently met Ben Shaw, who did a podcast with Randall Reeves a few weeks ago, as the singlehander was making his way past Tasmania. You can listen to that interview here (just scroll down a bit).