The Cone breaks Silence

by Rob Kothe on 16 Jul 2005 The Cone of Silence, arguably Australia’s fastest 30 footer, is making history in the Centennial Transpac fleet.

The 2,225 nautical mile Transpac Race preserves links with transpacific sailing fleets of last century, with daily sextant plots being required from each navigator. Fleet positions are transmitted by radio schedule each day from GPS, at the 0800 PDT roll call.

However, the smallest boat in the fleet, Australia’s The Cone of Silence, is breaking the silence. With official permission of Transpac race organisers, the little Aussie battler is transmitting her position from its Argos unit every 30 minutes.

The Cone’s data is being received by Sail-World USA and displayed at http://www.sail-world.com/yachttracker.cfm?seid=71

With internet technology leaping ahead, this tracking provides race organisers with a window into the future of offshore yacht racing.

This is the second Transpac for the Reichel-Pugh flier. A faulty jet-drive door forced the Super 30 to drop out of the Transpac 2003.

Sail-World USA talked to the 'Cone's' owner/skipper, James Neill, by satellite phone 90 minutes after the start.

‘It’s a huge race for us and I guess we’ve been a little nervous all week. Very unCone-like, we were at the start an hour and a half early; just unheard of for us.

‘We were sitting around and a spectator boat took pity on us and sent across some beer, so we all had a relaxing drink, a 'slash' off the back (Australian slang) and we were away.

‘We did Australia proud off the start line - at least for the first mile. We had a nice breeze off the leeward end, with a light gradient southerly. We were able to set our blue asymmetric spinnaker and drew away from the fleet, except for Craig Reynold's Nelson Marek 55, the Bolt, which had a Code Zero. Then we both sailed into glass and the fleet sailed up to us!

‘Now we are having a little bit of a re-start and we are all quietly sailing to the north-west, waiting for the sea breeze to come in.

‘We are expecting a little time under spinnaker, then two days under genoa. We will be a 30 footer, the smallest boat in the race, until we can get a kite up again and then we'll try to catch the 50 and 60 footers in our division.

‘Right now we are just enjoying being part of a great race.’

More news and pictures at www.transpacificyc.org