An Australian report from Kingfisher on the EDS Atlantic Challenge

by Anthony Merrington on 10 Sep 2001 The story of the fifth and final leg of the EDS Atlantic Challenge (Boston to St Malo 2900 miles) from Australian sailor, Anthony (Youngster) Merrington. who sailed aboard Ellen Macarthur's Kingfisher for the entire series of races. On the final leg fellow Australian Nick Maloney was skipper and Adrienne Calahan navigator and Anthony co-helmed, trimmed and went aloft from time to time..

Anthony writes...

The build up to this leg was pretty large, after the dismasting of Sill at the beginning of leg four it was assumed they were finished for the race. Amazingly with only five days to rebuild the rig and get it and the boat to the start line in Boston they achieved the task with only hours to spare but many days behind in sleep.

All the key ingredients including the weather were in place for attempts at the 24 hour record of 467nm during the leg, and many of the crews were prepared to take the course needed to have a shot at the task.

On 12pm Tuesday the 14th of August we reached off the start line in a 15 to 20 knot northerly and within four hours of the start the different courses of the boats in the fleet had them spread for 20 miles across the horizon.

36 hours into the race the predicted southerly winds were blowing hard and most of the fleet were averaging around15 to 20 knots and some.

Fila in particular seemed to be going hard enough to have a shot at the 24 record along with Sill who had also taken a route 100 miles to the south. In the north we (Kingfisher) were locked into battle with Ecover always with 20 nm or so of each other running hard in 30 to 35 from the SE, unfortunately after only a few hours it was clear that our average of around 17knots was never going to be good enough for the 24 hour record so we maintained our focus towards our competitors.

After three days of hard running the we were now up on the Grand Banks and making great progress across the Atlantic, the breeze was swing though the west to the north and it seemed like we were setting up to catch the bottom of a large low coming from the north.

The boats down south, Fila and Sill, were still also moving very well with Fila now in the lead by 50 miles, it was obvious they were going to be a threat for the leg showing great downwind speed and excellent tactics.

A day later having cleared the foggy waters of the Grand Banks we were reaching hard in 20 to 35 from the northwest. Two great days of this wind, produced a couple of 400 plus mile days and some of the best sailing and steering I have ever done. With a conservative rig of genoa and a reef were absolutely smoking along spending large periods of time with the speed over ground reading more than 23 knots and boat speeds up to 28 and 30 being reached on the better surfs. The most amazing thing is that these boats are
tiller steered, with a helm weight and feels more akin to a skiff than a 60 footer.

Reaching the 2000-mile mark of the crossing, the leader board read Fila, Ecover, Kingfisher then Sill and Gartmore with Alfa Graphics a little further back unfortunately dropping off the back of the weather system at the tail of the fleet.

The breeze was now beginning to ease again so we decided to go to the Code 5 (furling asymmetrical spinnaker) which is flown from the 7/8 th point of the rig. Once the sail was hoisted a quick glance up the rig revealed we had some real problems. The high winds and heavy running had somehow stretched
our rigging in the top half of the rig and it was now over bending off to leeward in a dangerous way close to the point of breakage. The solution was simple,' tighten rig', which is easy at the dock, but running in a good sea and 25 knots of wind its not so easy, or pleasant. After close to an hour up the rig we were relatively happy, but had decided to ease up and finish without damage as we only had to finish the leg to win the EDS Atlantic Challenge overall. With this decision we saw the leaders Fila and Ecover
now extend their lead to 100 miles and Sill now began to catch up quite quickly as well, but our navigator assured us that things would change again.

With 500 miles to go to the finish Fila and Ecover had run into light winds associated with a high that had parked itself over the entrance to the English Channel and we started to gain both miles and optimism, while behind us Sill was also closing in fast.

It looked like the whole race was set to restart again right in the Channel. Further back in the fleet the girls on Alpha Graphics had problems of their own still being plagued by light winds and the Gartmore crew had just snapped off a rudder when they hit a submerged object.

Closing on the English coast we finally all came together again, in a light night of beating in 5 to 8 knots of wind we caught and passed Ecover and Fila and held the lead at dawn of the second to last morning of the leg and the race. The lead however was quite small for the speeds now being done, reaching at 14 or so knots we held just 7 miles ahead of Ecover who was 2 miles in front of Fila, Sill was now just 3 miles behind them, and the breeze was due to fade fast.

By dusk on the final night with 150 miles to go we led Ecover by just 2 miles who was now only a mile ahead of the fast finishing Sill and 8 miles ahead of Fila who was now suffering in the light airs from an earlier damaged mainsail.

The night again was very light; Sill and Ecover were now battling hard with both second in the leg and the race overall up for grabs to be taken by the better placed of the two boats. A very frustrating and tense night aboard followed as the breeze shifted constantly but never went over 4 knots. The dawn position report showed Sill now just one mile behind with Ecover pretty much in the same position, to make matters even worse there was now a thick fog reducing our visibility to only 100 metres and we were not quite sure where, if anywhere the breeze was going to fill from.

After a tense day for light running trying to keep between our competitors and the finish we crossed the finish line in first place to take the leg and the race overall. Sill finished just 40 minutes later to take both second in the leg and overall, with Ecover finishing just another 30 minutes behind them to take the third positions.

It was a totally fitting way to finish a great race that had been fought tooth and nail between all the boats in all of the legs.

The final results for the leg were

Kingfisher, Sill, Ecover, Fila, Gartmore, Alpha graphics
and the overall results were Kingfisher, Sill, Ecover, Gartmore, Fila, Alpha Graphics,