The photos and videos taken during the 2008 Audi Sydney – Gold Coast Race have been zipped and uploaded to the website:
Sydney-Gold Coast Race: Photos and Videos
August 13th, 2008Sea Quest takes second in Sydney-Gold Coast PHS Division!
July 29th, 2008Despite losing our asymmetric spinnaker on Sunday we came in second in the PHS division! Well done crew!
After getting Sea Quest all Bristol, we were off to the pub. Rum and coke was ordered by the jug and war stories exchanged with other tired but (mostly) happy sailors. Some of us paid dearly this morning for a night of celebration!
The end is in sight
July 28th, 2008This is very bad! We’ve been losing ground rapidly, and we’ve now dropped from 17th to 31st on line honours… At least we are still second in the PHS division…
Reaching for the finish
July 28th, 2008The wind has remained west-south west all day. We considered trying to fly one of the kites, but we really need that ASO that we had blown on Sunday…
We’ve set the stay sail, and we’ve been almost close-hauled for hours! We’re not doing too badly, between 8 and 12 knots boat speed, but it is a full time job, coming up in the lulls, and bearing off in the puffs.
It was a dark and stormy night…
July 28th, 2008A number of squalls started developing late on Sunday. We were now about 35 miles offshore, and lying 17th on line honours and first (!) in the PHS (Performance Handicap) division.
We kept an eye on a cell ahead of us, but it seemed to be keeping ahead of us. Behind us (to the south) , a large cell was growing rapidly. By nightfall we were almost becalmed, and there was little excitement at the watch change. Graeme Poole was on the helm and the off-watch crew were below preparing dinner. Around 1900, and minutes after someone remarked about how calm it was, we were hit by an immense gust. A crash gybe followed and Sea Quest was out of control as the main (which was prevented out) was turned inside out. Graham Friend (who was off-watch) got himself on deck PDQ. The preventer was thrown off and the boat righted itself, immediately taking off downwind.
The breeze had intensified to more than gale force in a matter of minutes and, as a result of the gybe, we were also on the wrong tack, rapidly heading for New Zealand rather than Queensland.
The situation was pretty dire. The wind was now up to Force 8, with gusts reaching 48 knots (Force 10). We had full canvas up (full main plus genoa). The genoa was on the furler, but couldn’t be fully furled as there was not enough line on the drum. The main was pressed hard against the rig, with the battens taking a horrible punishment. Graham was keeping her dead square, but with difficulty. If we were to have a gybe now…
Graham decided to change tack by doing a “Granny Gybe”: tacking through the wind. With crew on all stations, Graham came up to the wind and we tacked! There was an almighty BANG! It looked like we had lost the preventer through a bit of tardiness in throwing it off, and the line had snagged on the prop. While we were now running north-east in stead of south-east, we had no preventer and the storm continued unabated. I began to wonder how long Graham would be able to keep helming under the conditions: without a doubt he was the only one qualified to do it, but it was very hard work!
Sitting in the cockpit was an awesome and unnerving experience. Sea Quest was flat out with the full main still up, reaching close to 20 knots boat speed at times. The wind averaged around 35 knots, with gusts over 45 knots. Every gust was preceded with the sound of the wind changing from a roar to a howl, followed by the boat heeling over and Graham wrestling the helm hard-over to keep her from coming up. Because we were sailing without a headsail, she was burying the stem under the swells half the time, and a shower of spray flying off the bow would be added to the driving rain. There was lighting everywhere, blinding us with every flash.
It was midnight before things stabilized. The storm had moved eastward and we were immediately west of it, reaping the benefit of it’s circulation and racing downwind in 20 to 30 knots of fairly consistent breeze. I ran a new preventer to keep the boom under control. This was a very wet job… When I got to the foredeck, I realized that the starboard stand-up block for the preventer had been ripped out of it’s pad-eye during the tacking manoeuvre!
A second storm was approaching from the south-west. This time we were prepared, and when it hit us we had a reefed main, preventer on the boom and half-furled headsail – a walk in the park!
We ran most of the rest of the night under pretty full-on conditions, making good time. At dawn the storm was still out there, the sun casting an eerie glow over the confused seas.
