Latitude 38 Latitude VOLUME Febru 2013 WE GO WHERE THE WIND BLOWS FEBRUARY 2013 FEBRUARY VOLUME 428 NEW YORK TO SAN FRANCISCO — As we go to press, Italian Giovanni Soldini and an eight-man inter- national crew are charging north from Cape Horn aboard their VOR 70 Maserati, vying to break the New York-to-San Francisco sailing record, and thus win the Clipper Challenge Cup. We'll bring you a complete report next month, but in the meantime we thought it appropriate to re- fresh your memories on the history of this notorious contest. Few port cities are more thoroughly and carried her displacement far- steeped in maritime history than San ther aft. Francisco. After all, during the Gold In 1851, less than six weeks Rush era of the mid-1800s, it quickly after her launch at East Boston, grew from a tiny waterside settlement the 225-ft (LOA) clipper set sail to a thriving city, largely due to the ar- for San Francisco, arriving in the rival of hundreds of international sailing record-shattering time of 89 days ships loaded to the gunwales with and 21 hours. The average voy- wide-eyed fortune hunters. age length of Gold Rush-era Giovanni Soldini In the years immedi- ships was around 200 ately following that initial days! Flying Cloud's surge, ships continued astounding feat to fl ood through the made headlines Golden Gate carrying around the world, all sorts of cargo to but three years feed the cash-rich later she broke boomtown's vora- her own record cious appetite for by 13 hours, and goods from the East that effort ce- Coast. Of course, this mented her name was sixty years be- into the annals of fore the Panama Canal maritime history for would open, so the sail- all time, as the record ing route between eastern stood for 135 years. markets and the Bay led ships It was 1989 when the through the treacherous latitudes of the ultralight BOC 60 Thursday's Child South Atlantic and around Cape Horn fi nally beat Flying Cloud's mark, (56°S!), before clawing at least 7,000 establishing a new time-to-beat of miles up the Pacifi c to San Francisco. 80 days and 18 hours. Five years Naturally, the fastest ships earned the earlier, Thursday's Child's skipper biggest profi ts, so competition to build Warren Luhrs had smashed the faster hulls became intense. The era's Observer Singlehanded Transatlantic Autissier and a crew of three men set out frenzy of design innovation produced Race (OSTAR) record aboard this highly from New York aboard the then-radical the now-famous three-masted clipper innovative water-ballasted sloop. For the Open 60 Ecureuil Poitou Charentes II. ship Flying Cloud, which featured a fi ner, San Francisco attempt, Luhrs brought It had been custom-built for her to higher bow than her contemporaries, along only two crew, compared to the singlehand in the following year's BOC hundred or more needed to run Flying Challenge (around the world nonstop). Due to her speed around the Horn, 'Flying Cloud. But then, the famous clipper fl ew Autissier had become world-famous two Cloud' became the most famous sailing ship of her era. Notably, during both of her record- up to 35 sails. years earlier when she completed the breaking trips she had a female navigator (the A few months after Thursday's Child '90-'91 BOC — after dismasting and jury- captain's wife) — unprecedented at the time. made headlines, Georgs Kolesnikov rigging a replacement — thus becoming and Steve Pettengill the fi rst woman to circumnavigate solo chopped nearly four nonstop. more days off the After seven weeks of delays due to record (76d, 23h, canting-keel problems and horrendous 20m) aboard their weather, Ecureuil fi nally departed New 53-ft trimaran Great York in mid-February. Sixty-two days American. Since later she passed beneath the Golden then, most statistics Gate Bridge, having pulverized even the buffs have kept mul- multihull record by 14 days (62d, 5h, tihull and monohull 55m, averaging 9.33 knots). records separately. Looking at the numbers alone, you might think that trip was easy. Not so. On the fi fth day out Ecureuil clocked I n the fall of her highest speed of the whole trip, 1993, French sail- 26.5 knots, with Isabelle at the helm. ing phenom Isabelle But shortly afterward she was washed THE HARD WAY — and celebrated with foie gras and a fi ne Bordeaux. Meanwhile, not long after rounding, Parlier caught a 20-knot southerly and rode it straight up the rhumbline for two days. The other boats had no such luck. PRB and Geodis had to add hundreds of miles of west- ing to their routes to get around a high that had fi lled in west of the Cape. Interestingly, although Aquita- ine was the lightest — and clearly the fastest — of the three boats, she did not have the water-bal- lasting, canting keel or forward canards that the others had. Nevertheless, she completed the course in 57 days, 3 hours and 2 minutes, slicing fi ve days off Autissier's record. Then in the fall of 2007, Lionel Lemonchois — a veteran of both of Autissier's efforts — challenged that record aboard the 110-ft catamaran Gitana 13 (formerly Innovation Explorer, Orange & Kingfisher 2) with a crew of nine. Despite being stalled near Cape Horn for more than fi ve days, the monster cat crossed the fi nish line off Alca- traz in late February, 2008, after only 43 days and 38 minutes, thus carving more than 14 days off Parlier's time. Gitana's aver- MICHELE SIGHEL age speed was a phenomenal 15.8 knots. Smokin'! The VOR 70 'Maserati' blasts south of the race and continued to stretch his early in Soldini's current record attempt. She'll lead as the three boats dove into the arrive this month in the Bay. South Atlantic. So much so, in fact, I t may be impossible to better overboard by a large wave and dragged that before he reached the Horn he was Gitana's time in a monohull, but Gio- behind the boat by her tether until her sailing in different weather systems than vanni Soldini, 46, and his crew currently crew could reel her in. A variety of gear his foes. That proved to be both good have an excellent chance of breaking failures and two dental emergencies also and bad. On the approach to Cape Horn, The crew was ecstatic when they rounded the plagued the ultimately victorious crew. Aquitaine had to beat into 40-knot head- Horn on day 21, 8 hours ahead of the monster In 1998 three boats set out from New winds for 500 miles — the worst point of cat 'Gitana's record pace. York to challenge the record: Isabelle's sail for those boats. PRB, Yves Parlier's Aquitaine Innova- Thirty miles from tions, and Christophe Auguin's Geodis. rounding the no- torious Cape, they She was washed over- ran into 60 knots of true wind, and it board by a large wave and took them 36 hours dragged behind the boat of brutal beating to claw the final six by her tether. miles. Ironically, when Autissier's (The effort was dubbed the Gold Race PRB arrived on the or La Route de l’Or, but pursuit of the scene two days lat- monohull record is offi cially called the er, they rounded Clipper Challenge Cup, with the trophy the Horn in a four- held by the Manhattan Sailing Club.) knot zephyr fl ying Parlier pulled ahead in the fi rst days their biggest chute MICHELE SIGHEL NEW YORK TO SAN FRANCISCO — Maserati Specs Type: .................. Volvo Open 70 Length overall .... 70 Beam ................. 187" dress as a shipwrecked sailor could have; Draft ................... 149" too far from land for rescue aircraft to Mainsail area ..... 574 ft² travel, and a very long way from regular Headsail area ..... 1938 ft² shipping lanes. Soldini, sailing his 60-ft Spinnaker area .. 5382 ft² Fila, was her only hope. Weight overall .... 12.3 tons When he fi nally found the turtled boat, he had to throw a hammer against Fin max swing ... 40° off ctr the hull to rouse his French opponent from a deep sleep. Autissier emerged through the transom hatch and the two sailors completed a textbook transfer via her liferaft, followed by a well-earned glass of wine! It was one of the most heroic rescues in the history of around-the-world rac- ing, which earned Soldini international acclaim as a sailing Superman. If there were a hall of fame for having cajones of steel, Soldini would be in it. Ironically, of course, his new pas- senger was forbidden by the rules from assisting his sailing effort in any way during the next two weeks as the pair BJOERN KILS sailed on to the next scheduled pit stop Easily capable of sailing faster than the ap- at Punta del Este, Uruguay. There, Sol- parent wind, 'Maserati' is a speed machine dini received a hero's welcome. "He did on a mission. Measured against other outstand- it because he is a gentleman of the sea, Parlier's monohull record — especially ing feats on Soldini's sailing résumé because he is a wonderful sailor, and if their luck holds out. There is only — such as taking a second in class in because he has a great seamanship one 'mark' in this race: Cape Horn. But the 1995 BOC, fi rst in class in the '95 spirit," said Autissier, "the most wonder- there are three major obstacles: the Atlantic Alone, and overall honors in ful seamanship spirit I have ever seen." Atlantic doldrums, the Horn and the the '99 Around Alone — this attempt With typical humility, Soldini, then Pacifi c doldrums.