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Heavy swells and high winds met the seven yachts racing to Walvis Bay in the Macs Shipping Southern Star Race yesterday as they moved into Namibian waters, with at least two yachts suffering breakages.
After moving up from fourth to second place overnight, last year's winner Crocs broke their forestay in big running swells early yesterday, causing anxiety about the mast, and limiting their options if the winds change from the current southerlies. Co-skipper Nicholas Mace said they had winds of over 40 knots.
At first they had looked to retiring from the race, but decided Walvis Bay was the best port to head for, so the fast 40-footer has remained in the race. They have replaced the forestay with a strong halyard. The breakage was particularly unexpected since Crocs had new rigging and a new carbon-fibre mast installed 18 months ago after suffering a mast breakage while returning from Salvador, Brazil.
Late yesterday afternoon on the IMX 40 Lobelia, co-skipper Gordon Kling signalled that they had a snap-shackle malfunction, bringing down the spinnaker, when the yachts was making 11-knots in a stiff 40-knot winds. "We're working on it right now, we need to get that sail up to keep up our speed tonght," said Kling. At the time Lobelia was just 23 miles south of Luderitz , with 330 miles to go to the finish.
Lobelia is in fifth place behind the two Farr 38s, Al, in third place, and Benba in fourth, both quite close together, but about fifty miles closer inshore than the rest of the fleet. The young team on Al are clearly pushing the pace, maintaining slightly higher boat-speed, and both yachts upped their pace yesterday as the stronger winds came through from the south.
Leading the fleet, the crack 46-foot Hi Fidelity is continuing to push on the pace and late yesterday was less than 200 miles from Walvis, and getting speed in the low teens, and if the breeze holds, could reach the finish this afternoon, taking ten hours or more off last year's record.
Ocean sailor "JJ" Provoyeur on After You, was surfing through the big seas under spinnaker at 15-knots plus yesterday as he played catch-up. In a phone call to the Cape Times just after sunset, "JJ" said: "it's blowing like mad now, well over 40 knots (nearly 100km/ph) we had to take the mainsail down, and we are just under jib, and still doing 11 knots. The seas are very rough." After You was in 7th place earlier yesterday, but could claw back at least one place overnight. Further offshore than the rest of the fleet, he has in fact moved ahead of the Hobie 33 Qucksilver, the smallest boat in the fleet, but to whom he must give time on handicap. The forecast for today is for south-west winds of 15 to 25 knots, but somewhat lighter closer to Walvis. .
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