Worrell 1000 Leg 12 Start
Friday, May 18th, 2001
Cape Hatteras, NC, 10:20 AM

By Zack Leonard

More Light Air At the Start, Leg 11 Mop Up

The fleet launched into a stiff 4 foot surf in extremely light winds at the start of leg 12 today. A weary group greeted the gunboat-gray morning with anticipation as they prepared to round Cape Hatteras today. The winds at the start were less than 3 knots from the Northeast and the gray ceiling was extremely low, with fog offshore obscuring the horizon and blurring the distinction between surface and sky. The forecast calls for the wind the build to 10-20 knots from the Southwest in anticipation of Northerly winds expected tomorrow. Alexander's on the Bay was hit by a large wave off the line and watched helplessly as Guidant and Tommy Bahama shot out to leeward into the lead. The beach is steep here, so the pushers couldn't get the boats too far out into the surf before they were over their heads. Several boats had the bad luck of pushing into the steepest part of a wave and were thrown backwards. Pyacht Men was heaved backwards into Team Australia. The two boats came together with a thud that was audible from 100 yards down the beach. Cat Fever broke a rudder casting in the whitewater just off the beach and was forced to head back to shore for a quick refit.

The crowd on the beach was big this morning. The sailors had a remarkable amount of energy and humor given the hours they've spent exposed over the past two days. If the wind remains light all the way to the Cape, it will be an interesting rounding. Strong currents swirl in unpredictable eddies around the great Cape making drifting strategy difficult to formulate. Last year the Dutch found a smooth rounding just off the end of the point. The water was flat and they glided across the 6 inch deep point with rudders and boards up, then took off in the flat water on the far side of the cape. A similar approach will be attempted by several teams today.

Leg 11 Mop Up

Randy Williamson, of Cat Fever, explained the frustration the fleet felt during yesterday's grueling leg. "At around 10 PM, I looked at the GPS and it said 1. 5 knots, it put our estimated time of arrival at 24 hours," recalled Williamson, "I asked Todd [Hart] if I could turn off the GPS so it wouldn't bum me out." Brendan Busch of LexisNexis took the time to record his course track from the GPS this morning. He counted 131 tacks over 106 miles sailed. The official leg distance yesterday was 81.3 miles, but with the upwind course orientation, the fleet sailed much more distance tacking back and forth up the beach. If the wind holds from this Northeasterly direction much longer, the race will have to be renamed the Worrell 1500.

Team Pyacht Men hit the beach with an interesting jury rig. Halfway into the leg, Deppe and Ribot noticed that their starboard shroud had lost several strands of wire. They were down to only two or three strands of wire when they identified the problem. Luckily it wasn't an inconvenience to use the trapeze wire to hold the mast up. If the wind had been stronger, the trap wire would have been needed to sail, but also may not have been strong enough to support the mast. For Pyacht Men, the light air was actually a savior. Their 5th place finish was one of their strongest legs of the race.