Towards the end of last year John Burnie, one of the organizers of the Caribbean 600 Race asked me if I was interested in taking part in the race in February 2010. No ordinary race. Thought up originally over a few beers in 2008 the idea was to run an offshore race the equivalent length of the Fastnet Race (hence 600 miles) in the Caribbean. Starting and finishing in Antigua, the course takes competing yachts to a turning mark off Barbuda and then a long series of island roundings (well they make useful marks for a race of this distance): St Kitts, Saba, St Barts, St Martin, 180 miles south to Guadeloupe, Isles Saintes, then back up to the rounding mark in Barbuda (getting familiar), Redonda and finish off the start/ finish line outside English Harbour. 2009 was the inaugural year and with very windy conditions times were set that would be hard to beat. Course record 40 hours 11 minutes…..
No ordinary boat. The boat to win line honours in 2009 and set the record to beat in 2010 was the one sailed by John last year and I had now received my invitation to race on. One of a type known as an Orma 60, designed and built from carbon fibre as an ocean racing 60ft trimaran. Beam? 60ft. This particular boat was one of the originals, 20 years old and still going strong and winner of the Route Du Rhum twice (single handed from St Malo, France to Guadeloupe) in ’94 and ’98. Now owned by Claude Thellier, who competed in the race in 2002 and 2006 in the same boat, now called Region Guadeloupe. These boats are very very fast. 12 days to cover 4,000 miles in the ’98 race and single handed too (although the race record reduced to less than 8 days in 2006!).
For the Caribbean 600 this year we sailed with a crew of 8. It is beyond belief that this machine can be sailed single handed – just putting a reef in the mainsail is a huge amount of work and was handled by 3 or 4 of us. No electrics, just big winches and grinders and huge loads. Add in the complications associated with this level of boat and the job just gets bigger. The mast is not fixed but can be canted from side to side using huge hydraulic rams at the bottom of the stays to power up or de-power the rig. The mainsheet also operates off a ram – there’s only about 4ft between slack or sheeted hard in but then the traveler is the width of the boat. What is remarkable is the sensitivity of the boat – a couple of inches difference on genoa or mainsheet could mean 4 extra knots of boat speed.
Our intention for the race in 2010 was to try to break the record set by the boat in 2009. Light winds forecast made us very pensive. At the end of the race it wasn’t so much light winds but wind direction that put paid to our plans. A relatively light 12 knots of breeze at the start meant a leisurely upwind start at around 15 knots and by the first turning mark at Barbuda we were safely ahead of the fleet but almost an hour behind the previous year’s time. This dropped to just over half an hour after a great reach to St Kitts at around 22 knots. A big wind hole followed behind St Kitts and Nevis (too close to the islands) but picked up once around Saba and it was a very quick run to St Barts instead of the usual beat with the wind now straight out of the south and picking up to 15 knots. Of course this meant after rounding St Martin instead of a screaming reach to Guadeloupe 180 miles south it turned into….a dead beat. Trimarans don’t go very well up wind but make up for speed what they lose in angle. 18 knots boat speed with the same wind speed. Even in the Caribbean this is not a very pleasant experience – nearly 40 knots apparent wind over the deck and a lot of water with a ceaseless bouncing from wave to wave. Full foul weather gear and boots. Despite the speed it felt a long way to Guadeloupe but a huge tack south to 90 miles west of the island kept us out of wind shadows this time. Around Isles des Saintes and a crazy 27 knot reach in the pitch dark past Les Desirade and on the way to revisit Barbuda. The wind continued to track round and by the time we rounded Barbuda we had another beat – this time south west 60 miles to Redonda! The consolation has to be rounding Redonda and a 25 knot reach back into Antigua and the finish with the sun setting behind us (a record back from Redonda perhaps in 1 hour 40mins?). Total time – 54 hours and 8 very tired crew. Sleep minimal. Food – just sandwiches and snacks and the occasional pot noodle and hot drink when calm enough. Which is just as well as there’s no toilet on the boat. Thank you Antigua Yacht Club for your hospitality, RORC crew for hard work organizing and Region Guadeloupe crew John, Mark, Nick, Stephane, Olivier, Julian, and especially Claude. Next year – you bet!
For more race info see the Caribbean 600 website http://caribbean600.rorc.org/ and especially the fleet tracking page http://caribbean600.rorc.org/2010-fleet-tracking.html where you can watch all the boats going round the course!
For a few photos click here
