Highs and lows of Globe40 Race

American Joe Harris is competing in the Globe40, and multi-leg doublehanded round the world race in Class40s. The second leg started July 17, taking the six-boat fleet from Cape Verde Islands to Mauritius. Harris expects the 7000nm course will take 35 days to complete… here are some updates before and after the start:

• During the first leg, we had a nasty problem of salt water forcing its way past worn seals on the propeller shaft to get into the SailDrive and transmission and ultimately the engine box through the pressure relief valve. The saltwater turned the clear, deep red ATF fluid into a mayonnaise-like liquid, which is not good for lubricating the transmission.

Since there was no Travelift or way to haul a sailboat out of the water in Sao Vicente, our man Gilson from CV Boats has become adept at making repairs underwater.

We were quite skeptical that this could be done, but Gilson is very creative, and by diving with both with snorkel and tanks, we were also able to use an air pressure pump to force all the bad fluid out and put in new fluid without draining from the low point on the sail drive leg in the water. Altogether rather amazing it all worked!

• The race sailmaker Sylvain Pontu brought us a new autopilot hydraulic ram in his luggage from France, which was huge. We had ordered two new ones and the second one got lost by TAP Airlines somewhere between Paris, Lisbon, and Mindelo.

The state of the airlines and international air cargo is a complete mess, so don’t ship stuff abroad if you don’t have to. So we have one new ram and one old one that is working so hopefully we will be okay to Mauritius and that the second new ram will catch up with us later.

• We are now back at sea after a great harbor start, and following a beat out into the channel, we turned and sailed around the Sao Vicente and downwind past the more southern Cabo Verde island chain. Unfortunately on day two, we suffered a major horizontal tear in our A2 spinnaker all the way from one side to the other.

This rip does not seem reparable at sea, or probably on land, so we are without a key sail for this long leg, which will suck. And now we are battling our way through very light winds in a high-pressure zone. The stopover is clearly over and we are back to work.

Race details – Entries – Tracker

First Leg Results:

The inaugural Globe40 is an eight leg round the world race for doublehanded Class40 teams. As all legs count toward the cumulative score, the longer distances more heavily weighted. The first leg, which took seven to eight days to complete, had a coefficient 1 while the second leg is ranked as a coefficient 3 leg. The race is expected to finish March 2023. A Leg 1 start line collision reduced the fleet from seven to six teams.

Start:
Tangier, Morocco – June 26

Stopovers:
Leg 2 start: Sao Vincente, Cape Verde Islands – July 17
Leg 3 start: Port Louis, Mauritius
Leg 4 start: Auckland, New Zealand
Leg 5 start: Papeete, French Polynesia
Leg 6 start: Ushuaia, Argentina
Leg 7 start: Recife, Brazil
Leg 8 start: St Georges, Grenada

Finish:
Lorient, France