Globe40: Riding the westerlies

American Joe Harris along with Roger Junet are competing in the Globe40, a multi-leg doublehanded round the world race in Class40s. Seven teams were at the beginning on June 26, with five teams now on the third leg from Mauritius to Auckland, New Zealand.

After leaving the Indian Ocean island nation on September 11th, Harris files his most recent report from onboard GryphonSolo2:

The voyage is somewhere around 7,000 miles in distance and will take between 30 and 35 days. The early goal has been to get South into the prevailing Westerly winds and it has taken us quite a while to do that. We endured upwind conditions, then were becalmed for quite a while, and only now are we finally in the Westerlies.

It’s a pretty wild ride, flying along at an average boat speed of 12 knots but frequent surfs in to the high teens and low twenties in winds of 17-40 knots. The boat corkscrews down the waves as we struggle to find the perfect sail combination that will allow us to go very fast without wiping out.

We are right on the hairy, naked edge and are working on that fine art of going maximum speed while not breaking the boat, the sails, or ourselves.

Whoops… it just happened… the wind gusted from 21 to 26 knots and the boat rounded up and I ran on deck without my jacket and caught a wave squarely in the face while I scrambled to release the main and kite sheets. All in a day’s work, I guess.

I am trying to multi-task right now with the engine charging the battery, the watermaker making water and me writing at the nav station. I really should be on deck tending the sheets and the auto-pilot.

With one reef in the mainsail, the A5 fractional gennaker and the staysail set under it, we have a lot of canvas up in 25 knots of wind. The boat does love these conditions though and the extended surfs on the long rolling 20-foot waves are most excellent.

Roger is sleeping at the moment and he will come on in a couple of hours and I will get a rest. We overlap a lot and make all sail changes together as they are quicker, smoother, and safer. For food we have finally gone through the last of our avocado supply but we had many great lunches of cut-up carrots, tomatoes, onions, and then fruit salad of mango, pineapple, apple, and pear.

Now it’s down to mostly the freeze-dried meals and a lot of sockeye salmon in a pouch from Patagonia Provisions which is really good and also tuna in a pouch. And, of course, plenty of coffee, tea, and cocoa seasoned lightly with Dr. Jamo, who is on constant call for anxiety and hyper-tension relief after (or before) a long watch in heavy wind and sea conditions.

We have been getting plenty of sleep, which is a major difference from my solo voyage where I didn’t push the boat as hard but had to be on constant watch, so often operated at about 75% mental capacity.

Now we are more often firing on all cylinders and have each other to bounce ideas and strategies off, as well as share maintenance and watch-keeping so I think we sail the boat better.

Unfortunately, our fellow competitors have great boats and are great sailors so it is tough to find an advantage and easy to lose a step if you take your foot off the accelerator for a moment.

To locate us on your globe, we are headed rapidly to the East towards our “virtual gate” below Eclipse Island, on the South coast of Australia beneath Perth. It is then across the ‘Great Australian Bight”, through the Bass Straits and up the Tasman Sea to the northern tip of New Zealand at Cape Reinga and then south to Auckland.

Race details – Entries – Tracker

Note: As the scoring format gives extra value to the longer legs, Leg 3 is similar to Leg 2 as it is worth a coefficient 3. The leg is approximately 7,000 miles in distance and will take between 30 and 35 days.

Leg Two Results:

Leg One 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. Seven teams were ready to compete, but a Leg 1 start line collision eliminated The Globe En Solidaire with Eric and Léo Grosclaude (FRA) while the Moroccan team of Simon and Omar Bensenddik on IBN BATTOUTA retired before the Leg 2 start.

Start:
Tangier, Morocco – June 26

Stopovers:
Leg 2 start: Sao Vincente, Cape Verde Islands – July 17
Leg 3 start: Port Louis, Mauritius – September 11
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