We had a great start, and we are out of there!

We had a great start on the Pearl and we are out of there! It is always fun to win the start of these offshore legs even if it probably doesn’t mean much over the three weeks that we have ahead of us. But is it the time when you are in front of the public, television etc, and everyone is cheering, the spectator boats are trying to keep up and with a spectacular back drop like Wellington harbor, I am sure the photos will be special. It was a reaching start where we managed to hit the line a full speed, roll our competitors and lead the entire way on a short lap around Wellington Harbor.

The wind was gusting up to 20 knots as we planed down the entrance of the bay, a good show for sure for the very knowledgeable and appreciative Kiwi public.

The good start was extra nice for the Pirates as the last 24 hours a has been quite a scramble of us. One of our bowmen, Curtis Blewett got injured on leg 3 and went straight to the hospital for x-rays on our arrival Thursday. He underwent a series of treatments and injections to try to make it for this leg (his favorite), but early yesterday afternoon, his doctor told him he should not go. Being in a bind, we made a few calls to some of our Kiwi friends up island to see if they would help us out but they were not able to. At 17:00 we made the decision to take our sailmaker, Jeremy Smith. He had a bit on to meet the Volvo medical requirements and we submitted his paperwork and received approval from the Race Committee for the substitution. Jeremy will do a great job and it is breaks like this that can change a career for a young sailor like Jeremy so I am glad he was able to step in.

We are currently about 30 miles off the Southwestern Cape of the North Island of New Zealand. We went through a transition in the wind.a wind shadow cause by the high mountains.but now we are moving at 20 knots again.

We took the “corner” wider that ABN AMRO ONE, our closest competitor and Brasil 1 and ABN AMRO TWO tried to cut the corner as well. We have gained a lot on all of them.

Ericsson has made a strong move to the southwest, staying out of the transition for longer, and that could pay off nicely for them.

We are settling in now, starting our watches, cooking our first meal, stacking the boat with everything to port. The forecast is for 17-20 knots of wind, initially from 020 then backing to 345 over the next 30 hours or so. We have to sail around a high pressure system that is to our east so we are sailing a bit more southerly than we might otherwise sail.

The mood onboard is good and we are settling in for three of the best weeks of our lives, ones we will surely never forget!

Paul Cayard

Pirates of the Caribbean

/by

An Ode to the Pirates

The Australian arm of Buena Vista International organized a spectacular barbeque for the Pirates and the local team, with a guest appearances from Mark Zoradi, Jeff Foremann, Robert Crockett and Donald Evans.  Peta Ascham, National Marketing Director of BVI, presented Paul with this heartfelt ‘Ode to the Pirates’.

Download the Poem Here (Adobe Acrobat required)

/by

Pirates of the Caribbean Ready for Rio

Wellington, New Zealand

After a three day pitstop in Wellington, New Zealand the Pirates of the Caribbean will start Leg 4 of the Volvo Ocean Race on 19th February. On Leg 4, the Pirates of the Caribbean team will race 6,700 nautical miles from Wellington, New Zealand to the finish line in Rio, Brazil.

“Our third place finish on Leg 3 was another solid performance adding to our second place in the Melbourne inshore race. We will be taking some momentum into Leg 4, which is important, as this is the toughest leg of the race.deep into the Southern Ocean and around Cape Horn. We have enjoyed our short stay in Wellington. The Kiwis are enthusiastic sailing fans and we appreciate that,” commented Paul Cayard, Skipper of The Black Pearl.

Onboard The Black Pearl is a crew of round the world veterans boasting more than 15 circumnavigations. For Leg 4, Jeremy Smith a member of the Pirates of the Caribbean Shore Team from Christchurch, New Zealand will be stepping onboard. Smith will take the place of Canadian sailor Curtis Blewett who sustained an injury during Leg 3.

Blewett, who had taken time out from Alinghi to race with the Pirates of the Caribbean, commented “I am very disappointed because we were a late entry to the race and it has taken a lot of work to get The Black Pearl working well. We finally reached that point in Melbourne and gained a great deal on Leg 3. I am especially disappointed to miss out on this leg with the boys, because rounding the Horn is the soul of this race.”

On this, the second of the Southern Ocean legs, the Volvo Ocean Race has set two ice waypoints at 48 degrees South that have to be passed to starboard, to try and keep the yachts out of the most dangerous ice territory. There are opportunities for points to be made up at the scoring gate when rounding Cape Horn. Once The Black Pearl passes Cape Horn the team will start the journey back towards the Northern hemisphere. The Pirates of the Caribbean are expected to arrive in Rio on March 7th.

QUOTES

Erle Williams (NZ) – “A great deal has changed since I first participated in this race in 1981. The biggest change is in the technological development, in the early days, people raced the boats they had under IOR. It was more of an adventure than a profession.”

Jules Salter (UK) – “This will be my first time rounding Cape Horn. The challenge will be in keeping the boat in good shape and determining our best angle of approach for a fast rounding. Most of the ice reported thus far will be after we round Cape Horn.”

Robert Crockett, Director Buena Vista International New Zealand “It was a pleasure to welcome the crew of The Black Pearl to New Zealand, particularly given that there were four Kiwis onboard.”

Crew list

Paul Cayard (USA)

Jules Salter ( UK )

Justin ‘Juggy’ Clougher (AUS)

Justin Ferris ( NZ)

Rodney Arden (NZ)

Craig Satterthwaite (NZ)

Erle Williams (NZ)

Dirk de Ridder (NL)

Anthony ‘Youngster’ Merrington (AUS)

Jeremy Smith (NZ)

Current Leaderboard

[position/team name/skipper/race points to date]

1. TEAM ABN AMRO ONE, Mike Sanderson (NZL) 38.5 pts

2. TEAM ABN AMRO TWO, Sebastien Josse (FRA) 28 pts

3. Movistar, Bouwe Bekking (NED) 25 pts

4. Pirates of the Caribbean, Paul Cayard (USA) 21.5 pts

5. Brasil 1, Torben Grael (BRA) 20 pts

6. Ericsson Racing Team, Neal McDonald (GBR) 16.5 pts

ENDS

/by

Surf’s Up for Black Pearl Crew Member

Date – 11 Feb 06

The day before the start of Leg 3 of the Volvo Ocean Race, Anthony Merrington or Youngster as he is known onboard The Black Pearl, joined pro surfer Nathan Hedge at Bells Beach for an early morning surf.

Upon returning to Melbourne, the native Australian exclaimed ‘It’s every guys dream to get dropped off at Bells Beach by helicopter and surf a great break.

It was awesome!’.

All Photos by Oskar Kihlborg

/by

Three hours until the start of Leg 4

With less than three hours until the start of Leg 4, the Pirates are busy with final preparations. Martin is filling in paperwork and taking newest crew member Jeremy (DB) to the dentist, Rikard is on his way to the only pharmacy in town open on a Sunday and Mark is in search of the perfect sandwich for the sailors.

The Black Pearl arrived into Wellington relatively unscathed so the sailors have had a bit of time to relax and prepare for Leg 4. All the Kiwis on board have enjoyed visiting with their families and long lost friends who have come out to support the team.

On Friday, the tables finally turned for the shore team who relished in the opportunity to watch the sailors tackle minor repairs and clean The Black Pearl. The highlight of the pitstop was watching Mike Danks instructing Paul on how to clean the team’s foul weather gear and the deck over a megaphone from the comfort of his dockside deck chair. Meanwhile Mark Reihana served up barbeque burgers and the duo even made an appearance on the national evening news!

The local Buena Vista International team welcomed us to Wellington and their costumed Pirates have entertained the children visiting the race village over the last few days, armed with great Pirate jokes and plenty of tattoos.

According to Kimo,”Wellington has turned out to be a great pitstop. The set up has given everyone a little more freedom and time to spend with each other, as well as with the other teams. No offices might well be the way ahead! In the end, I think the sailors have actually had fun working on the boats.”

The team is disappointed to set off without fellow crew member, Curtis on board, but we are all wishing him a very speedy recovery. Curtis will take a few days out to relax in NZ, before heading home and then back to Valencia to join Alinghi.

Susie and I are heading down to the boat now and the team are off the dock at 1215.

It will be a quick race to Rio – we’ll see you there.

Jennifer

Pirates of the Caribbean

/by

Approaching Wellington

We had a good run yesterday afternoon. 25-30 knots of wind and hit 34 knots as our top speed. Plenty of fun for the drivers as we surfed big waves off the west coast of the South Island. The Kiwi’s chirping got a little louder at first sight of the big mountains of the South Island.

Things have tightened up as we rounded Cape Farewell and all slowed down considerably due to light winds on the north side of the south island with the prevailing southerly gradient. We never came to a complete stop but had to make one drastic gybe out away from land to escape a hole right along the coast. Sailing along coasty lines at night is always tricky. Hard to know if there will be “night breeze” which is a wind that blows out offshore at night or weather it will be flat calm along a shore. We have stayed offshore a bit 10 miles plus just to try to insure that we don’t get becalmed. So far, so good. We have been moving the whole time.

Movistar caught ABN 1 shortly after rounding Cape Farewell. Maybe ABN got too close to the land at Cape Farewell and fell into a real light spot. We definitely noticed more pressure offshore there. Always tricky to know how tight to cut the corner.

The forecast for the next 12 hours is for light winds slowly shifting from the southeast to the north and dropping from 9 knots which we currently have to 4 knots by 000 UTC. If that is correct, it will be a slow last 60 miles. But that is just a forecast.

The boat is in pretty good shape all though we will have to do general maintenance while in Wellington and preparing for the tough leg to the Horn. We are not allowed and help from anyone while in port in Wellington unless we accept a 2 hour penalty on the restart on Sunday. So unless a boat has a major problem and needs outside help, I doubt anyone will be taking this penalty. This means the crews have to do all the clean up of the boat and all the repairs and maintenance themselves. It will be a busy couple of days.

I am waiting for the next position report in 35 minutes. We will see how well we have done here tonight sailing across the north tip of the South Island. It has been a beautiful and very pleasant moon lit night, clear skies and smooth water.

That is all for now.

Paul

Pirates of the Caribbean

/by

We have been on starboard tack with the big spinnaker up for the past 24 hours

First of all, Happy Valentines Day from all the Pirates to all their sweethearts! We got your cards today. Nice job organizing that ladies! We are thinking of you too!

We have been on starboard tack with the big spinnaker up for the past 24 hours which has made for some smooth and quick sailing. The wind speed has been between 20-30 knots for the past 8 hours.

We have a wind more to the west than we expected from our weather so we have had to gybe onto port just about an hour ago. This will let some pressure off Movistar but it is the right thing to do relative to the fleet. We wont be on this board long as we expect the wind to come back in from the SSW tonight. This little gybe will give us a good angle to Cape Farewell, which is the northwest tip of the South Island of New Zealand.

While this wind direction and subsequent gybe will let the pressure off Movistar, we have made nice gains on Brasil 1 and Ericsson today and this will let us consolidate.

Gybing in 27-30 knots is not a piece of cake with these boats so I was happy when we completed the first one without incident and now I am thinking about the one we will have to do in about 1.5 hours. Gybing involves first moving about 1.5 tones of sails and food and gear, some of it on centerline, some of it to leeward so it is to windward after the maneuver. When you go into the gybe, it is more difficult to keep you speed up because you have lost a lot of your righting moment. However, the alternative, leaving all the sails and gear stacked on the old windward side would be really bad if you broached in the gybe and all the gear ended up in the water. There would be a lot of damage and you would probably loose the sails and all the lifelines. So hopefully, we will have a nice little light spot when it is time to pull off the next one.

ABN AMRO ONE is just plain faster than the rest of us in these conditions. It has seemed that they had an edge for the past 24 hours but it was very apparent as they just sailed right by Movistar to take the lead and kept on going. Nice to have speed. It makes everything else easier… not finished, just easier.

We have 485 miles to Cape Farewell and then another 125 after that. We expect the wind to hold up pretty good tonight and tomorrow so we should be going around Cape Farwell before sunset tomorrow. Then into Cook Straight.

Not sure yet what we will have there but it doesn’t look like the 40-50 knots that were forecast when we started the leg so that is good.

Going to put some water on for dinner and then get the latest weather at 0600 GMT. We will probably gybe shortly after confirming the latest weather.

Have a nice day, especially all you Pirates ladies! And I mean all of them; the ones in Burbank, the ones in the Bahamas filming Dead Man’s Chest, all the Disney ladies all over the world, and all the ladies who work for all of our great partners. And even if I did not mention you, and you support some other team, I hope you have a great Valentines Day!

PC

Pirates of the Caribbean

/by

Found a Bit of a Grove

Finally found a bit of a grove here. We seem to have the correct sail up and our speed is good against Ericsson and ABN AMRO TWO, both of whom we can see.

It is only blowing 14 knots from 205 and we are all reaching on our big masthead reachers. The other bit of really good news is that we were able to sort out our problem with the bowsprit tack lines so no issue with being able to change from one spinnaker to another.

Last night we just could not seem to choose the correct sail for the conditions. The conditions were changing a bit on the back side of the front and we had a lot of trouble with all of our changes. Hopefully we can stay “in phase” with the wind and execute well from now on.

Everyone on the Pearl has pushed hard in the first 24 hours, staying on deck longer than the normal four hours to give a hand to sort things out. Today we are catching up on our sleep now that we have got things settled.

The forecast is off right now on wind speed… we have less. But tonight the forecast is for the wind to increase again to 25. Basically for the new three days, the forecast is pretty much the same, 17-25 knots from 200-210. That should make this a fairly fast trip, not record breaking but good.

Movistar sailed real well last night, probably not changing their spinnaker at all. Changes are costly especially if you pick the wrong one so the mantra of “if it aint broken, don’t fix it” applies here. The fleet is spread out a bit now with Brasil 1 20 miles north of us and Ericsson and ourselves in the south. The forecast of today doesn’t show much difference in wind between north and south. That could change.

PC

Pirates of the Caribbean

/by

We had a Great Start

Well, we had a great start and that made us all feel good for about 30 minutes. Then the wind died where we were and it all started to get weird.

It was a long day on Port Philip bay while we all waited for the sea breeze to fill. It finally did and we were well positioned for that being most west. We got going first and had the lead at Mornington with ABN AMRO ONE coming up fast. It did not take them long to pass us upwind in 22 knots of wind, both of us on J4’s and full mains. Meanwhile, Movistar, Ericsson and Brasil 1 were having a good battle just behind us.

When we got outside the entrance to the Bay, the wind was 24 knots and the sea was very rough. There were enough helicopters around to make four feature films so they must have gotten some good footage there.

Things progressed well from there with us and ABN AMRO ONE making some small gains on the group. Then, around 00:00 local time, we caught ABN AMRO ONE and they set a course to pass behind and to leeward of us. They eventually came back out in front by

/by

500 Kids Kidnapped by Pirates

The villains from Paul Cayard’s Black Pearl, Pirates of the Caribbean put on a show, hosted by sponsor Pescanova, on Melbourne’s Central Pier that instilled in the kids the allure and the fascination of the Volvo Ocean Race around the world.

The children, from State schools around the city, turned out in Pescanova-branded yellow foul weather oilskins, like little lighthouse keepers with ears keenly tuned for tales of the sea.

Black Pearl’s participation in the race is a partnership between the Walt Disney Company and Volvo Ocean Race, supporting the July release of the film Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest.

At each of the ports of call in the race, the Pirates of the Caribbean with Pescanova is hosting a major children’s event. The Melbourne show today was uniquely Australian, with stories of shearers, bushrangers and the local fauna.

Central Pier was transformed from a concrete block into a Pirate City by means of spectacular décor – a red carpet walkway lined with barrels and old sea chests bursting with treasure, muskets and sails. Melbourne Lord Mayor John So was presented with a scale model of the Black Pearl.

At the end of the show, the pirates took to the Black Pearl and sailed around the harbour, a foray made particularly interesting by the arrival of a southerly buster, to put the crew on its mettle within the confines of the docks.

/by