Position: 44,14.94N , 43,52.24W

Speed: 15 knots, Course: 64 deg.

A pretty good day for the Black Pearl. We finally made some gains on Brasil1 and stretched bit on ABN2. The weather has been a “rich gets richer” scenario for the past few days but today everyone had a chance to make some gains. We all gybed a couple of times and repositioned ourselves so there were opportunities. This afternoon we all picked out slots for dealing with a high pressure ridge tonight. The safer route was also the longer route. We are in the middle as usually with Brasil lining up to be the closest to the light wind zone and ABN1 and Ericsson being the furthest and therefore safest.

We got a large piece of lumber stuck on our keel this morning so we had to drop the spinnaker, stop and back down in 22 knots of wind. It takes a while to recover with the right spinnaker back up and everything back to normal. We have gotten pretty good at backing down and figure that they only cost us about 2 miles. But it is amazing that we could hit a 2×2 in the middle of the ocean, hit it right in the middle of its 4 foot length, fold it in half around the keel and not have it come off.

Today we also got some speed up, real speed, first time since round the Horn really. We hit 26 knots and had the water rushing do the deck most of the afternoon. The waves were not very large but it really put a smile on everyone’s face to b going over 10 knots. I mean hear we are not quite half ay across the Atlantic and it is coming up on day 6.

Tonight we are back into some lighter winds as we approach a small high pressure ridge, we should get past that by tomorrow afternoon ad then the wind will ramp up and be 25-35 for Thursday and Friday. With any luck we will arrive in Portsmouth some time late Saturday night.

Right now we are 160 miles south-south east of Flemish Cap, a position made famous in the film “Perfect Storm”. It is a long way from Gloucester, Massachusetts, especially in a storm!

The sea temp is 16C so it is quite civil both on deck and below. We had sun all day today which was a treat. Pretty fun to be ripping along at 25 knots on a beautiful, sunny day, so many miles from no where.

A Norwegian ship was on a converging course with us for several miles this afternoon. I rang up the bridge on VHF16 and talked to them about our impending intersecting course. They were very nice to us an we passed in front without any problem. I had nice chat with the Captain. The ship was from Bergen ad the captain was intimately familiar with the race and commented on our speed; we were doing about 20 knots average at the time. They had delivered a load of Norwegian crude to New Orleans and were on their way back. Their course was up over the top of Scotland and into Bergen.

The wind is really dropping as I write this; down to 8 knots. Loosing the wind is always an anxious time. It should b dropping for all, except maybe Movistar who is in a different weather system.

That’s it for today. I m very tired right now and heading for sleep.

Paul Cayard

Pirates of the Caribbean

Position: 41,59.6N , 51,35.36W

Speed: 10 knots, Course: 50 deg.

We are setting some sort of record for the fewest miles achieved in 5 days in these Volvo 70’s. We are currently 1023 miles from New York and we have been sailing for 4.5 days.

All day Monday was spent trying to get around the high pressure cell. The wind was very light and variable and it was a challenging day. Then in the late afternoon the wind finally built to 10 knots and we thought we were out of there. Not so fast, the wind has just died again and lifted us above course.

We are rationing our food as we only brought food for 9 days on this trip. We should be ok with diesel Juggy says so we should be able to keep the instruments going.

We had some nice dolphin playing with us today. They were fishing when we came up on them and then they came by for a visit.

ABN1 has sailed a very smart leg so far. I always say it doesn’t matter where they go but this time they definitely figured out the weather better than the rest of us. This is the type of weather scenario where the rich get richer for the next couple of days so ABN1 and Ericsson should be in good shape. We are trying to stay in touch with Brasil so we can try to make move on them near the end of the leg.

Apart from the wind, the weather has improved greatly in the last 40 hours. No more fog and the air temp is up to 9C. The sea is fairly smooth and we are running with a masthead gennaker. Really pretty nice conditions for the north Atlantic.

PC

Pirates of the Caribbean

Position: 42,35.36N , 66,32.8W

Speed: 11 knots, Course: 60 deg.

The breeze has filled in to 25-30 knots and we are slamming around a bit out here. We went over two shallow banks; one off Nantucket and one off Maine called George’s Bank. So it has been rough but the conditions are supposed to moderate in the morning. We are heading for the southwest tip of Nova Scotia which is just 65 miles away.

We got a second fish of some kind stuck on the keel early Friday morning so we had to back down again to clear the fish. We are getting pretty good at catching fish with smooth, blunt, instruments.

We had some very dense fog today; beyond “Pea Soup” it was “Clam Chowder”. At times it was difficult to see the bow. The fog has lifted now so we have a bit of visibility which is nice at night.

Brasil1 is sailing fast so far on this leg. Ericsson is just behind us and we can see their masthead light. Looks to me like ABN Amro One is taking it very easy on this leg. They probably wan to be very conservative on this leg and will turn on the speed when we go downwind or reaching.

It is pretty hard to type tonight so I’ll keep this one short.

Paul Cayard

Pirates of the Caribbean

10 May

Paul Cayard and his Pirate crew delighted members of the New York Yacht Club this evening with a presentation on the Volvo Ocean Race. More than 200 members turned out to meet the Pirates and learn about their adventures as they race around the world. Commodores Hinman and Townsend presented Skipper Paul Cayard with a NYYC scroll in recognition of his achievements in sailing.

It was a long night Monday night but we finally sailed under the Verrazano Bridge and into New York Harbor at 0600 Tuesday morning to finish in second place for leg 6. This is yet another solid performance for the crew of the Black Pearl and moves Pirates of the Caribbean up the rankings to second place over all. It was especially meaningful to me to have this good result here in the USA!

Movistar and Pirates were neck and neck the whole way up the Jersey shore on Monday. Ericsson was about 3 miles behind and Brasil1 another 2 behind that.

That was a race. When the wind died nearing New York Harbor, the four of us compressed. At one point for about an hour, we were slating with no wind at all. We got lucky and caught a breath of air and legged out to a 10 minute lead on the other three at Ambrose Light – the entrance buoy for New York.

Movistar, Brasil1 and Ericsson were all within one minute at the light.

Brasil1 being just behind the other two, cut over a bank on the way in the harbor. This was very risky but it shot them ahead of Moivstar and Ericsson for a third on the leg. Ericsson finished fourth and Movistar fifth, all four of us with a bout 12 minutes. I felt for Movistar as they deserved to be third on the leg but we all knew coming into these harbors is risky because anything can happen with so much current and fluky winds.

The race is really between everyone other than ABN Amro One. They are so fast that it does not matter where they go or if they have a problem for a period of time.

It is strange; they are out there but I don’t really make any tactics or strategy with them in mind. They were five miles behind us half way down the Chesapeake Bay. That is because it was very light winds – under 6 knots and they are very slow in that condition. With a minimum of steady conditions over 10 knots of wind, they are 5-10% faster than anyone else in the fleet.

The ended up winning the leg by 20 miles by just steaming away up the Jersey shoreline. The rest of us are having a good race.

The 40 hour race from Annapolis to New York was a tough one. Going upwind in 40 knots of wind is tough in any boat but these boats really pound and it seems like something is going to give. Then the fact that we were sailing up along the New Jersey shore line meant that we were taking every hour and that mean “stacking”. Stacking is taking everything on the boats; sails 1500 pounds, food 200 pounds, spares 500 pounds, clothes 50 pounds, and moving it from one side to the other while the boat is bucking like a bronco and healing at 25 degrees and someone is dumping buckets of water on you.

That is “Stacking”. Some of the crew are suffering from forearm muscle problems from all the lugging.

The first thing we did upon arriving in New York, was to eat a big breakfast. Then a shower and four hour nap. We met at 1400 to go over our work list and get into it. New York is a “Pit Stop”. Under the Volvo Ocean Race rules, no shore team can help with maintenance, cleaning or even set foot on the boat, while in a “Pit Stop” port. If a team does have a non crew member onboard, she will take a two hour penalty applied to the restart tomorrow.

Movistar has elected to take the two hour penalty. They had a broken winch part that they probably did not have a spare of onboard. Movistar also took the two hour penalty in Wellington. At that time, the weather was such that she got brought up to the fleet within two days as those ahead had less favorable conditions. So, there is a strategic decision to be made in consort with your meteorologist. We don’t have anything so major to fix that it requires the shore team. ABN Amro One made a proposal in Annapolis to allow the shore teams onboard to “clean the boats”. That got shot down as everyone else thought they could handle cleaning the inside of the boat after just 40 hours of sailing.

Today we are taking Walt Disney CEO Bob Iger for a sail. Bob is a sailor himself, owning a Hinkley 52. Tonight the crew is going to the New York Yacht Club, Pirates host club for the New York stopover, where I will make a presentation about the Volvo Ocean Race and Pirates of the Caribbean.

Tomorrow, Leg 7 starts at 1300. The forecast is not good – 20 knots from the east with rain. Not good if you are trying to go east.

Get some rest, it is going to be another tough one.

Paul Cayard

Pirates of the Caribbean