Friday - July 27 2007 - 0851 PST - Mini Racer Andrew Woods checked in from Spain where he is doing the Transgascogne race. Things started calmly enough, but later turned into carnage city:
"The weather sites and files for the first leg to Santander were all showing strong winds from the south and west as a deep low moved into biscay and a brave descision was made by the organisers to race on a slightly shortened course (normaly we would have sailed north, up and around Belle Isle before heading off across the bay of Biscay). I think due to the recent cancellation of the Mini Fastnet race, the organizers had a lot of pressure to get this decision right, it was a 'damned if they do, damned if they don't' kind of scenario," Woods said.
"We set out in a nice 10 knot breeze with a lot of excited chatter going out over the VHF. However, this banter soon started to peeter out as the winds began to fill in and the glass dropped steadily.The decision was how far west to continue on before tacking as the front was not forecast to veer all the way out to the west. I tacked over in about 25 knots when I steering a course of around 265 degs, this was ok for heading, but as the front had not long passed through I was left with a large swell from ahead which I could have done without.
From here on it just became a case of hanging on and making sure things didn't break as the winds increased up to a solid 35+. At the peak, for a few minutes I saw wind speeds of 50 knots whilst a squall came through. Off course at this point I had lost my VHF antenna and so had no idea of the chaos going on around me, four complete capsizes and dismasting, four airlifts plus a lot of other injuries and damage." Photo and story courtesy of www.solochallenges.com
"The weather sites and files for the first leg to Santander were all showing strong winds from the south and west as a deep low moved into biscay and a brave descision was made by the organisers to race on a slightly shortened course (normaly we would have sailed north, up and around Belle Isle before heading off across the bay of Biscay). I think due to the recent cancellation of the Mini Fastnet race, the organizers had a lot of pressure to get this decision right, it was a 'damned if they do, damned if they don't' kind of scenario," Woods said.
"We set out in a nice 10 knot breeze with a lot of excited chatter going out over the VHF. However, this banter soon started to peeter out as the winds began to fill in and the glass dropped steadily.The decision was how far west to continue on before tacking as the front was not forecast to veer all the way out to the west. I tacked over in about 25 knots when I steering a course of around 265 degs, this was ok for heading, but as the front had not long passed through I was left with a large swell from ahead which I could have done without.
From here on it just became a case of hanging on and making sure things didn't break as the winds increased up to a solid 35+. At the peak, for a few minutes I saw wind speeds of 50 knots whilst a squall came through. Off course at this point I had lost my VHF antenna and so had no idea of the chaos going on around me, four complete capsizes and dismasting, four airlifts plus a lot of other injuries and damage." Photo and story courtesy of www.solochallenges.com
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