Mike Golding Yacht Racing

Update 21:30:  The Race Management of the Transat B to B has announced that the weather safety gate is now the finish line of the transatlantic race as the storm that Mike Golding, skipper of Gamesa, has described as “exceptional” passes through the fleet. The finish line is now approximately 330nm off the west coast of Spain. Golding is currently lying in fourth position, 220nm from the line in 18-25 knots of wind. He expects Gamesa to cross the line in 10-12h time.

Golding, who had just read the announcement from the Race Organisers, commented, “You do still gybe [once through the line] but what they are saying is that you can slow the boat right down through the bad bit and then start sailing again. That is what I’ll do, I’ll race through the line as quick as I can and then I’ll let the mainsail down, kite down and just go with the headsail.

“I have never known this to happen before. At the end of the day, I sort of understand, when you race, with the pressure of the race, you might do things that you wouldn’t normally do. This is an exceptional storm. I haven’t seen many storms quite like this one. Anything that makes things safe is good by me, but from a sailors perspective it is tough.”

When pushed on whether the sailor’s and boat’s safety should be down to the teams themselves, rather than the race organisers, Golding agreed. “It is true that the bottom line for safety comes down to each skipper, but someone’s desire to win will perhaps cause them to make a poor decision and in these sorts of conditions that would be a mistake.”

The Race Organisers have stated that the weather anticipated includes winds in excess of 50 knots, gusting to 60-70 knots, a 90° rotation from south west to north west in a matter of minutes and a backdrop of crossed seas with average waves of eight metres as the fleet approaches the continental shelf. Here, the seabed suddenly rises from 4,000 metres to 150 metres and causes even more chaotic seas than usual.

Update 18:30: The Race Organisers of the Transat B to B have shortened the course: the finish line will now be the Safety Weather Gate. More to come …….

Update 13:30 GMT: The Transat B to B Race Headquarters spoke to Mike just a short while ago:

Mike, tell us about the conditions you are experiencing.

Right now about 22-25 knots of breeze, but some very, very big rolling swells, so good surfing conditions. Not quite enough breeze to make maximum effect, but it gets us going every now and again.

I have gybed. There are two ways when you are on your own. You either tack or maybe you even gybe traditionally, pull the mainsheet on the centre line, prior to that you have to make the decision to gybe, then drop all the stack, which is quite a big job in itself, centre the mainsheet, wind away the headsail and gybe the boat through normally, or alternately wind away the headsail and pull a little jib out and tack the boat. In our situation with only four winches in the cockpit it is a little bit tricky to gybe classically. I tend to prefer the chicken gybe.

What is the sea state. Is it good for surfing or is it short so you have to manage the sped of the boat so you aren’t going into the front end of the next wave?

It is not that bad at the moment. It has been like that but the boat is quite good, she will lift her bow, she is pretty good.

What are the rules you abide by to manage yourself?

I always use the three golden rules which are sleep before you are tired, eat before you are hungry and wrap up before you get cold and that seems to work for me. But it is very dangerous if you move into any one of those three areas, hungry, tired or cold. It is quite difficult to get yourself out of that. You have to do something to get yourself physically out of it, so it isn’t ideal for a solo sailor to get overly tired. Naturally, I feel tired, right now tired, but not tired that I can’t function.

How do you know when you get to the point you are too tired?

I try not to get there, I try to sleep before I reach that point. I don’t get there, it doesn’t happen.

When it comes to eating, how do you get the necessary calories into you?

When to eat is always a problem. We have a lot of freeze dried food and pasta. The pasta is fine, but the freeze dried is pretty rancid, it is very difficult to find good supplier. On top of the pasta, I have energy drinks, hydration drinks and recovery drinks, sports drinks that just help me to completely stay alert.

Update 07:00 GMT: Gamesa is quickest in the Transat B to B fleet this morning averaging over 16kts as they pass some 280 miles to the north of the Azores with around 415 miles to the safety gate. Mike Golding, indeed most of the fleet, are now passing the track they made south and west on the outward leg of the Transat Jacques Vabre way back on the sixth of November, albeit some 120 miles further to the north at least on this return leg.

Gamesa is up to fourth at the expense of Hugo Boss which is on the opposite gybe and still heading North East. Alex Thomson has lost out a little since the gate was imposed, but Golding believes Alex will come back on the sprint from the gate to the finish.

The drag racing continues towards the mark and Gamesa has been going well. “We have a mean wind speed of around 22-23kts, it is still a bit shifty and all over the place with gusts over 40kts which has been a little weird, it remains a bit a of a balancing act, mildly scary but not very stimulating from a strategic point of view.

“It was good when we were going up north, because there was a bit of everything going on, now it is straight line stuff pretty much. Still one of the downsides of the gate is that it is now looking like my gybe will come at the worst possible time, when the GRIB’s [weather files] are showing 60 odd knots, so that is not going to be much fun.”

“I can understand Alex being a bit pee’d off but to be fair when the gate was called the lateral separation was only 20 or 30 miles, but the trouble is on the leg after the gate Alex will fly the biggest thing he can fly and I am afraid I won’t. I want to get home with a boat under me.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NB7C2Zo9bdQ&feature=g-upl