Alex Petersen
SALVADOR, BAHIA
"It was some of our best sailing ever, and some of our worst", said Hi Fidelity co-skipper Gary Sindler shortly after the 46-foot racing yacht had crossed the finish line in the Heineken Cape to Bahia Race in the early shortly after midnight yesterday, to take third place on handicap in the racing division.
Sindler, co-skippering with owner Eddie De Villiers, had a team of top sailors including former Shosholoza skipper Mark Sadler, and crack helm Martin Lambrecht, but in the end they could not beat the light weather, and the sheer massive superiority of the two super-maxis, the 100-foot ICAP Leopard from Britain, and the 90-foot Rambler from the United States.
"Earlier on we had some very good runs, in the first week we did some low flying, it is a pity the two big boats got away, but in these very light winds it meant we could not match them," said Sindler.
"They are so much bigger, they were in a different weather system, " he said. "We lost the window in the high pressure system, but they had slipped through."
While jubilant to finally be in Brazil, the Hi Fidelity team would clearly have preferred the windier conditions that the race enjoyed three years ago, when even a 37-footer like Windsong could enjoy 300-miles plus on some days. This would have put them in with a chance of beating the bigger boats at least on handicap, but calms foiled this.
For several days, said De Villiers, they had several windless hours of flat calms in the afternoons. "Then at night some breeze would come, and we could get going again."
Had they deviated from the rhumb line, or shortest course? "Oh tremendously, all the time, we sailed angles all the time, just to keep going. At one for three days, we had calms of four hours every afternoon, but even in that we still managed to do 140 miles a day, the guys worked hard with sail changes."
"About midway, looking at the weather maps, I thought we we were going to get shut out," said De Villiers, "and that's what happened."
Arriving just two hours after Hi Fidelity was the French trimaran Branec IV in the cruising class, after a slow run from St Helena.
"It was crazy, because no wind," said owner skipper Roger Langevin. "But it was okay, I average 6.5 knots, and I did not use the engine at all."
The Frenchman fished en route to catch one dorado and two barracuda for the frying pan. "It was like an 'oliday, no stress, and a lot of sunshine. "
Finishing the previous afternoon to take second place on handicap in the cruisiing class was the German 48-footer Strega. "We were becalmed several times, first just a few days before St Helena, and then twice for one and a half days, said owner Andreas Steffen, who sailed with a crew of two Americans, a Canadian and a fellow German.
They also fished for the pan, catching two 1.5-metre dorados on Sunday, but releasing one. Had they enjoyed the trip: "Of course, sailing is beautful," said Steffen, who is taking a two year sabbatical from his job as a real estate executive in Berlin to sail around the world.
