The view of the first British finishers in the Worrell 1000
by William Sunnucks 8 Jun 2000 09:00 BST
On May 20th two Hurricane sailors – William Sunnucks and Mark Self – became the first Brits (according to race records) ever to finish the Worrell 1000
Mark Self is a 30 year old sailmaker, working for Dolphin sails in Harwich,
Essex. He first sailed with William Sunnucks on a Tornado catamaran in Genoa
nine years ago. He has won six catamaran championship titles, and crewed for
Phil Crebbin on his 18 foot skiff. Handy with a needle and knowledgeable
about equipment, he provides much of the team's hardware knowhow as well as
crewing the boat fast and making everyone laugh.
William Sunnucks, 43, makes his living as a finance director, most recently
with English Welsh and Scottish Railways a privatised railway company which
employs 6000 people. He has won four national and European titles in the
Hurricane and Tornado classes, and (to the irritation of the Dutch) is the
current record holder for the Ronde om Texel race. He is the helmsman and
planner for the team, and loves tweaking rigs to find that extra 1% boatspeed.
David Gale, 42, is a biologist who lives in North Wales. For some reason he
gave up sailing seven years ago and took up flying - but not before he had
organised a university sailing team, sailed the Atlantic, and sailed round
Great Britain. He was "team manager", "groundcrew" and "pusher" for the team
- all rolled into one person.
I have always wanted to do something really crazy – sail the Atlantic in a baked bean can, or ski the Haute Route without a guide. So when my family heard it was just a catamaran race they were relieved... until they saw Mike Worrell’s promotional video: the hype, the huge surf, boats cartwheeling into the beach. The reality was both more and less.
Pre-race preparation
Mark and I were late starters, leaving ourselves only five weeks to get organised. So we sought help from everyone we could – Steve Dodgson (veteran of two attempts), Keith Bliss (also tried twice), Paul Butler (who’d been planning an attempt for 6 months until family problems hit). The consensus was “you’ll be pushed to be ready”.
The biggest problem was ground support. Who could take a two week holiday at short notice to drive up 1000 miles up the US East Coast ? Who could organise boat repairs navigation and food for exhausted sailors? We found plenty of volunteers, but none could touch the experience and references of David Gale, a transatlantic sailor, mountaineer and pilot. He was instrumental in every aspect of our effort, even boatspeed – it was he who noticed that the faster boats were bending their spinnaker poles more to increase spinnaker luff tension, a key to downwind speed.
So we turned up in Fort Lauderdale with David, a tool box and a hire car. The American teams appeared with four to ten supporters, huge mobile workshops and team tee shirts. One team even had its own masseuse – a popular move as muscles tore and backs ached in the later stages of the race. Team Sunnucks didn’t even have a sponsor’s name or a website.
David set about making friends. Strong comraderie developed among the groundcrews, many of whom had done the race for years. It’s a big party – but focussed on a common purpose. We owe a lot to the American teams who helped us in ways we couldn’t repay.
The Florida legs
The race started badly. We drew number 13 for the Le Mans style start off the. Nervous, we capsized in the surf - cameramen rushing, lots of shouting and pulling and we were off, slightly flustered.
Then we realise we are slow – the leaders disappearing over the horizon. Luckily some squalls come through, shifting the wind and causing some capsizes. We finish 6th, well above our boatspeed position.
The next four days are a battle for downwind speed. The prevailing wind is a veering 15-20 knot South Easterly sea breeze. We found out about footstraps and chicken lines, which we had never really used in earnest in Europe. The Americans were quicker to double trapeze at the stern -“yahooing” as we called it. But even when we fixed this we were still slow: soon we were bending the spinnaker pole, raking the mast back, and playing the mainsheet traveller rather than the mainsheet.
Georgia and South Carolina
Day five marks the change from Florida to Georgia with a huge 120 miler – more than three Texels in one day. This leg often runs on into the night, but we reach Tybee Island (looking out on to the Savannah Olympic sailing area) at 7pm, averaging 13mph including the pre-sea breeze drifting. We come third, mainly because we stick close to the curve of the coast while some of our rivals tried the rhumb line over the horizon out at sea, probably outside the strongest sea breeze zone.
The boatspeed breakthrough comes on the first night leg when we overtake the red spinnaker of “Team Tybee” for the first time. This has so far been a small dot on the horizon ahead – now it’s disappearing behind. We continue our three sail starboard tack reach flying into the darkness on one hull. The GPS clocks 21mph but we don’t believe it (later this reading is confirmed by our VMG of 17.93mph). We jibe just short of the lay line 9 miles offshore, and look out for the breakwater just before the finish. Where can it be ….. we miss, but only by the Grace of God. We should have known it would be unmarked. Terrified.
Team Sunnucks – average speeds:
Leg Destination Speed MPH Comment
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1 Jensen Beach 16.28 Downwind. Thunderstorms
2 Cocoa Beach 15.24 Light, then sea breeze. Dagger board breaks
3 Daytona Beach 9.81 Cape Canaveral. Light then sea breeze
4 Jacksonville Beach 10.81
5 Tybee Island 13.03 120 miles
6 Isle of Palms 17.93 First night leg – downwind - jellyfish problems
7 Myrtle Beach 6.81 Second night leg - light, upwind, lost
8 Wrightsville Beach 9.36 Long beat to Cape Fear. Randy leads fleet out to sea
9 Atlantic Beach 14.69 12-14 knots Southerly
10 Cape Hatteras 14.42 Moderate Southerly
11 Kill Devil Hills 17.64 Immoderate Southerly 15-25 knots
12 Virginia Beach 8.46 Light downwind. Then beat to finish
All legs 11.81
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We finish this leg shaken, but second. The sea breeze veered as the sun went down, putting those who went out to sea like us ahead. Partly luck, but now our boat is being measured.
The day between the night legs is spent glassing up a large hole in the bottom, caused by beaching the boat on a shell. We have already cracked a rudder blade, and smashed a dagger board on the back of a turtle (we think). “Poor turtle” says Hugo, my 9 year old son, in an e-mail.
Our navigation on the second night leg is even worse. First we can’t steer straight and keep bearing off 30-40 degrees. No lights on the shore or at sea, compass not visible despite the best chemlight technology, no feel from the tiller in the light winds. We later hear that other crews were seasick from the disorientation. Mark tapes a torch to the spinnaker pole and we slavishly follow the compass.
Next its GPS problems: it takes us safely round two headlands within the sound of surf then tells us that the finish is in 33 miles but straight out to sea. We realise we have a wrong GPS waypoint (we can’t correct it as the longitude & latitude have been cut off the chart). So we have to do some proper navigation aiming for a landfall about 10 miles before the finish. Dawn finds us crawling along the coast, looking for identifiable landmarks and eventually asking a fisherman if we are at Myrtle Beach. “Yes…. And get off my line” comes the reply.
This was the leg that split the fleet. We were fifth which surprised us after our navigational problems, but the first four had been on the beach for over an hour. We lost more time on the leaders than in the whole of the rest of the race – see the graph.
North Carolina and Virginia
There are four checkpoints in North Carolina, but we only get to see the “outer banks” – the long thin strips of sand separating the intercoastal waterway from the ocean. In a few places these are well developed, with Holiday Inn type hotels overlooking the ocean. In most places there is a road, with a few buildings on stilts to cope with the hurricanes: but there are long stretches which are completely undeveloped and the only way to get around is by driving along the beach, or by ferry.
By this stage our boatspeed is satisfactory, and we are losing little time on the leaders of the day. It becomes increasingly clear that in the absence of breakages we will finish fifth. So our attention turns to maintenance: every crack, every shackle, everything checked.
Leg 11 puts this fully to the test. Four foot is the official surf measure, but it looks more to our inexperienced eyes. Then its round the "graveyard" cape, and off up the coast to Kill Devil Hills (the monument to the Wright Brothers, the flying pioneers, is just behind the motel) .
Would we get through the surf ? 5-4-3-2-1 push, the boat leaps away, nearly leaving us behind. David's face disappears below the waves, four big bangs and we're out -- easier than expected. But now its a beam reach in big winds and seas, the bows burying deep and trying to pitchpole us. Other boats capsizing left and right. We zig zag down the reach to depower - then we're at the Cape, looking for a gap through the breakers. Three boats dash for the same gap. We're sixth but frankly don't care much.
Now the conditions are easier with the wind still blowing hard, but its off the beach and the water is flat. Our spinnaker goes up and we're off out to sea in a cloud of spray: then drop to get back under the shore. “Outrageous” says Mark. We work up to fourth doing this in a group of three - and suddenly the wind drops and backs for the last 10 miles into the beach. One of the big learning points of the race is that more is made or lost in the light fluky bits.
The last leg sees neurotic preparations on the boat. “We haven’t come all this way to have gear failure now”. We lead for the first 20 miles and toy with the idea of being first to arrive at Virginia Beach ie. “winning” in front of the home crowd. But it isn’t to be – the wind dies and fills from the North changing the game yet again.
Final thoughts
So what is special about the race? I found it absorbing and enjoyable, not just a physical marathon. I enjoyed the absence of rules, the need for self reliance, the teamwork and the co-operation with the other teams. A European event would try to lay marks to lead the fleet away from danger. There would be too much shipping to allow sailing at night.
In the Worrell its very simple. Each leg starts at a pre-determined time, regardless of weather – no waiting around for the wind to be just right and easy for the press. There are no rescue boats -safety is the responsibility of the sailors and ground crew. There are no marks – if you’ve got the guts to cut the capes fine, then do so.
I wasn’t the only sailor to find this refreshing. Whitbread veterans Tom Weaver and Rick Deppe finished last after a series of dramas chronicled daily on Quokka.com: but they enjoyed every minute and are determined to do it again. I would urge anyone with the necessary drive and sailing ability to give it a go.
The cost? £5-10,000 and not much chance of sponsorship from the UK unless you have a lot of time and a flair for publicity. We paid our own way, and used the opportunity to raise money for a charity - Marie Curie Cancer Care. Think of it this way – the cost is less per mile sailed than Texel or Carnac, and there’s an opportunity to support a good cause.