Great American II Still Trailing the Sea Witch
With Flying Fish for Company
by Keith Taylor, Cynthia Goss, and Neal Skorka
of sitesALIVE!
Previous weeks'
coverage in the Feature's
Index
(April 10, 2003 / 24°21'S 66°07'E / Indian Ocean)
The trimaran Great
American II, which is attempting to set a new sailing record
from Hong Kong to New York, today fell
off the pace set by the current record holder 154 years ago.
Reporting today from the Indian Ocean, 1,000 miles south
of the US military
base in Diego Garcia, sailors Rich Wilson (Rockport, Mass.)
and Rich du Moulin (Larchmont, N.Y.) said
the ghost of the square-rigged clipper ship Sea
Witch had passed them overnight on their 15,000-mile voyage
to New York City.
A week ago the 53-foot trimaran from Marblehead, MA, was
clear of Sunda Strait at the south end
of the China Sea and had broken into steady tradewinds
after trailing Sea Witch by up to three days. Driven by the trades,
the duo spurted a day and a half's sailing ahead of the record
set by skipper Captain "Bully" Waterman,
who raced his cargo of tea to New York's
waiting markets in record time a century and a half ago.
But Sea Witch's performance in the trades
has proved stronger.
"As of noon yesterday Sea Witch's comparable position
was just 10 miles
behind us," Rich du Moulin reported by satellite email. "We
estimate she passed us in the night and
our chart now shows her out in the lead by 70 miles! We could imagine her silhouette moving past us on
the horizon."
"GAII is gamely hanging on," Wilson said. "But we
are saving ourselves for the lighter
breezes in which we excel. This is a race of strategy more
than machismo,
to go hard when you can make the easy miles, and to back
off, when the sea
state gets up and rattles her three hulls. Captain Waterman,
hard driver
that he was, also knew when to back off. "
While working watch and watch, around the clock, to get
to New York as quickly as possible, Wilson
and du Moulin have been busy corresponding with schoolchildren,
including the seventh graders at the Hommocks, who are following
their live adventure via the sitesALIVE! program. Du Moulin
provided details of the marine wildlife, which will be of
particular interest to the Hommocks group responsible for
researching this aspect of the voyage.
Fish Tales
 "It
can be lonely out here in the middle of the Indian Ocean
thousands of miles from the nearest land,"
wrote Rich du Moulin. "Human
companionship comes to the Great American II crew through
the e-mail and phone calls. But there is also some entertaining
wildlife out here, primarily porpoises, sea birds, and flying
fish."
"In the Indian Ocean it has been all birds and flying
fish, the former trying to eat the latter," he added. "It
is amazing to see
a flying fish break out of the water, fly hundreds of yards
at high speed, swoop around waves, hit the water with its
tail to regain momentum, and then splash back in, only to
reappear a split second later flying in another direction.
Equally impressive is the aerial skill of the birds trying
to capture the flying fish."
"At night when our boat is difficult to see,
flying fish will land on deck and die if they cannot
flop over
the edge or obtain our assistance. When the fish are
flying in big numbers, [skipper Rich Wilson and I]
often wear a facemask to protect our eyes. The other
night
I was on watch when a huge flying fish, about 15 inches
long, landed next to me. I picked him up and tossed
him back in the ocean. He must have told his friends
about
the nice guys on the sailboat because we started to
receive more visitors. My facemask was handy with all
the air
traffic congestion." |
|
Word is that Rich and
Rich are eating well (though apparently not dining on flying
fish) and that Rich du Moulin has proven to be
quite the
cook.
HOW THE PUBLIC CAN FOLLOW GREAT AMERICAN II: The website
tracking the voyage of Great American II is http://www.sitesalive.com. Daily
position reports and sailors' logs are posted on the site
for classrooms, students, and families who purchase licenses
to follow the progress of the boat.
For information http://www.sitesalive.com/oceanchallengelive/. The
saga of GAII will also be published in the Larchmont Gazette
and a number of daily papers, in the Newspaper In Education
supplements, and tracked on the AOL@SCHOOL program (keyword:
sitesalive). Some 360,000 students, including those at Hommocks,
are expected to follow the voyage.
The sitesALIVE Foundation addresses teacher training in
computer technology and funding for budget-constrained schools.
The mission of the foundation is to enhance K-12 education
by promoting the use of technology with real-world, real-time
content from around the world.
Photographs from the voyage: copyright sitesALIVE!
2003
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