Giant Waves Pummeling Larchmont Sailor:
Great American II & Sea Witch Cross Wakes in Indian Ocean

by Keith Taylor & Cynthia Goss of sitesALIVE!

Previous weeks' coverage in the Feature's Index

(April 16, 2003 28°46'S 39°32'E / Indian Ocean) The sailors are elated: Great American II, the 53-foot trimaran with Larchmont’s Rich du Moulin aboard, is running neck-and-neck with its historical rival as it races from Hong Kong to New York. They are also exhausted from battling unexpectedly large waves all week as they head towards the predictably harsh seas off the Cape of Good Hope.

This week, Great American II’s progress has mirrored that of her nemesis, Sea Witch, the clipper ship that set the record 154 years ago.

"GAII and Sea Witch have been winding through each others' wakes the past two weeks," said du Moulin. "Imagine if we were here at the same time: we probably would have sighted each other. It's a real race to the Cape!"

But the path these two vessels have cut across the Indian Ocean is the only
thing they have in common: thirty-two days out from Hong Kong, Great
American II is reporting sea conditions unlike anything Sea Witch had encountered thus far.

For much of the week, GAII has been sailing in large, confused seas--and
this boat and her crew have been getting thrashed. Earlier in the week, Wilson reported waves cresting over 25 feet and seas that seemed to arise out of nowhere and descend on the boat.

"How can a boat survive such a beating?" queried Wilson in a satellite email. "GAII is all heart and incredible strength, but even she must have a limit. The forces that have been exerted on her since Saturday are overwhelming. Waves that shock the pontoon, that then shocks the rig: you wonder how could it possibly be still standing? How could that pontoon not have caved in yet?"

In stark contrast, in Sea Witch's logs of January 1849, Captain Robert "Bully" Waterman recounted a string of pleasant days at this point in the journey, with lighter winds and clear weather.

Wilson and du Moulin are pushing as hard as they dare, trying to preserve their boat, and
reporting on the rigors of daily life inside what Wilson has dubbed "a washing machine."

The jarring motion of the waves has led to a GPS failure and caused the sailors to switch to a backup GPS antenna to calculate their position. But each new wave jars the system and causes them to lose their position.

Wilson likened the effect to slamming the underside of a shelf with a sledgehammer ever 60 seconds or so. “When these waves hit the underside of the cross beam, it lifts me right off the bunk, and it hurts: make no mistake, it hurts. So how could electronics possibly survive?"

Even provisions are not safe from the conditions. Though only drops of water are making their way through the side of the boat with every crashing wave, they start to add up. Skipper Wilson found 1 inch of water in their snack bin and 4 inches of water in their soup and oatmeal bin.

But the crew's concern is not just focused on the present tumult onboard: they are wondering what lies ahead.

"It is known that off the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Agulhas that the appalling seas can break ships in half," reported Wilson earlier this week. "We are 1300 miles from there, but from our satellite imagery, we know that we are in an eddy of current that must be contributing to this confusion. If this is what it is like off Madagascar, what can it be possibly like off the Cape if we get the wrong weather?"

GAII's next waypoint is the Cape of Good Hope, where she'll turn north into the Atlantic Ocean and head for the finish line at New York's Statue of Liberty.

Some 360,000 schoolchildren, including the seventh graders at Hommocks, are following this adventure on a daily basis through the sitesALIVE! educational program. The students are learning about math, weather, problem-solving, and other disciplines in the context of GAII's live drama. The Hommocks students have been invited to the Chelsea Piers to view the GA II’s arrival in New York estimated to be sometime during the week of May 26.

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