Unloading a “sack of tatties” in the Furious Fifties

The now eleventh placed French sailor in the single-handed (solo) non-stop round the world yacht race alerted his home team Friday announcing he would stop off Macquarie seeking shelter from wind and swell on the east side of the island. He radioed to his team: “I shall be arriving from the north sailing straight along it close to the coast, just with my J3 (edit: 44.5 m² sail good for 22-35 knots) so that I can go up the mast to cut away the mast track, which is damaged and then replace it.” Currently he could only use his mainsail with two reefs (edit: reduced sail area) continuing: “I should be able to hoist it a bit more, but as the track has pulled away, I can’t tauten it. It’s like a sack of tatties.”

Showing respect for the island’s status as nature reserve and UNESCO World Heritage site he said: “If I can avoid having to drop anchor in the bay, it would be better.” At worst he would lose five hours in catching up with the top group where he was second before falling back for failing autopilots and main sail tracks. The third-time VendeeGlobe skipper experienced tough luck already at the start of the race when he was “notably seconds ahead of the gun”, Scuttlebutt Sailing News reported. He was penalized halting his race for five hours near Lisbon. On Sunday he was in VHF contact with the 20-odd scientific staff of the Australian Antarctic Division's (AAD) permanent base at Secluded Bay.

The round the word race course

Without elaborating the VendeeGlobe home team reported Monday news had arrived at 0300hrs UTC that Burton’s repairs in the lee off the mist shrouded island had been successful. They quoted the French skipper: "This is one of the hardest things I have done in my life! We have a new mainsail track, I can set the full mainsail and we will be able to go fast again back to Les Sables! " Race Direction had monitored Burton’s position every few minutes. It had taken him three different attempts in two different locations, initially at 1118hrs UTC yesterday, then having moved north at 0208hrs UTC. As Burton had drifted offshore the seas had become too rough to continue his work so he was considering anchoring in the more protected Lusitania Bay.

Race rules would only permit landfall without any assistance. And even if Burton had found a jetty for a hazardous emergency mooring for climbing his 28-meter mast he would have had to do so entirely alone. He also had to steer clear of dangerous Leopard Seals known for attacking vessels and dragging a biologist to her death. At Lusitania Bay rains and rabbits caused a large landslip in 2006 that partially destroyed the largest penguin colony on the island, Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported. Down from Disappointment Island between the Tasman Basin and Bounty Trough, subantarctic Macquarie is the last shelter on the 7.000 km course to Cape Horn, the final corner point for the circumnavigation of the world.

Next dot on the map is Nemo Point (Latin: no one), the oceanic pole of inaccessibility farthest from land and cemetery for retired satellites, space stations, and other spacecraft deposited there upon re-entering the atmosphere. Tiny Macquarie Island (34 km long and five km wide) is 630 km southeast of Auckland Island, and 1,300 km north of the Balleny Islands. Attached to Macquarie are two small groups of minor islands, the Judge and Clerk Islets to the north, and the Bishop and Clerk Islets to the south. All are part of Tasmania and the southernmost point of Australia. In the 19th century a phantom island named "Emerald Island" was believed to lie south of Macquarie Island.

Macquarie Island with Lusitania Bay

The archipelago, with hills rising some 300 meters above sea level, has been a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1997. Statistics say average wind speed is almost 30 kilometers an hour all year round with temperatures about four degrees Celsius. About 320 days of precipitation, snow or rain, every year, make it not an easy place to live or get around. And yet a handful of eco-tourists every year book trips to these “stepping stones to the Antarctic continent” and its “fragile ecosystem” including the Snares, Auckland, Macquarie and Campbell Island, as Australian tour operators advertise their offer titled In the Wake of Scott and Shackleton for fares from US$23,000.

For Louis Burton the onward weather forecast was less promising with the Macquarie station predicting wind speeds at 22.2km/h making it more difficult to catch up with the top flight in spite of his regained sail power. The VendeeGlobe back office stated that this edition of the race was “significantly slower” than the previous one where eventual leader Armel Le Cléac’h had been nearly halfway closer to Cape Horn, which he rounded on 23rd December after 47 days of racing. On fourth placed German Boris Herrmann VendeeGlobe said “prudence, the desire to keep his boat at 100% had been very much part of his patient, long term strategy”, yet the Nouch Sud buoy finish line is over 20.000 km away.