1977-78怀特布莱德环球帆船赛

01

Within a few hours, crews on Heath’s Condor and ADC Accutrac were busy on the sewing machines, patching up spinnakers that had blown during their opening manoeuvres.

But 20 days into the race, having encountered serious headwinds after sliding through the Doldrums, the problems on Heath’s Condor suddenly turned critical.

With an ear-splitting crack, the new carbon-fibre mast snapped off just above the spreaders.

“For a moment the whole crew were stunned. As the watch below came up to see what was going on, they just gazed disbelievingly at the mess as the realisation of what this meant dawned. All the hard work to get the boat finished in time had been thrown away in a moment. Gone was any chance of getting to Cape Town first on handicap or even just getting there first. Gone perhaps were our chances in the whole race – they lay in a tangled heap on the deck,” Knox-Johnston recalled in his book Last But Not Least.

No one was hurt but Heath’s Condor retired from the leg and headed straight to the nearest port, Monrovia, some 400 nm away on the west coast of Africa, where they spent 12 days replacing the carbon-fibre mast with an aluminium version and sampling the local food, which two days after returning to the race track, took its revenge by wiping out almost every crewmember with a grisly bout of food poisoning.

After escaping the Doldrums with a healthy lead, Flyer beat into Cape Town harbour to win the leg. Just two hours behind after 38 days of racing, was King's Legend. Six days later, 12 boats were safely tied up at the Royal Cape Yacht Club with the other three, which had all made harbour calls, on their way.

02

Organisers scrapped Sydney as the second stopover in favour of Auckland, taking the boats further south and closer to the treacherous ice fields of the Southern Ocean. Within a week of starting, an iceberg warning was broadcast to the fleet as temperatures plummeted and a thin coating of ice started to form on the rigging.

John Ridgeway on Debenhams continued to head south in a bid to gain the lead, but a few days later he was surrounded by pack ice and icebergs, his problems compounded by a ferocious Force nine gale. Debenhams gave up any hope of a podium place when Ridgeway issued an ‘all hands on deck’ command in an attempt to negotiate a perilous path out of danger, taking them some way off course.

On GBII, the heating seized up when the gas stopped vaporising in the heater. John Deane used his motor bike helmet to keep his head warm and prevent injury as ice started to fall from the rigging. Hands and feet were numbed by the chill and Van Rietschoten was suffering from dead feet. Also in the middle of the Southern Ocean, the crew on Kings Legend discovered a serious leak around the rudder post. Surrounding yachts were alerted and rescue plans were drafted in the event of the leak becoming worse, but after two days it was reported that all was well.

Again, it was Heath’s Condor who became the Leg Two showstoppers with an onboard drama that filled race followers with horror after the tragedies suffered in the 1973 race.

Just after noon on 13 November, Bill Abram was tidying up the foredeck following a gybe, when the spinnaker filled and the lazy guy tautened beneath him. He was flung into the air and hurled into the sea, but when he tried to grab the hull, there was nothing to grasp. The boat was moving along quickly, with spinnaker up and the wind blowing a Force five, churning the seas up into a lumpy mess. Someone threw him a line, but it tangled, so someone else threw a lifebuoy that Bill was able to hang onto. The spinnaker came down and three crew were instructed to keep their eyes fixed on Bill’s yellow oilskins while Blake turned on the engine to bring the boat round into the wind. But the propeller had seized, closed from lack of use and all the while, Bill was drifting further and further from the boat, his position marked only by a cluster of seabirds that were circulating above him in the same way as they had hovered over an injured seal some days previously. By cranking up the engine to full revs, Blake managed to unlock the propeller blades and the boat moved off in Bill’s direction, stopping a yard short enabling three crew to lean over the side and haul the 95kg Scotsman back on deck. He was stripped, towelled and given a large brandy, but apart from suffering a cut hand he was pronounced fit…. and lucky… by on board medic, Dr David Dickson.

Dickson was back in action a few hours later, but this time radioing advice to fellow competitors Nick Dunlop and Rob James on GBII who had both suffered injury when a guy had jammed around their waist and legs, leading to burst blood vessels, severe pain and in the case of Dunlop, unconsciousness. The newly qualified young doctor decided there was little he could do until more was known about any internal damage or bleeding and for the next eight hours Dickson sat by the radio trying to get through to GBII for news. They did not answer but eight hours later, when contact was finally made via the ‘chatter net’, they reported, rather ‘inconsiderately’ according to Heath’s Condor skipper Knox-Johnston, that they had been busy or asleep, but that the casualties were making good progress.

As compensation, the weather gods blessed the remainder of their passage to Auckland and on 25 November Heath's Condor crossed the Waitemata harbour finish line first where Blake, returning to his home city, received a tumultuous welcome. Thirty-one hours behind, GBII came in second. King's Legend beat Flyer, while 33 Export came in fifth though won the leg by eight hours on handicap.

Provisioning the boats for the Southern Ocean leg had, as ever, been an elaborate affair with tasty filling meals seen as key to maintaining crew morale.

As Knox-Johnston grimly reminisced, “Basically, we had porridge or muesli followed by eggs and something for breakfast. Lunch could be two or three courses depending on whether the cooks produced soup and a pudding and dinner was the same. In between, coffee and tea would be served for the watch on deck and anyone else who happened to be around. The wise cooks soon discovered it was best not to offer a choice of hot drinks as they would end up having produce coffee with or without milk and with or without sugar, tea the same, or cocoa and Bovril or whatever else people could think of. If they were just handed a hot drink, they were always grateful.”

The first visit to Auckland proved a resounding success with all the competing yachts adopted by families, a full programme of social activities both formal and informal and a range of facilities made available for crews to work on their boats in preparation for the second Southern Ocean leg, Cape Horn to port. Both boats and personnel were suffering major stress following their gruelling slog through the violent storms, persuading organisers to extend the stopover so that harmony could be restored and boat safety maximised.

As announced at the start of the race in England, the legendary French yachtsman Eric Tabarly was allowed to hook up with the race in Pen Duick VI though since his rating certificate had expired, his entry and eligibility to win prizes could only be confirmed when all the paperwork had been verified. But so keen was Tabarly to participate, he decided to race even though there was a strong chance his efforts would count for nothing.

03

Nursing Christmas Day hangovers, the fleet set off on Boxing Day for another savage dogfight in hostile waters. There was little control over the mass of spectator boats in Auckland harbour and things became chaotic.

“While it was marvellous to have such a send off, once the start gun goes, one no longer thinks about anything but racing and spectator craft, although they showed the interest of the Aucklanders, were suddenly a bloody nuisance,” one skipper wrote afterwards.

Crews celebrated New Year with ‘ice cake, champagne and lots of laughs’ though soon after, things turned nasty as the wind got up. According to the log of 33 Export, it was blowing around 45 knots, when there was a ‘tremendous bang.’

“The boat was thrown on its side in fact she may even have turned right over. Rapidly we recovered ourselves but what a sight.”

All the contents of the chart table - chart, pencils, notebooks and navigation books, barometer - had emptied into the toilet. There were spanners, files and screwdrivers embedded in the deckhead of the galley, floorboards had come adrift, tins of food were everywhere and battery boxes had smashed the floor of the saloon. They worked out the boat must have rolled 140 degrees.

On other boats, the severity of the storm forced helmsmen to wear goggles and on Adventure, they had to start pumping when water came flooding in below deck, though with all the slamming and lurching, it took them four days to work out that it was coming through two cracks in the hull.

“Although the condition never became critical it was very worrying not knowing how far the problem would deteriorate,” reported skipper Ian Bailey-Willmott. Even more worrying when they realised they were thousands of miles from the nearest port and heading straight into the turbulent Southern Ocean. But they carried on pumping and bravely kept on racing.

Growing concern among families and friends of the crews persuaded organisers to set up a race control office in Portsmouth, so that information was available round the clock. Volunteers logged the latest reports and positions on a chart and answered the phones, or set up recorded up-to-date messages. This innovation was widely welcomed by both the media and race followers who were discovering just how compelling a round the world yacht race could be, especially with the spectre of Cape Horn looming with grim inevitability.

A row broke out over the airwaves when it was found that Pen Duick VI was, after all, ineligible though by the time, the news reached Tabarly, the word ‘ineligible’ had been replaced by ‘disqualified’ which created confusion among the fleet and an almighty rumpus in the French media who thought their national hero had been unfairly treated by the race committee.

Back on the water, GBII was first round the Cape, having had some close skirmishes with icebergs and growlers on the approach. Flyer was next, rounding in a blinding snowstorm and by 18 January, most of the fleet was safely around the Horn and heading for Rio.

The drama continued when the limelight-hogging 33 Export suddenly broached while running under spinnaker in the South Atlantic. Water surged across her decks, slamming crewman Eric Letrosne against life-rails with such force it fractured his leg. It was an ugly break and needed urgent attention so when the call for medical help went out, Dr Jean Louis Sabarly on Japy-Hermes reported that they were closing in on the injured party and were preparing for a rendezvous. When a huge swell prevented a transfer, the heroic Dr. Sarbarly jumped into the sea and swam to 33 Export, where he was dragged aboard and where he remained, looking after his patient until the boat arrived in Rio Grande and a transfer to hospital in Rio de Janeiro was completed. This bravery later earned Sabarly the trophy for outstanding seamanship, presented by the Shipwrecked Mariners Society.

On 28 January, GBII crossed the line in Rio just a half-hour ahead of Heath's Condor. On corrected time, Gauloises II won the leg and Flyer was second. They had all been pipped to the post by Tabarly on Pen Duick VI who arrived in Rio first by several days, but as everyone knew by then, she was ineligible for honours. The committee invited him to carry on to Portsmouth and although he at first declined he later changed his mind and nipped over the start line after the official starting procedure had been completed.

04

There was plenty of dancing and carousing in Rio but eventually it all had to stop and the crews once more had to prepare for the final push, a relatively short 5,500 nm hike across the Atlantic. The crew changes had been widespread as incompatibilities became irresolvable though Clare Francis was unique in holding onto the same personnel all the way round the world.

In the early stages of the last leg, the heat proved a severe test and on Heath’s Condor – them again – there was a major ‘oeuf’ crisis. Eggs bought in Rio were found to be infested with maggots and skipper Knox-Johnston ordered an immediate fumigation, which was duly launched with a match being applied to the polystyrene egg boxes in the after cabin, without much consideration for the crew’s effects and bedding which were left blackened and reeking of barbecued resin.

Bad eggs apart, the final leg proved uneventful though the competition remained fierce as crews pulled out all the stops to maintain or improve their rankings.

“Life on board is very pleasant though a little dull,” reported Gerard Dijkstra on Flyer, which was so far ahead of the rest of the fleet on handicap, that a risk-free strategy prevailed throughout the passage.

It was only when the fleet arrived in the English Channel that the conditions suddenly changed. The seas became steep and an angry storm, varying between Force nine and ten, swept through the front-runners with an alarming brutality.

It was Flyer, lying in fifth place on the leg, that came off worse and suffered a uncontrolled gybe, the spinnaker being blown to pieces. Cornelius van Rietschoten was helming and recovered quickly to get back on track until they were struck by another 55-knot squall which pushed them sideways towards the shore. Witnessed by thousands of well-wishers who had turned out in a flotilla of yachts, the eleventh hour action proved dramatic as Flyer headed for the rocks, with just 200 yards to go to the finish. Remarkably, a flurry of sail changes saw the boat veer away from danger and hurtle close-hauled over the line to give the Flying Dutchman an emphatic 58 hour victory on handicap.