Around-the-World Sailboat Race : Solo Sailors Hear of Conner’s Win

They heard it on their ham radios. Dennis Connor had won back the America’s Cup, and even the defeated Australians cheered by the thousands as Stars & Stripes was towed victoriously into port after the final race.

The 16 skippers left in the solo around-the-world sailboat race might have smiled to themselves. They are competing in what one of them called the “empty stadium.”

At best, sailboat racing ranks between championship darts and marbles as a spectator sport. But there are no spectators whatsoever in a solo around-the-world race.

There aren’t even crew members to send up a cheer now and then. The only audience a solo skipper has is the occasional albatross gliding back and forth across his wake watching for a meal of scraps.

But the racing could not be more intense as three French boats challenge for the lead.

At midweek, Philippe Jeantot aboard Credit Agricole had a 50-mile edge over Titouan Lamazou on Ecureuil d’Aquitaine after almost 4,000 miles of the third leg to Rio de Janeiro. In third place was Jean Yves Terlain on UAP-Pour Medicins San Frontieres, 100 miles behind the leader.

Over the past week, the three exchanged places more than once as they jockeyed for the optimum course to Cape Horn, 1,300 nautical miles ahead.

Jeantot and Terlain got down to 61 degrees but tacked north when a low-pressure system approached threatening them with head winds.

In the Southern Hemisphere, low pressure cells spin clockwise. An eastbound boat sailing south of the cell’s center faces head winds. North of the low’s center are tail winds. The more southerly the course, the shorter the distance to the Horn, but it carries with it a greater risk of adverse winds.

The leaders now appear to have settled on a course between 56 and 59 degrees on which to run across the Southern Ocean to Cape Stiff, as the 19th Century square rigger seamen called the Horn.

South African John Martin on Tuna Marine was in fourth place and leveled off at 55 degrees south, and Class 2 leader Mike Plant has moved south to 57 degrees aboard Airco Distributor, putting the American in fifth place overall.

Plant reported an iceberg at 56 degrees south latitude. He radioed that it was a half-mile long and 300-feet high. He said he yielded the right-of-way and passed 100 feet to the south of the northbound berg.

While 16 boats raced, a 17th ran aground off the South Island of New Zealand.

Englishman Harry Mitchell was planning to pull into the port of Bluff to repair his wind vane steering apparatus.

He anchored for the night east of the port, planning to enter with his 41-foot Double Cross in daylight. However, his anchor dragged during the night and he went on the beach.

After efforts of a fishing boat to tow the boat off failed, local farmers dug a trench at low tide to get Double Cross to deep water. Refloated, Mitchell, at 61 the oldest man in the race, discovered his rudder was damaged. The boat was taken to Bluff where it was hauled out for repairs.

Whether Mitchell will continue racing was in doubt. If he withdraws, his will be the ninth boat to leave the race. One has sunk, the skipper of a second was lost and seven have withdrawn with various equipment and rigging problems.

The fleet leaders could reach the Horn as early as Wednesday, five days ahead of the record set by Jeantot in the 1982-83 BOC Challenge.

The first boats are expected into Rio the first week of March. The restart date for Leg 4, from Rio to Newport, R.I., is Saturday, April 11.