First to Go Around It Minus Mast

The Horn, the very tip of South America, has been witness to feats of seamanship off its storm-battered cliffs since Captain Cook rounded four centuries ago.

The clipper ship Flying Cloud passed it in 1851 on the way to setting a sailing ship record of 89 days for the 14,500 miles from New York to San Francisco.

The Horn has also seen failures. Since 1983 alone, two sailboats have been lost off the Horn trying to beat Flying Cloud’s record.

But until 10 days ago, the annals of the sea contained no record of a sailing vessel rounding Cape Horn without a mast.

“Passed Cape Horn at 0715 (Greenwich time, March 20). The Christmas pudding was excellent,” John Hughes radioed.

The Christmas pudding had been saved for the occasion.

Race officials here were concerned as Hughes closed on the Horn. His satellite-tracked position showed that he was approaching from too far north and appeared to be in danger of sailing into rocky Tierra del Fuego Island.

Then, with less than 30 miles to spare, the boat turned southeast in 35 knots of northwest wind and passed 10 miles south of the Horn.

With just a small scrap of jury-rigged sail, Hughes’ control of the boat was limited. If the wind was aft, Hughes figured to make good speed, particularly with the swift, eastbound current off Cape Horn.

But if the wind turned easterly, he would have had little choice but to run off to the west to avoid being driven ashore.

In Halifax, Nova Scotia, John Sandford, Hughes’ race coordinator, said the young sailor was at first discouraged and depressed over his dismasting.

“But we told him to cheer up. Only two people are going to be remembered in this race: The winner and John Hughes,” Sandford said.

Sandford organized an international effort to get a replacement mast and 1,000 pounds of other gear and supplies to Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands.

The 58-foot mast was made in two sections in North Carolina, trucked to Canada, then flown by the Canadian Air Force to Lynham, England, for transfer to the Royal Air Force.

Sandford and Evert Bastett, the Canadian importer of the Swedish Isomet mast, were also flown to the Falklands by the RAF.

Hughes is unmarried. A merchant mariner, he earned his master’s license in 1984 at 24. In so doing he scored the highest examination marks of any in his group. He was skipper of a 12,000-horsepower, ocean-going tug before he entered the around-the-world race.