PlayStation’s Atlantic Record October 5, 2001
October 12, 2001
Gino Morrelli’s Chrono
Depart Chelsea Pier 10/05/01 approximately 8:30 am
We motor past destroyed World Trade Center, past the Statue of Liberty and under Verranzono bridge on way to Sandy Hook to pickup Steve Fossett. Raised the main to 2nd reef and continue to Sandy Hook. We rendezvous with Sea Tow vessel near Sandy Hook and take Steve aboard.
Wind is light, 4-6 knots out of west at this time and not to encouraging. We motor sail towards Ambrose Light and begin to pick up some South West Breeze. Decided to set blast and sail towards Ambrose Light to check out wind conditions and angles. We are picking up more SW breeze all the time and decide we can start anytime we are organized. Sail within 1/2 mile of Ambrose Light and jibe away. We reach back towards harbor organizing sails and equipment for final run into start. Stan has contacted pilot at Ambrose and made him aware of our intentions.
We are flying full North carbon spectra main and Halsey Lidgard Cuben Solent. We are sailing at approximately 120 TWA 26-29 TWS and 21 kts BS. (Definitions: TWA = True wind angle TWS = True wind speed BS = Boat speed)
10.05.01 8:35 pm EST First Night Out,
going fast, full main and solent 26-29 TWS BS approx same @ 120 TWA Flat seas offs Nantucket Shoals, 10 crew
Crew
- Steve Fossett
- Stan Honey
- Ben Wright
- Peter Hogg
- Dave Scully
- Dave Calvert
- Dave Weir
- Shaun Biddulph
- Paul Van Dyke (Worley)
- Gino Morrelli
So far so good 40 miles ahead in 7 hours. Big low stalking us, if we slow were screwed, but so far so good. Had chicken and corn on the cob , dinner was good. Daggerboard on starboard side no Hum? Port side Hums??? Glad I sleep on Stb….
10.06.01 11:35 am EST Good night avg. 24 kts?
Staying ahead of front so far, changed to blast at 6:30 am EST, go lower 5 degrees about the same speed, 24 ish kts. Still smooth seas, fairly dry on deck, no problems so far with boat or crew.
10.06.01 5:30pm EST Full main
and solent 33 TWS 29 BS 124 TWA 211 degrees direction Flatish seas
Two bits of excitement. Hit something with Stb daggerboard. I was in stb nav area with Stan. Sounded hard like wood 4″x4″? Did not hit bow, one shock. No apparent damage. Used orthoscope to check , worked great. Wild look under boat at 20+ knots, water sucking down hull along bottom. Clean flow on board.
Then 20 minutes later someone holding travelar sheet let it go by accident. Makes a scary noise, I got them to run off downwind and grind up travelar then head back up to course, much faster… old Stars and Stripes tricks… We did 595 miles in 24 hours but there is 605-607 probably in the data. Today will probably be faster. We are pacing a cold front/low. So long as we don’t stop we will stay in these good conditions at least halfway across. We watch barometer all the time. If it goes down the lows gaining on us, if it goes up we’re gaining. So far so good. Got a long way to go. We’ve covered 677 mi @ 24.73 avg, approx 175 in front of Jet 5. Its about sunset now, I’m on standby in nav area while Stan sleeps. Off @ 8 pm, on at midnight to 4 am, standby 4am to 8am, off 8am to Noon, then on Noon to 4 pm.
Dave Scully and I alternate steering each hour or half hour depending on conditions.
10/06/01 5:35AM EST Gino’s e-mail home
‘Dear Laura, Gio, Netty and Ziggy:
Hi all. We are off! Keep you fingers crossed and say a prayer.
Saw some of the World Trade tower debris pile on our way out. Pretty eerie sight. You can see where big splinters of it impaled the buildings next to it. They have cranes all around it now moving the broken beams into trucks. It is about 4-5 stories tall. It is still smoking…
We started off at 1:19pm EST in a building breeze. There are 10 of us on board. Steve, Ben, Stan, Peter Hogg, Dave Scully, Sean from England, Dave Calvert, a sailmaker from FLA , another Dave , Dave Weir , a friend of D Calverts. And Paul Van Dyke, a sailmaker with Lidgard CT.
We are doing good, going about 23kts now avg. We need to avg about 18.5 to beat the record. We have a long way to go though so we are being careful not to jinx it by talking about it much.
Dave Scully, Dave Weir and I are on a watch together, Steve is standing a watch with Sean and Dave Calvert and Ben, Peter and Paul are together. We seem to be ok for people so long as all goes well.
The weather is nice now, sunny, no clouds relatively smooth sea. We are heading into our first night and should be about the same. WE need to watch out for ships and fishing boats. I am watching the radar now, while Stan takes a nap. There is a lot of traffic heading into New York.
I will try and send messages as often as I can. You can send one back by hitting the reply key.
Love Gino’
10/06/01 5:24 PM EST
Gino’s Email Home
Dear Laura, Netty, Gio and Ziggy
We are all fine and doing well. We made about 595 miles in our first 24hours, which is good. We still enjoy rather flat seas and nice sunny weather and not to cool at night yet. We are looking forward to another nice night tonight, with most of a full moon to light up our way.
We still are weaving our way through ships and some oil rig platforms today. Most of the guys we pass can not believe we are a sail boat going 30kts.. I saw a couple sets of Atlantic dolphin but we are going so fast they do not chase us.
The food as usual is not worth writing about. We did have some fresh stuff for the first couple of meals, but salty brown slurry made an appearance at lunch in the form of clam chowder with Peter Hoggs famous green peas!!! Yuck, I had some fried chicken left overs instead.. Much better.
Tonight I think we are having spaghetti with real meatballs, could be a winner..
Hope all is well with you all.
Love, Dad
10/08/01 3:15 AM EST
Gino’s Email Home
hi all:
Typing may be a little worse tonight because it is a a bit rougher than the last few nights. I got your email fine. Thanks It sounds like Netty got a good costume for halloween. I can not wait to see her in it.
We are still moving fast. We broke the 24hour record of Club Med today. They went like 655 during the Race and we have gone 687 miles!!!! So that’s excitng for all of us. We may actually have gone slightly more but will have to analyze some data when we get home to find exactly how far we went, Anyway it will count as a new World Record. The boats in good shape and the crew the same. So far so good. We are well ahead of the record but are only halfway there, so way to early to speculate on a finish. As usual there might be light air at the end and spoil our chances. But at least we got the 24 hour record back.
We crossed by Flemish Cap where the Perfect Storm took place. It was shrouded in dense fog to make it even spookier. We are still sailing in fog now. The warm air over the cold Labrador current makes it foggy. We are maintaining a full time radar watch to make sure we do not hit anything big. We did hit something last night about sunset with the dagger but it did not seem to do any damage. WE used our orthoscope to look at the dag and it appears fine. It was probably a small log or piece of wood/. We expect to be out of the fog in another 4 odd hours . the sea temp got down to about 4 c or 40 odd degrees and the air temp is about 55 degrees.
It is quite damp inside the boat as you can imagine, the rain forest cafe is operating at full rain with a bunch of guys eating and lots of hot water being boiled for Salty Brown Slurry… I think I might just have a Balance Bar for dinner!
I hope all is well at home, did Gio get his staples out yet? I can not wait to get back home and see you all. I miss you all a lot.
Love
Dad
10.08.01 7:11 am EST
Funky night up at midnight and was foggy and cold. We got into a situation that we needed to sail 115 TWA in 30 TWS, That was hard, death zone… I flew it once 30ft high, was good crew work with Scully on travelar dumping a bit and Dave Weir on jib dumping, he got to mainsheet hydraulic which was good. We needed to be very careful, Puffs were sneaky. Stan said it was due to cold water back to warm water transition. This is where our previous TransAt had got killed in a squall badly handled. Dave Scully sailed the last hour of our watch fine. We are 1175 mi from finish, approx 518 in front of Jet and need to average 12.71 kts to break record. 2 days to go at current pace. Weather still has many challenges so not certain what will happen.
10/08/01 8:57AM EST
Gino’s Email Home
Dear Laura:
We are all fine and still in one big piece. We are over halfway now and still on record pace. We had a decent night, sailed in the fog until 10pm or so and then it lifted as we got back into warmer water. The water is about 13c or 58f now so its much better. Had some shifty gusty wind as we transitioned from the cold to the warm water. The puffs kind of blasted out of nowhere and would send us on one hull. I had one jump me while I was steering and we got the hull up pretty high before we got the sheets eased and I bore off some.
We are seeing a more consistent flow now, and hopefully things will settle down now. It is still kinda steely gray looking with a funky swell coming at us from the front, that is being sent from another storm way in front of us sending waves back at us. Not a problem but makes a quick elevator up effect at times when the swell we are on coincide with the swell coming at us.
You can tell since I am watching the radar while on stand by so Stan can sleep, Ive got time to write you way more than in the past. I probably have more time for this now than you do.
Anyway I hope you enjoy these notes.
How are things at home? Is your mom going to stay over a bit while I am gone?
Lots of love,
Gino
10.08.01 4:38 pm EST
Just off watch, good run on Great Circle @ 100 degrees x 25-28kts BS for four hours. 115-130 TWA , one reef and solent currently. 898 miles to finish 600 in front of Jet 10.97 kts to tie record 20.05 kts to break 5 days put blast up rolled in case it lightens up tonight, which is forecast. Average speed so far 26.3 kts!! Only complaint is compass lights still too dim. We put glow stick on last night and tonight to see compass with. 10-09-01 5:24am EST Gino Log:
It’s really like 9 am local but we left on NYC time for watches. Good night last night maintained 25 – 26 Knots pace w 1 Reef and solent, 4 – 8 Ben set blast about 10 pm and we sailed with it this AM in 30 – 31 TWS with reef and blast we cruise at 27 knots @ 133 TWA. Easy in building sea. Right on course We are 578 miles to go to finish now.
7:30 am
Went from 1 reef and blast to 2 reef and staysail in last hour as wind is building. Slightly and sea state worsen. Trying to get boat to go ~25 if ….
stopped———
Had to go reef..
10/08/01 8:57 AM EST
Gino’s Email Home
Dear Laura:
We are nearing England now. We are about 300 odd miles from Lizard. It will take 12-15 hours depending on the breeze and waves. The wind has held up its end of the bargain so far, but the sea state was really messed up for most of the day. We finally gave up going real fast, like 30 and now are doing a more sedate 20 ish to try and not break anything. It is dark and no moon but huge amounts of phosphorescence in the water. As per normal for England, it is raining off and on.
We will normally head into Plymouth after passing by Lizard. I will try and call you, from the dirt when we get there. I will sort out my travel plans home once we see what sort of hoopla or not is going on. I understand that the US is bombing Afghanistan. Bet the flight home is empty.
Stan’s sister Tammy has a Portuguese Water Dog and her name is Bonny. She ’s like 3-4 years old and acts like its 1.5. We will have to email Stan a picture of Ziggy and he will get one of her’s.
All my love.
Gino
10-09-01 7:11 pm EST
Spent all day in bad to very bad sea states. We are now 260 mi from Lizard. We went through to 2nd reef only, and then to settle at 2nd reef and storm. Running at 20 kts in 32 – 35 True. No moon, lots of phosphorescence, cold rainy, squally weather plus some shipping traffic to dodge. Dave and I had to make up for 8 – 9 miles of X-track error from Ben’s guys into 115 TR Wind Angle. Bad waves. Death Zone again.
We could go 30kts or 13kts it seemed. So we went 30 for awhile until I called it off as completely nuts! Took a while to get to 2nd reef and storm. Stay sail was way too much and still is. Have yet to hit fwd beam in any wave hard. Back beams taken a few hits and nets are extra dangerous.
Rolled blast in 30+ TWS, was hard but did it. Nice tight roll. We did not take it down till much later. Solent Furling drum cover got knocked askew and prevented us from unrolling once? Dave beat it with rubber mallet back into place and it was fine. We’ve decided to wait until tomorrow daybreak to even consider setting more sail. We do not want to risk boat or people when record is so close at hand. If we had to we could send it, but for what? We seem to be able to break the record in less than 5 days, if we can Average 14.47kts now 255 miles to go 4.64kt average speed required to break record. 2621 miles sailed 25.67 Average speed 751 in front of Jet 14.24 speed to break 5 days.
10-12-01
Written on plane home bound.
AA #47 Heathrow – Chicago- OC I left off watch with 255 miles to go. SF went through his watch after us 4 – 8 am with 2nd reef and storm jib. I went off at 8am and when I woke around 11am we were hauling ass. I woke to the sound of going 25 – 28 knots. That roar with the ocean crackling, the noise the water makes as it shears past the dag on the windward side when near flying. I was afraid it was ugly seas 2nd reef and storm sails still, but was very pleasantly surprised to find we had 1st reef main and solent?! Ben came on at 8am. He started to unreef as sea state calmed down, and within hour went to stay- the unreefed main to first reef, then- solent. As Scully, Dave Weir and I assumed the positions It was a changed world. Sea state way down, going 25-28kts with ~ 150mi to go. We sailed our 4 hours @ 115-120 TWA @ 20-21 TWS We had one wind patch down to 16kts TWS that had us all worried somehow it was going to glass off and strand us one Ensenada race distance from finish! We unreefed to full hoist going head to wind in 24 TWS and kept full hoist main up to the finish. We spent most of the way nervously making jokes and looking for any sign of the wind lighting up. We thought the blast would be next up but with the TWA at 115 degrees it was too close. We pulled the Scilly Islands up on our Starboard bow as Stan coolly prescribed.
With 40+ miles to go SF started his watch and brought us to Lands End, Wolf rock and then Lizard. A helicopter came out and whirled around as we closed the last 10 min to the white cottages around the Light at Lizard. Stan asked me to call the instant we past due south of the light by sight over the starboard compass. Then yelling over the copter noise into the helm speaker to Stan down at the nav table. We had an observer on shore calling the time as well. The official time is 4d-17h-28min
We killed the record. Our average speed was 25.78kts and Jets was 18.62kts… 38% faster.
