Pressure, adrenaline and stubbly chins

Bowman Fredrik Jacobsson (SWE) of
Elanders prepares to hoist the mainsail

There's a lightning flash on the horizon and for an instant the entire Kiel coastline is aflame.The winds had been fresh all day. But now as the boats picked up speed, heading north for Gotland, it was like sailing through the gates of Hell. Impressions from the Volvo Ocean Race 2003.

5 knots faster than the passenger ferry
Ahead of the pressure ridge, the wind was around 12 knots, but when the storm hit, the wind speed rose in seconds to 45, maybe 50 knots. Instantly, the 64-foot VO60s became bathtub toys. Only their tough construction and the skill of the crew kept them from being torn to pieces by the conditions. The first Volvo Baltic Race was just everything the organisers saw in their early wild and woolly dreams.

Matthew Humphries and Patrik Mehks
Or rather, in the jacuzzi of the Salzburgerhof Hotel in the Austrian Alps, where the dreams became a plan. The jacuzzi was where Patrik Mehks first met Matthew Humphries. At the age of 17, Matthew was starting out on his professional sailing career. By 22, he became the youngest skipper to ever take on The Whitbread. Ten years on, he was looking for another challenge. Patrik Mehks remembers that their loose marketing plans included the Viamare's hotel in Sandhamn, in the Stockholm archipelago. Sandhamn is a venerable port of call for Baltic sailors. "Then Matthew and I found ourselves in that jacuzzi together. We started chatting, and visualising a sail race we'd both like. Then we took the idea to Sweden's SEB Bank and Volvo and they both jumped at it.”

The Baltic - an ancient European highway
The arena would be the Baltic, that ancient communication facilitator for the Nordic countries, the Vikings' home turf, a rolling and pitching European highway bordered by ancient battle sites and storied fortresses. Up until the 20th century, it was easier to get from Stockholm to Riga in Latvia, than to Karlstad, in south-central Sweden. Swedish warrior kings such as Karl XII and Gustavus Adolphus sailed troopships over these waters. Attempting such a route, the ill-fated battleship Vasa sank in Stockholm's harbour one August afternoon in 1628.

Knocked down by a different kind of battle
And for a few drama-filled summer days, this misty little enclosed sea saw a new kind of battle. The wind, not least, did its best to whip up the pace. It had been lurking down on the continent sucking up enough energy to release a thousand demons along the 450-nautical mile stretch up to Sandhamn. It was as though all the storms of the southern seas had suddenly emigrated north. "I was checking out the fleet behind us when the first boats were hit by this massive squall,” remembers Matthew Humphries. This was the first offshore leg from Kiel to Sandhamn. "Bang, bang! One by one boats got knocked down. We tried to react, but within seconds we got hit too. Fifty-two knots and our reaching sail blown to pieces!” At dawn, the wind speed had dropped to 40 knots and they decided to hoist the spinnaker again. "The boat speed jumped from 20 to 28 knots. Two metres of solid water crashed down the deck and we were fighting right on the edge. Adrenaline was off the chart, but slowly, slowly smiles started to show. But the crew knew they never had been pushed this far before.”

Team RS, winners of the
Volvo Baltic Race 2003

Winning margin of a half point
Matthew lost the final race, and with it the overall trophy, literally on the finish line in Marstrand. On the last leg up Sweden's west coast, headed for Marstrand from Sandhamn, a strong gust ripped away from the coast at Falkenberg. Humphries' boat Challenge of Netsurvey was coasting a few hundred metres further off-shore than main rival Erle Williams and his Team RS. That would prove to be enough. Humphries watched the wind fill in and Team RS sail and push towards the line. The winning margin could not have been smaller: a half point. "It was like tossing a coin,” remarks Matthew Humphries. "There's always an element of luck in sailing. It's part of the sport. None of us could have predicted that gust.”

Pushed to the limit
On the jetty, when the two skippers went to shake hands, their bodies were pummelled, their chins whiskery, and they croaked rather than spoke. Muscles, larynxes and heads had been pushed to the limit. The adrenaline was only slowly subsiding. "In many ways, the Volvo Baltic Race turned out to be just as tough as the Volvo Ocean Race,” claims Patrik Mehks. "The crews never had time to organise proper watches. People simply never slept. They were sitting out on the rail throughout. Everybody was utterly exhausted. No question - a quality race, for the very best, the very toughest. Just as we planned!”


Source: www.volvobalticrace.org
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