Ellen MacArthur Is Off And Running…: Solo sailing siren Ellen MacArthur cast off and went sailing Sunday. Her goal: beat the solo, non-stop round-the-world record set earlier this year by Wetass hero Francis Joyon. The time to beat–72 days, 22 hours, 54 minutes–requires massive amounts of luck (Joyon had miraculous weather) and superhuman sailing. The minimum course distance is just shy of 22,000 miles, but MacArthur’s 75-foot trimaran (Joyon’s IDEC is a 90-foot trimaran) will likely sail something closer to 26,000 miles as she plays the weather systems. The average speed she’ll have to maintain through the water is about 15.38 knots. Check out Ellen’s excellent website for all the details. It’s got lots of bells and whistles–web cams, audio, video, charts–so we’ll be following this one closely. Just over a day in, Ellen has covered more than 550 miles, and is keeping pace with Joyon. The weather scenario is unfolding as predicted, with Ellen running down the east side of a high toward Portugal, where she’ll pick up the northerly winds along the backside of a low to keep dropping toward the Equator at maximum pace. So far, the hardest thing for MacArthur (who is as competitive as they come) has been to sail conservatively and refrain from piling on maximum sail. It’s a long course, and any major breakdowns will doom the attempt, so it’s critical to protect the boat. Here’s Ellen’s latest report:

“Basically, decided not to push too hard and to be conservative…sailing with one reef and the genoa at the moment. Got a lot of sleep [ie 2.5 hours!!], don’t feel great right now, but on the whole it was necessary so that’s been quite cool. Had a bit of a drama yesterday evening just before midnight the main rudder cassette kicked up and broke two of the fuses. I heard a noise, I couldn’t work out what it was, went all over the boat couldn’t see anything and this was about 2 hours previous and then there was another noise and that’s when I saw the box had kicked up. But what I think may have actually happened was that maybe in the rough stuff at the beginning, the rudder had been hit hard enough to loosen it and actually stretched the fuses a little bit and then just as we were sailing along the stretched fuses, one bust then the other one bust. I couldn’t see any marks on the rudder and I replaced them – pain in the arse job!

On latitude of Finisterre and sailing into this depression now bit windier – all on – sea getting bigger now back into strong wind. The breeze didn’t go as light as we thought it would, average speed went down overnight quite a lot – 2 hrs at 17 knots, couple at 15 knots, bit rubbish – but now we appear to be off again.

Went through ridge of the high last night. Made a conscious decision not to put the gennaker up probably would have had it up for about six hours so decided not to go without it. You know in retrospect I could have managed but with 20 knots, gusting 23 knots and averaging 17 knots speed over ground its okay. I am in a different mindset…

Expecting wind to increase quite rapidly today and tonight.”

Joyon sent MacArthur a very sporting message, wishing her well and fair winds (but not too fair, I assume). Here are some pics of her departure…



Leaving Falmouth…



Hitting The Start Line…



Reaching Into The Bay Of Biscay…

(Photos: DPPI)

Program Note…: If you are reading this, then you have connected to our new server which we adopted over the Thanksgiving break. In theory, it should be a smooth transition, but, hey, how often does that ever happen? So if you experience some problems accessing the site or archives, stay patient. We’ll sort ’em as we experience ’em…



Meet editor Tim in a hitherto unpublished characteristic chow disposal session on his way to Bermuda. Photo by our tech wizard, Colin.

Have A Wetass Thanksgiving: TWC will be taking it easy until Monday…

Wetass Video Of The Week–Into The Void: There are BASE jumpers and there are B..B..B..BASE jumpers. And anyone who hurls himself off the side of a monster vertical wall in France (and starts doing somersaults on the way down) is most certainly in the latter–or Holy F*ck!–category. This is a good one. It’s filmed in beautiful slo-mo, and set to haunting music. Call it French cinema goes Wetass. So grab your popcorn, sit back, and click here…



“Okay, I’ll do it for the sake of art. But you better get this in one take…”

The Wetass Sporting World–Smackfest 2004: From the Land Of Oz, comes Smackfest, a kickass event in which wavesailors (windsurfers who play in the surfing break) congregate on the west coast of Tasmania to take on the howling winds and monstrous swells of the Roaring Forties. They drink a lot, surf a lot, and try their damnedest to pull off the one best waveride and one best jump of the week (no averaging here). The winner, or Smacker, gets bragging rights until they do it all again the following year. The second annual Smackfest just staggered to a close, and 26 competitors made the pilgrimage to the ass end of the earth to compete. This is a great concept, and a great event, and organizers are hopeful that they can pull Smackfest 3 together in 2005. TWC hopes so too. Why? Just check out this year’s event diary. It’s got great pics (see below), and stories of nakedness, hangovers, surfboard shooting (it was a slow day), and, of course, wild wavesurfing…













Smackfest!: Get the picture…?

‘Tis The Season–For Record Attempts: There’s another one underway (from Falmouth, in the UK), a solo, non-stopper in an 85-foot maxi. The sailor: Russian adventurer Fedor Konyukhov, veteran of the Vendee Globe. He’s after Michel Desjoyeaux’s 93 day mark, set in the 2000 Vendee Globe, and it’s hard to know what sort of shot he’s got. His boat is bigger than Desjoyeaux’s Open 60 PRB, and reasonably new (built in 2000). But Konyukhov has never really won much on the sailing circuit. He is, however, a first-class Wetass, having rowed the Atlantic, climbed the seven highest peaks on the seven continents, skied to the Poles and circumnavigated four times already (once against the prevailing winds). If you want to see a life not wasted sitting around, just check out Konyukhov’s startling biography. So the man definitely deserves some respect. We’ll track his voyage and see how he gets on. Still waiting in Falmouth for a favorable weather window is Ellen MacArthur, with her 75-foot trimaran. If nothing else, it will be interesting to see how long it takes her to run Konyukhov down once she starts…



Freeliving Fedor: “If Ellen catches me, I hope she drops in for a shot of vodka…”

Vendee Globe Check-In–South Atlantic Puzzle: The Vendee Globe has broken into a leading group of five boats (headed still by King Jean Le Cam on Bonduelle), all within 200 miles of each other, a chasing group of eight boats that is anywhere from 335-538 miles behind Le Cam, and everyone else. Mike Golding, in fifth, is the only Anglo-Saxon presence up front and just barely managing to hang onto the leaders as they wend their way toward the Roaring Forties through a minefield of lows, highs and fronts. Daily report here. Position report here. The most interesting thing going on is the big flyer Alex Thomson, 335 miles back, is taking by heading southwest in an attempt to find new breeze first (see chart below). If he has guessed right, he could regain touch with the leaders. If not, it’ll be a long chase across the Southern Ocean. We’ll see. In the meantime, check out the Vendee Globe website video page for some good clips of life onboard. In particular, cue up Roland Jourdain’s 11/21 video to see a sailor loving life and sailing fast in the South Atlantic. And then contrast it to this brutal clip from Nick Moloney, depressed in the Doldrums. He definitely doesn’t look like a guy who is having fun…



Thomson is the white dot heading the wrong way…

Wetass Video Vault–Airplane Anarchy: Gravity vs. technology, and gravity is (mostly) winning. Check it out…

Most of the people on this beach thought that Harriers could hover. Apparently not…

When air shows go wrong (warning: when planes collide at high speed, it’s not pretty)…

See, fishing isn’t always boring…



“Relax, guys. There’s no way fly boy is going to mess with us over here…”

Annals Of Astonishment–Dolphin Security: It’s a strange and mysterious world out there. Here’s the scene: a group of four swimmers, which includes a 15-year old girl, is having a nice day in the water, 300 feet off Ocean Beach near Whangarei on New Zealand’s North Island. Suddenly a pod of dolphins appears and starts herding the swimmers into a tight group, and swimming close circles in the water around them. Puzzled, one of the swimmers tries to drift free, only to be immediately pushed back by two of the larger dolphins. As they nudge him back into protective custody he sees a 9-foot Great White shark stalking the group. “I just recoiled. It was only about 2 m away from me, the water was crystal clear and it was as clear as the nose on my face,” the swimmer, a lifeguard named Rob Howes said. “They had corralled us up to protect us,” he said.

The swimmers spent the next 40 minutes treading water while the dolphins screened them from the hungry shark. Eventually, Monstro swam off to look for an easier meal. Incredible. Too bad so many dolphins end up dead in tuna fishing nets, or lying on beaches with their eardrums blasted out by naval sonar…



“Yo, Flipper, get the f*ck out of the way! I’m trying to carbo load, and what the hell has the human race ever done for you anyhow…?”

Annals Of Ooops–“I think we’re gonna need a bigger truck…”: Here’s what happens when you put piers, pubs, pickup trucks and plonkers together. Looks like Ireland…



“No problem, guys. This is routine…”



“Hey, Liam. There’s a lot of water. It might make that little car…



…surprisingly heavy.”



“Shite! Better call Mickey Long…”



“No problem, guys. This is routine…”