Jules Verne Showdown–So, Geronimo, Whaddaya Got?: The Cheyenne crew is showered, hungover in the extreme, and still savoring their 58-day record. Down in the misery of the Southern Ocean, the only threat to their record this year–Olivier De Kersauson’s Geronimo–is lining up to round Cape Horn. So where does Geronimo stand? When we checked yesterday, De Kersauson was whipped, humbled and whining following the seemingly endless pasting he and his crew have received courtesy of the Pacific Ocean. If De Kersauson is lucky, he’ll get around Cape Horn in a little over a day, which would put him around Cape Horn more than 41 days after his start. Fossett got there in under 40, so the big trimaran will be about two days behind and chasing Cheyenne all the way up the Atlantic. Seeing as Cheyenne sailed from the Horn to the Equator, and then the Equator to the finish, faster than any boat ever before, TWC rates De Kersauson’s chances of besting his American rival at close to zero. But you never know, so we’ll keep an eye on him. De Kersauson is still about a day ahead of Orange 2002–though that lead may disappear by Cape Horn–so he is still in the running for the Jules Verne Trophy. Fossett refused to pay the roughly $30,000 Jules Verne extortion fee so he holds the world record without holding the Jules Verne Trophy (world speed sailing is now about to turn into professional boxing, with multiple titles). So if Geronimo can beat Orange 2002 home De Kersauson will be able to claim the Jules Verne Trophy. But how meaningful will that be if he doesn’t break Fossett’s world record? TWC’s answer: about as meaningful as a warm bucket of spit….



“I’m cold, I’m wet, I’m slow…and that f*cking American just stole the world record. Merde!”

TWC Breaking News: Cheyenne is safely across the finish. Time to circle the globe non-stop: 58 days, 9 hours 32 minutes 45 seconds, which crushes the old record by almost six days. Incredible. Here’s Fossett, who just bagged the record he considers the most important record in sailing:

“The past 24 hours were slow at first but improving winds became very strong by the time we crossed the line with 2 reefs and staysail ­ it was very dramatic ­ we had ours hands full – around this island the tides were whirling. Everyone is just so happy ­ we are all emotionally drained.

When we started out I thought the chance was 50/50 that we would get around. Then I wondered that the boat might not be fast enough…”

Guess it was fast enough and durable enough (barely). And that could be enough to hang onto the record for a good chunk of time, because approaching Cape Horn, Olivier De Kersauson is sounding like a beaten man: “Tacking to reach the Horn …, it’s like a bad dream. It’s no good, there’s no sense to it. It’s no longer competition. It’ll all end in us taking another beating, under three reefs and the storm jib. The reality is that being anywhere is better than being on Geronimo today!”

Fossett and his crew are now pointing the big cat towards Plymouth 120 miles on, arriving this evening. Mothers of Plymouth, lock your daughters up now….



Fossett Is Fastest: “Phew, we’re across the line. Say, Dave, is that “For Sale” sign ready yet?”

Lunch Is Served…: Another sidesplitting vid clip from Assistant TWC Editor (Movies and Pretzels) Dave Ross…

Click to Download (Windows Media Player required)



“Damn that was tasty, though I’ve got some bark stuck between my teeth…”

Masters of Speed–Oh So Close…: Finian Maynard and his merry band of windsurfing speed freaks had another big day at the French Trench late last week. The six windsurfers are out to break Yellow Pages Endeavour’s sailing speed record of 46.52 knots and came within a hair (again) of doing it. The six windsurfers ripped off 140 runs over ten hours, in winds that built to 38 knots. Maynard had the top run at 46.20 knots, and is convinced that if the best winds hadn’t come at the end of the day (when the sailors were so tired they could barely grip their booms) the record would be back in a windsurfer’s hands. Top instantaneous speeds hit 48-49 knots (the record is an average speed over 500 meters), so these guys were f*cking flying. Maynard guarantees that they will break the record sometime soon, and he is dead serious. The team has just installed lights at the canal so they can sail in the dark if they have to. Fifty knots on a windsurfer, at night. Hmmm….



Maynard at 46 Knots: “We’ve been trying to break this stupid record for months, and is it just me, or are my arms getting longer?”

(Photo: Jean Souville)

Cheyenne…Almost…Done: After 58 days of high speed sailing, the thirteen crew aboard Cheyenne are finally approaching the finish. Even if they lost the rig now, they could probably drift over the line in time to break the record. But if they manage to hang onto it they should go from racing to celebrating around noon EST today, which would be a monster time of 58 days 10 hours. They’d be home even faster if they hadn’t run into an unforecast light air bubble off the coast of France last night, which slowed them down big time overnight. Dave Scully had a novel, and accurate, I think, assessment of what was happening:

“I believe that these micro depressions probably form on concentrations of plans and ideas of what one will do when one finishes. The rising hot air generated by the discussion of these ideas sucks up cold surface air, disrupting gradient wind flow, creating dense fog, and dampening expectations. They are generally brief in duration, but may interact with larger scale circulation to create progressively later and later arrival times. (for more information, look up “Temporal and Spatial Ambiguities Triggered by the Approaching Finish of Long Distance Sailing Events”, by the same author.)”

The big cat is back up to speed now, and the crew is naturally speculating on life after sailing. Brian Thompson, who has gone through this transition many, many times, points out one very odd effect:

“It will be interesting to see how it feels to be back on dry land after 58 days at sea. Normally the only really strange experience is being a passenger in a car; the speed, the silence and the smoothness is very bizarre. When the car goes over 30 miles an hour you can find yourself reaching out for the mainsheet traveller, ready to ease, but you can’t find it..”

So don’t go driving with Brian for a few days. Look for an update when this thing is in the bag…..



Hail Cheyenne, Fastest Boat On The Planet (For Now)

Have A Wetass Weekend…



The 140-foot Mari-Cha IV, Doing A Little Atlantic Surfing…

(Photo: Thierry Martinez)

Wetass Sport #43–Icebiking: It makes sense, sort of. You love to bike. So why stop for winter? A little cold, snow and ice never (okay, almost never…umm, okay, quite frequently) killed anyone. So put some fat, nubbed tires on your bike, and hit the trails, Dude. But before you do, check out the “Icebike” website (“Home of the Winter Cyclist…And Other Crazy People”). It has tons of info on how to get started, how to dress, and how to (mostly) stay off your ass in snow and on black ice (“As long as you can steer you have a good chance of remaining upright. Braking must be done with great care…”). Really? Anyhow, some icebikers just commute, and others go out and half kill themselves in torture-fests such as the “Iditasport Impossible,” where the icebikers race the Iditarod Trail. Here’s where that sort of hubris can lead (courtesy of icebiker Mike Curiak):

“Without a trail I floundered hopelessly in the waist deep snow, reaching up to grasp my handlebars. Anxiously searching for a platform to walk on, I broke through the ice and into the river. Instinct took over: I flattened myself on the ice to spread my weight out, then wiggled forward, pulling my legs out of the water. I crawled a short distance to what I thought was solid ice, but when I tried to stand I broke through again. I’ll never forget the sensation of struggling to get myself back on top of the ice as the current of the glacier-fed river tugged at my legs below. I spent an exhausting, hyperventilating eternity crawling to a safer spot, dragging my bike behind. Regaining the trail on the north side of the river, I brushed the congealing slush and snow off of my suit while collecting myself; several minutes passed before I stopped shaking and normal breathing returned. Sharp pain in my left ankle brought me back to reality: I’d wrenched it forcefully when I broke through the first time, but only from the relative safety of the trail did the pain begin to register. A few stars appeared overhead as I limped gingerly through that night, arriving at Skwentna as a hint of dawn came into the eastern sky.”

Whew. Are we having fun yet? You can read Curiak’s full tale here. Icebiking. I like it. I like it alot…



“What I love about this sport is you never really feel overheated…”

(Photo: Mike Curiak)

More Okie Noodling (See Part 1 Below)–“TV, We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ TV”: TWC reader, and native Okie Barry Branham writes in to recount a good ol’ time on the river…

“Losin’ a little meat ain’t nothin’. Years ago, when I was around 13 or 14, we went on a camping trip with my science teacher below Grand River dam in Ketchum Oklahoma and he gave us a first hand lesson in noodling He had several spots that he had either found or created himself. One was a large hollow log in the middle of a backwater next to the river. As we shined a light for him, he reached for the log entrance. It moved. He just thought that it was the current, for the river was up a little. So he squatted and started to stick his hand in the hole to check for a fish and was grabbed by the arm and pulled under. There was water churning about 6 feet away, so that’s likely where the tail of the catfish was. After a few seconds he resurfaced about 20 feet away, with his arm all bloody but his fingers intact. From what we could tell the fish was about 6-7 feet long and probably about 100-120lbs. The next night we fished the old fashioned way. With dynamite…”

Smart kids…



“Holy Hell, Hoss, I think there’s a couple of loose fingers rattling around in this bastard’s gullett….”

(Photo: Okie Noodling)

JV Jumble–Geronimo Weaving, Cheyenne Screaming: Olivier De Kersauson and his 10-man crew are well and truly sick of the Southern Ocean (“If I’d seen the Southern Ocean like this before, I’d never have come back,” The Admiral rumbled in a radio call) . After getting blasted by a massive storm for days, Geronimo is now forced to try and dodge the light airs of a high pressure system. That is forcing them to dive south toward Cape Horn, which could put them smack in the path of another depression. To top it off, right now the weather boffins are forecasting the possibility of more light air for their Cape Horn rounding. Zut alors! Amazingly, Geronimo is still well over a thousand miles ahead of Orange 2002, and less than 1000 miles behind Cheyenne’s pace. The problem for De Kersauson–who has suffered horrific weather luck on both this and his previous JV attempt–is that opportunities to make up ground on Cheyenne from Cape Horn on will be few and far between because Cheyenne is covering this last segment of the round the world course in record time. De Kersauson has to be wondering whether God is an American, possibly from Chicago.

Here’s why: Cheyenne has found the corridor of southerly winds between the custom-ordered depression to their west and a high pressure system to their east. These two systems are creating a conveyor belt of strong southerly winds that will rocket Cheyenne–at an average of almost 500 miles a day–to the finish, now projected for Monday if all goes well. That would be a new record of 58 days and change. Think the crew appreciates their good fortune? Here’s navigator Adrienne Cahalan:

“Now, we have yet to get to the line or even near it as this baby seems to just hang on by a thread. However, regardless of whether we make it or not, the weather gods have done their best to help us out. For all those climatology buffs out there, this is one time when I think we have had our asses kissed by a fairy.”

Phew, these guys have been at sea for almost two months, so that’s one brave fairy. 1500 miles to go…



Fox(all) in the Nav Coop: “So that’s 10 cases of Guinness, a dozen pepperoni pizzas, and, ummm, is there any chance you can get some girls, too? Yes, Monday at Plymouth dock…”

(Photo: Nick Leggatt)

Annals of Innovation–“Rods, We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Rods!”: Why not? “We’re Okie noodlers!” You’re what? “Noodlers.” OK, this is going to take some ‘splainin. Thanks to reader (and college buddy) Steve Tomlin, TWC can report that there is an eccentric Wetass subculture, centered in Oklahoma, that likes to catch large, ugly catfish by trapping them in the nooks and holes of lakes, and then hooking them in the mouth and gills…by thumb. Possibly a practice that originated with Native Americans, noodling is now a full-fledged pastime, no doubt replete with lots of beer, sitting around, and ridiculous, outrageous stories. Click here to check out a documentary about Okie noodlers, or sign up for the 5th Annual Okie Noodling Tournament and Fish Fry, sponsored by Bob’s Pig Shop. But before you rush off to Oklahoma, assuming noodling is easy, safe and a good excuse to liquor up, here’s an excerpt on the ins and outs of the sport from a feature in Outdoor Life:

“Even if you’re fortunate enough to avoid the turtles, beavers, snakes and alligator gar, that still leaves you with one more big problem—the catfish themselves. Needing only a few feet to accelerate, smaller cats can deliver lung-emptying blows, while bigger ones can knock a man clean off his feet and crack a few ribs in the process.

As far as anyone can tell, the sport’s name derives from the fish’s smooth, scaleless skin. “That son of a gun is like a wet noodle when you try to catch him,” says McFarlin, “just slimy, slippery.” Consequently, a noodler lands a catfish by wedging his thumbs into the corners of its mouth and hooking his fingers up under the gills. So long as you keep your thumbs lodged in the crook of the fish’s maw, McFarlin explains, you’ll avoid the countless minuscule teeth that carpet its jaws.

While no sharper than heavy-grade sandpaper, the legions of inward- facing teeth can spell big trouble for noodlers. If a cat manages to clamp down on your hand—or worse, your arm—the fish metamorphoses into a barbeled buzz saw, gyrating wildly as it attempts to strip the meat from whatever offending appendage it has between its mandibles. At best, you’ll lose a little flesh in the encounter. At worst, McFarlin tells me moments after I’ve agreed to join him on a noodling expedition, you’ll drown.”

Well, then. At least there is the prospect of some good catfish stew after all the bleeding is done…



Gnarly Noodler: “Damn, this thing looks just like my wife…except it has teeth.”

(Photo: Okie Noodling)