Sunday, May 22, 2005
The biggest boat in the fleet for the Transatlantic Challenge is Stad Amsterdam, a 250-foot steel, three-masted Dutch clipper ship that was the first clipper built in 130 years when it was launched in 2000.
The U.S.-based Storm Trysail Club has chartered Stad for the race. Forty-one club members will join 28 professional crew for the passage. STC is an organization of experienced ocean sailors who have in common the fact they've endured powerful storms at sea. The charterers will stand watch with the professional crew. Among them is Post writer Angus Phillips, who will file twice-weekly reports during the trip.
Rex Herbert of New York, who organized the charter for STC, says sailing across the Atlantic on a clipper "is like a baseball fan getting to go back to 1927 and take the field with the Yankees."
Clippers in their heyday were called "greyhounds of the sea," and were the fastest ships on the water from the 1840s to 1880s. They raced from the Indies to Europe with the first tea crops every year, and those that arrived first got the big payoff. Clippers also carried passengers to the gold rushes in California and Australia.
The Stad is a full-rigged ship carrying a cloud of sail on three steel masts, including royals, topgallants and studdingsails in addition to square sails on the yardarms. The crew must scale the towering masts to take in or let out sail as the wind strengthens or moderates.
Stad has the advantage of length over rivals in the Transatlantic Challenge, and waterline length as a rule equates to speed in sailboats. But the ship is far heavier than modern boats, and Stad will need strong winds to propel it. Its square-rigged sails also make it difficult to sail into headwinds.
Herbert says the chance of headwinds or light winds are slim this time of year in the North Atlantic. "According to the pilot charts, there's only about a 3 percent chance of calms, and most of our winds will be from the west, southwest of northwest," he said optimistically. He expects the passage to take 12 to 14 days.
However long it takes, it will be a comfortable ride for STC members accustomed to small, wet, low-slung race boats. On Stad, guests will stay in two- to four-person staterooms, each with a shower and toilet. The ship has heating and air-conditioning, fresh water aplenty and three chefs aboard. There's even an operating room in case anyone needs an appendectomy.
Hmmm. Any chance of a little cosmetic surgery? Hair transplant?
To follow the race, visit http://www.transatlanticchallenge.org .