Stage 2 – Thursday Island to Cocos-Keeling Atoll
Posted by Graham Cox
Week 5 of Leg 3 has seen a dynamic development in the fortunes of the 11 ALMA Class Globe 580s racing across the Indian Ocean towards Cape Town, via Cocos-Keeling Atoll, Mauritius and Durban. In Leg 2, on the passage from Panama to the Marquesas Islands, we saw Renaud, on CAPUCINETTE, break away from the fleet after wriggling through the doldrums around the Galapagos Islands first. Nonetheless, the rest of the leading pack were not that far behind, and it remained conceivable that one of them could overtake the leader if circumstances changed.
This week, however, with 2/3rds of the fleet almost becalmed in the lee of Australia for several days, four boats, CAPUCINETTE, IMMORTAL GAME, ORIGAMI and PETER PUNK, have built up such a commanding lead, after heading north to skirt the shores of Timor Island, where they found favourable wind and current, that it seems impossible that they can be assailed. As Don McIntryre, MGR founder, says, the winner of the 2025 MGR is going to be one of these four boats, barring almost unimaginable misfortune. On 01 September, there was over 900 miles between the leading boat, CAPUCINETTE and the last boat, SKOOKUM, while even the leader of the second group, Adam on LITTLE WREN, was 586 miles astern of Renaud.
Renaud had just 700 miles to go to Cocos Keeling Atoll, and CAPUCINETTE was averaging around 6 knots, having sailed 154 miles in the previous 24 hours. Given that the wind was due to increase over the following few days, Renaud should be anchored in the lee of Direction Island, in the lagoon of Cocos-Keeling Atoll, within 4-5 days.
He said that it was a sunny day, with the wind between 15 to 20 knots, and a current of between 0.8 to 2 knots pushing CAPUCINETTE to the west. Due to the current, the waves were mixed up, and the boat was, as he put it, “side on side, running, and so it is sleeping, steering, eating, that’s all, no availability to do something else. But it’s good – it goes fast. I’ll be there just in time for the weekend. I always arrive on the weekend, I don’t know why.”
When asked what sails he had up, he said, “It changes all the time, every hour you have different sails, when the winds increase you reduce, when the winds go down you put again sails, it’s hard work changing the sails all the time. At this moment I have full mainsail, plus the jib on the port side, and the A7 to starboard, but it won’t be long, I’m sure I will have to change.”
CAPUCINETTE was sailing between 5.2 to 7.2 knots over the ground, an average of nearly 6 knots. Renaud was hand steering all the time when he was not sleeping or eating, during which times he reefed the sails to slow the boat down and allow the self-steering gear to cope. After checking the updates on his YB3 tracker every four hours, he tries to sleep for one hour, though this is not always possible due to the proximity of other vessels. Some days he has recorded up to 20 fishermen around the boat, and at night he also thinks about those who might be out there without lights, AIS or radar.
As he notes, this is hardly enough sleep, and he is very tired. He’s hoping he might manage a bit more rest before landfall on Cocos-Keeling Atoll, but with the wind forecast to increase to 30-35 knots, and Dan and Keri hot on his tail, ready to exploit any opportunity to sneak past, he is not hopeful. He is so tired that he finds it difficult to relax. Nonetheless, being the true racer that he is, he is enthralled by the close competition among the leading three boats.
He says that the ocean currents have been unpredictable. “I was lucky, south of Timor, to get the current before Dan and Keri, and I’ve been lucky to get the other one after Bali, also before them, but I don’t know if I will keep this up to Cocos, you never know.” He expressed concern for the back end of the fleet who were stuck for so long in a windless hole between Timor and Australia.
IMMORTAL GAME is about 50 miles astern of Renaud, and Dan says it is nice to have a couple of other competitors around to have a bit of a base against which to measure his performance. Earlier, on 27 August, he posted, ‘My time in the Timor Sea has come to end. That was probably my most enjoyable piece of ocean to date! Last night I rounded Rote Island in the middle of the night, side by side with ORIGAMI after a fairly challenging day on the wind, with sea against current. I couldn’t figure out what the light was alongside me until I got a message from Keri saying my lights were bright.’
Although the ocean had calmed down a bit by midday on 01 September, blowing 12 to 14 knots and coming around slowly astern, the seas had been chaotic earlier, probably due to random currents, and he had been doing a lot of sail changes.
“Last night, I was running with the A5 and mainsail with two reefs in it, but the wind slowly came around (to the stern) this morning, so that the mainsail was back-winding the A5. I lowered the main and hoisted the A3, and then hand-steered, because the sea was kind of awkward. At the moment, I’ve taken the A3 down, and I’m running with the A5 opposite the A7, plus three reefs in the mainsail, sine the wind has swung further into the east.
“Yesterday I hand-steered a fair bit. When I’ve got the A3 up, and the winds is around 10 or 12 knots or more, I really need to hand-steer, as IMMORTAL GAME starts to go all over the place. I hand-steered most of yesterday until 2100, then changed over to the A5 and didn’t take the tiller again until this morning. I did at least two hours on the helm this morning, but generally-speaking, I only hand-steer 2 to 4 hours a day. The rest of the time, the boat is probably not as quick as if I was hand-steering, but I’m getting plenty of rest, and still getting up to about 95% efficiency.
He was enjoying himself, and says he does not want to ruin the experience by being too competitive. He also wants to keep himself fresh for a possibly challenging landfall on Cocos-Keeling Atoll.
He is not doing any real cooking, just heating water for freeze-dried meals, eating them straight out of the bag. Sometimes he also uses the hot water to make couscous, or something like that, to add a few extra calories. Occasionally he has coffee in the morning and oats, but other than that he just eats out of tins, etc.
He is still seeing the occasional fishing boat, though the traffic has thinned out. He says you can see them from 10 miles away at night, which makes them easier to spot than in daylight, and gives you an hour at least to sleep if the horizon is showing no lights. During the day it’s worse, because you can’t actually see them until you’re almost on top of them.
His most difficult encounter happened in daylight, when he suddenly noticed a fishing buoy only 20-30m off the port beam. Just then, two fishing boats rushed up and started shouting at him in Indonesian, gesturing for him to get out of there. All he could do was carry on and hope he did not run foul of their longlines, or whatever fishing tackle was in the water. After following him for a short while, the boats turned around and left. What made it more challenging is that many of the fishing boats and buoys didn’t have AIS.
Dan always has his AIS and VHF radio on at night, but usually turns them off during the day when he is on deck, to conserve power. If he is below during the day, he turns the AIS on once an hour to check if there’s anything coming. He does not use his Echomax active radar detector.
He says that this has been his most delightful passage. He has not had a single squall since leaving Thursday Island, and this is probably why he feels so well-rested. He is down to around 40L of water, having used too much early on for showers etc. He feels it will be enough to get to Cocos, but will start rationing if the predicted fresh winds fade away and IMMORTAL GAME slows down.
His strategy for the strong winds to come is to run under reefed mainsail and jib, then go down to just the jib, before reefing that in as well, then going to bare poles. During the gale he weathered off the Tuamotus, he found that IMMORTAL GAME did not sail well under the storm jib, which sets on the inner forestay.
As Christian, reporting via video clip from the deck of ARGO, said, “What a difference a day makes.” After days of calms and light headwinds, on 31 August the trade winds filled in, and the back of the fleet took off. Their boat icons on the YB tracker looked like cars heading down the highway, one behind the other, first Adam on LITTLE WREN, about 370 miles behind Pilar on PETER PUNK, followed by Jakub on BIBI, Christian on ARGO, Eric on SUNBEAR, Jasmine on NUMBATOU, Ertan on TREKKA, and Josh on SKOOKUM. Most of them were making 6 knots or more, and on 02 September, not one boat had made less than 120 miles during the previous 24 hours.
Adam rounded the southwest corner of Rote Island 12 days after departing Thursday Island. After that, conditions began to improve, with steady easterly winds filling in. He reported that spirits were high (and there may have been some in the breakfast porridge, too, if LITTLE WREN’s tradition for special occasions was observed), though the sea was still busy with plenty of fishing vessels to keep watch for.
On 1 September, his manager and partner, Kerry, reported that all was well on board, and that the sail plan of the moment was the A7 poled out opposite the A5. With stronger winds expected on the 2nd, Adam was getting ready to deploy his twin jibs. This set-up served him well in the windy North Atlantic trade winds, and he was seriously competitive until he fell and broke his ribs.
Jakub was pleased to finally get into the trade winds and start chasing Adam again, although he thoroughly enjoyed his days in the Arafura and Timor Seas, where conditions were not good for racing but excellent for communing with the sea. He is the MGR’s Bernard Moitessier.
Sometimes he was becalmed, but at others a light headwind had BIBI tacking against light headwinds, with the only significant forward progress being courtesy of the current. He spent much of his time in the cabin reading books. There were moments with no wind at all, when the sails were flapping, which was a bit annoying, but mostly BIBI was making good 2-3 knots. The bows were not often pointing in the right direction but thankfully the current set them to the west!
He was fascinated by the design of the Indonesian fishing boats, long, low-wooded vessels with high bows. He passed one by close-to, but the crew did not wave so neither did he, not wanting to attract undesirable attention. Far more intimidating were the Fishing Attraction Devices, (FADs), that looked like giant tractor tyres, often as big as BIBI, that did not show up on his AIS unit. He passed a few unlit ones at night.
He was now clear of Rote Island and into the Indian Ocean, celebrating the moment with a beautiful sunrise. He was delighted with BIBI’s speed, assisted by some current, and the fact that, because the current was setting in the same direction as the wind, it tended to flatten the seas somewhat.
BIBI had the jib and A7 set goosewinged. He had been thinking about setting the A5 in place of the jib, but decided not to, as he was experiencing occasional squalls. Because he doesn’t have spare sails or a big budget, he sails conservatively, seeking a balance between competitiveness and seamanship. He was making 5.5-6 knots as it was, and could not see value in putting more stress on the boat.
He says he’d rather hand-steer to maintain a straighter course than increase sail area, but it would have to wait until he’d finished reading his current book! Amusingly, he is reading a book about piracy. “In the meantime,” he said, “I was sharpening my machetes and thinking about the tactics I’d use if I got some approach.” He quickly modified his warrior stance, however, by saying that they might just be poor fishermen looking for supplies for their starving children.
Talking about the potentially boisterous seas often experienced in the Indian Ocean, Jakub mentioned that he may tow warps if he thinks it will help. He used them several times in the Atlantic, but not recently. He keeps his basic storm warp ready to deploy in the cockpit once the waves get over 2 metres, plus he has a small tyre and a bit of chain he can add to it. If conditions worsen further, he has another coil of 30m line to attach to that.
He estimates that if he and BIBI can maintain their current speed, they should be in Cocos-Keeling in 11 days.
Despite vowing not to, Jasmine eventually headed a little north to find favourable wind and currents. As her Mum said, her main objective at that stage was not to go backwards! She was leery of getting too close to Timor, due to the threat of pirates, unlit fishing boats and FADs. What she didn’t count on were some huge oil rigs that weren’t on her charts! Yet another night with even less sleep than the usual watch pattern.
She had heard that a number of MGR skippers had caught a tuna, so she put out a line for a few days, with no luck. Eventually she caught herself, and NUMBATOU still has the line wrapped around its keel. However, one morning she had the company of a beautiful pod of dolphins for about an hour, and concluded that the dolphins had eaten all the tuna! She did have a squid stowaway, but decided it was too pretty to eat, so threw it back into the sea.
On the morning of 01 September, NUMBATOU was flying along before the trade winds, averaging almost 7 knots. Over the course of the following day, she ran 153 miles. The wind strength was about 20 knots, and Jasmine had the A5 wing and wing with the A7. With the wind forecast to pick up that night, gusting to over 30 knots, she thought she’d downsize before dark to the A7 and jib, just to be safe.
The ‘old’ A5 that she is now using is actually more strongly built than the ‘new’ one she blew out recently, but looking after it is important. There’s a long, lonely road ahead to Mauritius, the first place that new sails can be delivered. Jasmine will be getting a new A5 there, sponsored by a fellow-Rotarian, Cheryl Law. Enough donations have also come in to fund a spare A7.
And speaking of that old A5, Jasmine wants to correct the impression circulating that that it blew out because she leaves it up all the time, even when not in use, resulting in unnecessary UV degradation. She says she always takes down her headsails and puts them below when not in use. The sail had obviously suffered some UV degradation – the colour had faded – but that was due to the amount of time it has been flying since the start of the Transat in Lagos. That’s one of the issues facing any circumnavigator.
She is of the opinion that coloured sails suffer more from UV degradation than white sails, a viewpoint shared by none other than that doyen of ocean voyagers, Eric Hiscock. He still chose coloured Terylene (Dacron) sails, due to the glare white sails induce.
It was a good thing that Jasmine was so happy to be whizzing along before the trade winds, because when she looked at her watch a couple of hours after breakfast, it read 0730. That was the same time it had been at breakfast! Had it stopped? No, it hadn’t. Was she in a time warp? (Singlehanded sailors are known to get a bit weird.) The answer was simple – she’d moved into a different time zone! It might account for the fact that several of the MGR skippers mixed up their scheduled call times on 01 September.
Although Jasmine was occasionally frustrated by tacking back and forth against headwinds in the Arafura Sea, going nowhere fast, she was amused to see many of the other skippers performing equally badly. In the past, some of them had given her advice on how to sail more efficiently, adjust the trim of her sails etc, and now here they were, all on a level playing field! She sailed to windward with full main and either the jib, A7 or A5, whatever was going to give NUMBATOU some speed, but nothing much helped.
Mentally, drifting around was a bit of a struggle at times, mainly because there were a lot of fishing boats around NUMBATOU, and as she says, when you’ve got no wind, you can’t control whether you’re going to hit one or not.
She had one serious scare, luckily after the wind returned. “Yesterday I was trying to steer away from one boat, but whichever direction I went, it still aimed straight for me. It got pretty close, and then suddenly turned. Then, when it was level with NUMBATOU, it started to turn again, to come almost behind and follow me. But I was flying, I was going, like, seven knots, so they couldn’t keep up with me. But I think they’re just interested, because there’s probably not many little sailboats that they see out here. Adam and Josh have both said that they’ve had boats come right up to them and just wave.”
She talked about the day she hit something, when she was on deck, steering. “NUMBATOU was going about 6 knots, and I suddenly got thrown from my steering seat by the tiller, forward to the main hatch. The boat was dead in the water. I immediately tried to see what I’d hit but couldn’t see anything – nothing came up behind me. The boat seemed to be really sluggish and heavy, and I honestly thought I was sinking.
“I went on deck and checked the front of the boat see if there was any damage from the outside, then went below and checked my lockers and the keel bolts, but all was OK. I won’t know until Cocos if there is any damage to the underbody. The boat felt completely different afterwards, sluggish and weird, but it might have just been in my head. It seems fine now.”
Jasmine purchased some good food in Thursday Island – little tins of tuna with different flavors, and some tins of shredded chicken. She has them in wraps, supplemented by various snacks, crackers, biscuits, chocolate, cashew nuts, etc. Cooking isn’t her thing.
NUMBATOU was self-steering under Hydrovane, though during the day Jasmine often sits on deck and assists the boat to sail a straighter course. It helps pass the time, besides speeding up progress. The wind was almost astern, and the sea up to about 2 metres, causing the boat to veer around a bit if left to its own devices. That occasionally backwinded the headsails (the mainsail was stowed). She did have the mainsail hoisted earlier, triple-reefed, but when the wind increased to 20 knots, NUMBATOU began rounding up.
Meanwhile, Ertan was sailing along steadily under double-reefed mainsail and poled-out jib. He had not touched the rig all night, and enjoyed a good night’s sleep. The boat had been going along mostly unaided since the previous afternoon, while he stayed below enjoying his latest Netflix series and chatting to family and friends on Starlink. TREKKA was making a steady 5 knots, sometimes 6, and in the following 24 hours the boat ran 135 miles. Ertan does not use his A sails once the wind freshens. He planned to stick his head out of the hatch after breakfast and survey his domain.
He says he had a wonderful holiday for the 3-4 days when the winds were really light. He went for a swim, made nice food, slept a lot, listened to music. At one point, he had 10 knots of wind for 6-7 hours, the sea was flat, and TREKKA slushed along at almost 5 knots, because there was no resistance from waves. To add to his enjoyment, he caught a big tuna and ate it all, raw, marinated in soy sauce.
Josh and SKOOKUM were nearby for a while – at one point they were less than 5-10 miles away from each other. Australian Border Force flew overhead and said hello almost every day, chatting to both skippers at the same time. Then Josh went south and Ertan north.
Ertan only saw one group of fishing boats, having chosen a middle route through the Arafura Sea, not crossing the 10th parallel of latitude, as advised by Australian authorities. He was due to pass Rote Island before dark that day, and would then be out into the Indian Ocean. That would allow him to head directly towards Cocos-Keeling Atoll and bring the wind more onto the quarter. Until he could change course, the wind was almost dead astern, and he’d put the boat on autopilot while talking on the phone, to steer a steadier course than the Hydrovane could manage. He didn’t want to gybe accidentally.
He had been trying to catch another fish without success, though one got off the hook before he could land it in the cockpit. The previous night dinner had been freeze-dried macaroni cheese, because the sea-state was too lumpy to do anything else. When it is calm enough, he makes pastas, or fried potatoes, various egg dishes, etc. When not cooking up a storm, he watches movies, or so rumour has it. His current favourite is the Netflix series ‘How Did They Build That?’ He also likes to watch the Grand Prix.
Even though the MGR is a long way from being over, Ertan summed up the experience for him well. “For me, this was always an adventure, and it’s been proven to be a perfect adventure. Whoever is thinking about this should not hesitate. You get to see and stop in different places, even some of the places that are not so good, but you’ve experienced them.” With just over 1400 miles to go to Cocos-Keeling Atoll, he still has plenty of time to enjoy this stage of his grand adventure.
Josh is once again bringing up the rear this week, a position he has occupied for much of the MGR, though he showed SKOOKUM’s potential for a while after leaving Fiji, before the weather once again outfoxed him. Not that it bothers Josh. He runs his own race, making decisions based on what he thinks appropriate, not on what might gain him a tactical advantage.
On this leg he decided to stick to the middle route, away from potential trouble in Indonesian waters. Like John Guzzwell, his closest point of approach to Timor was about 20 miles, though he cleared the southern tip of Rote Island by about 9 miles. As a result, he experienced more calms than anyone.
“Yes, I finally made it out of the frickin’ black hole. That was a long, slow week. It was really hot and sweaty. I just laid there, listening to audio-books, and did my best to try to keep the boat going somewhere, because it was never completely calm. Frustratingly, what little wind there was came out of the southwest for five days, and that was the way I wanted to go. SKOOKUM sailed 330° on one tack or 180° on the other. I was just tacking back and forth and going nowhere. There were a couple of nights where it was so calm that it was silent, really eerie. I’m used to the sound of rushing waves.”
He stuck to his white sails during this time, even though the light-air asymmetric kites might have given SKOOKUM a fraction more speed. He felt that the small increase in speed was not worth trading for the wear and tear on the light-weather sails, not to mention UV exposure. Perhaps because of Josh’s expedition training, he aways takes the long perspective.
He didn’t see much in the way of shipping, apart from one night when he noticed a fishing boat coming straight towards him on his AIS monitor. Having no wind, SKOOKUM was a sitting duck, but luckily the vessel was Australian, thus Josh could talk to him in English and explain his situation. He said, “I’m sure most of those Indonesian skippers don’t have bad intentions, but not being able to communicate with them could be an issue. I’ve had a couple pass by me. Yesterday one was going the other way, and he passed by maybe 500 yards off, and then today one passed close astern. I think they were just kind of curious.”
SKOOKUM was starting to move fast, having picked up some current as well as a tail wind. Josh still had just the double-reefed mainsail and jib up, wing and wing, and the little boat was going along happily at 5-5.5 knots, steering a pretty straight line. On the morning of 02 September, SKOOKUM was running along at 6.1 knots and had sailed 126 miles in the previous 24 hours.
Another reason that Josh was reluctant to sail closer to Timor was that he didn’t have detailed electronic charts for Indonesian waters, because Garmin Navionics cancelled all their charts for Indonesian waters on July 1st. They intend to re-release them in the third quarter of 2025 in a new edition. Josh does not feel comfortable going where he doesn’t have accurate charts. Like many MGR skippers, he carries small-scale paper charts for emergencies, but they don’t show much detail.
In the old days, before electronic charts existed, (argh, argh!!), many impecunious sailors, including MGR’s scribe, cruised around with insufficient paper charts, relying on British Admiralty pilot books, or some such, to scope out the lay of the land, but in this information age, modern sailors have become used to better standards!
Josh has plenty of food aboard, enough to get him across the Indian Ocean, although his fresh produce has all been eaten. He left Thursday Island with his usual 100L of water, plus the 10L of emergency water required by the Notice of Race, but is conserving water as much as possible now, after being becalmed for a week. He has about 70L remaining, with around 1500 miles left until he reaches Cocos-Keeling.
Usually, he washes in salt water and had a small rinse in fresh afterwards, but is now saving all his fresh water for cooking and drinking. He’s looking forward to a shower when he gets to Cocos-Keeling and was delighted to hear that there is a large rainwater tank on Direction Island. He still drinks 2L a day and then uses 2 cups to boil pasta at night or whatever.
Just then, SKOOKUM’s AIS alarm activated, and we terminated the call so he could check on who was bearing down on him now. As Bilbo Baggins sang, in both THE HOBBIT and THE LORD OF THE RINGS, “The Road Goes Ever On.”
