Conference unifix::sailing

	Name of the boat is Thursday's Child.
	They took 81 days according to the TV I heard.
	Wife was watching and she said you couldn't tell which boat
	was the record breaker as there were so many boats around it.

    I've heard a story from that trip.  :
    
    When they reached Argentina somewhere, they where hit by a
    piece of timber or something like that. The boat started to
    take in some wather. They where lucky to get help from
    a military-ship, so they could make the repairs and continue.
    
    ( One member of the crew was born in Sweden I think. )

    THE SLOOP,THURSDAY'S CHILD,WAS SKIPPERED BY WARREN LUHRS AND A CREW
    OF TWO.I BELIEVE THAT LUHRS OWNS HUNTER YACHTS.
    REGARDS,TONY

    A couple of thought that stick into my mind:
    
    The crew ate the same things each meal the entire trip, some concoction
    for breakfast, a different concoction for lunch(can you tell I can't
    remember what it was?), and a rice cake mixture for dinner. Boy,
    how's that for gourmet dining?
    
    Warren Luhrs said that he never doubted that they would not make
    it. He said he has had the desire to break this record for years
    and years. He also said he would never try it again..........
    
    The crew worked in 4 hour shifts, unless bad weather was upon them,
    then it was all hands on deck! They had rough seas most of the way
    and ended up beating for most of the journey..not a fun sail.
    
    Warren and the crew dropped anchor at the same general area Flying
    Cloud did on her historic voyage to wait out a contrary current
    and better conditions under which to come under the Golden Gate.
    They were all amazed at the response they received upon the voyages
    end. Seems the Coast Guard had to send ships out to help assist
    them in to try to keep the spectator boats from hitting them!
    
    A truly historic, grueling, voyage!

re .4:

>>>    A truly historic, grueling, voyage!

Yes, but if you want really grueling, read an account of the danger and 
discomfort of sailing a clipper ship around the Horn. The usual square
rigger didn't start to reef until about 40 knots of wind. I doubt Luhrs, 
et al, spent much time a hundred feet up a mast trying to furl an ice 
covered canvas sail weighing as much as a ton, for example. It was with 
very good reason that crew for Cape Horners were difficult or impossible 
to find. Outright kidnapping was far from uncommon, especially on San 
Francisco's Barbary Coast. As late as the 1930s perhaps, one of the more 
common causes of death among merchant seaman was tuberculosis resulting 
from continually living in wet, unheated fo'castles. The next time 
you're in NYC visit the Peking. The forward door on the crew's living 
quarters wasn't used near Cape Horn -- the foredeck was more or less 
continually awash in bad weather. The crew got on deck by climbing a 
ladder to a hatch in the fo'castle deck.  The last square rigger to 
round the Horn had a crew of six seamen (or some such very small 
number). 

to add a little controversy .....

Flying Cloud still has the record for the fastest New York to San 
Francisco passage without outside assistance, ie, using only celestial 
navigation and no weather forecasts other than those made by the 
captain and crew. I assume that Luhrs, et al, used satnav and
shore-based weather forecasting and route planning. This alone could 
have easily saved them more than five days.

    we got up at 6:00am to motor over to the gate...i hate motoring
    but there was no wind until thursday's child came under the gate
    and the fog came in and limited visibility to 25 yds or less...it
    did fell good to see the boat finish it long race...
    
    jfk

    From Monday's L.A. Times
    
    ...Thursday's Child ended an 80-day 20-hour voyage from New York around
    Cape Horn beating by 8 days 12 hours the clipper ship Flying Cloud's
    1854 passage...Luhrs' crew was Lars Bergstrom, 54, and Courtney
    Hazelton, 32...
    	...It appeared that Thursday's Child has a good chance of holding
    its record, at least for a while...Luhrs' nearest challenger is
    solo sailor Philippe Monnet, 28, on the 60-foot trimaran Elie &
    Vire, which left New York Jan. 8...Monnet reached Cape Horn last
    week, 14 days ahead of Flying Cloud's pace and a week ahead of
    Luhrs'... Then, Saturday, just past the Horn, Monnet hit an iceberg
    that damaged one of the boat's hulls.  Turning back for the Falkland
    Islands, he radioed for fiberglass material to be sent there for
    his repairs.
    	Guy Bernardin, 44, aboard BNP Bank of the West...was reported
    being towed by the Chilean Navy to Punta Arenas in Tierra del Fuego
    with loosened keel bolts that were allowing water into the hull.
    	Bernardin lost a 60-footer less than a year ago when he was
    dismasted in a gale and the boat holed off the cape.  That time,
    too, the Chilean Navy came to the rescue.  
    	A third boat, a 50-foot trimaran...skippered by Anne Liardet,
    27, was reported making her approach to Cape Horn.  She is a day
    or two ahead of Flying Cloud's pace but well behind Thursday's Child's.
    Her crew is Joseph Le Quen, 41.
    	Luhrs said the race was harder than expected, nevertheless,
    he set a sailing record from New York to the Equator and another
    from New York to Cope Horn hitting gales right after leaving New
    York.
    	"We had a lot of damage.  Finally, the boat struck something
    that damaged the hull and broke a frame."  Luhrs heaped praise on
    the British air and naval forces in the Falklands.  "They helicoptered
    around the islands and went door to door to find a gallon of resin
    for us."
    	Worst scare: "A gybe the second day out.  The main boom slammed
    over to the other side and the main sheet lapped around Courtney's
    neck.  I still get chills thinking about it.  I screamed.  There
    was nothing else I could do.  Courtney flipped the line off his
    neck just as the boom snapped the sheet taut.  It would have killed
    him instantly."
    	About the huge reception: "I was awed.  We don't do these things
    for the glory.  We do them because we want to. but the reception
    was overwhelming."
                      
    Don

    re: .5
    
    Those Clipper Ship days (or the Cape Horn trader days which were
    far more "economically practical" and of longer duration) were not fun 
    times.  This was not a life of happy sailors singing chanties and
    dancing to the fiddle of old Pegleg the kindly veteren carpenter under 
    the star lit skies of Tahiti.
    
    Sailing round the Horn on a sqare rigger was one step down from 
    unemployment or one half step down from jail.  At least the prison
    didn't rock all night and day.
    
    Villers book is a litany of cold and brutal conditions even in the
    1920's.  Sterling Hayden's novel _1890_ (+- a few years) compares the
    living conditions of a Yankee sailing vessel with the posh and comfort
    of the owners. With this in mind, it is easy to understand the strength
    of the mariners unions.  Another documentary of the times, _Rounding
    the Cape_ (I think) reports that during the 1904-5 winter roughly 10%
    of the sailers on sailing ships rounding the Cape died in that effort.
    Short rations, illness, falling overboard, breaking a limb did not slow
    down these captains.
    
    The most likely reason the record stood so long is that people stopped
    trying eighty years ago.   
    
    Ron
    
    
    
    
     
    
    Who was it who claimed, 
    
    		"Those who would go to sea for sport would
    		go to Hell for vacation."

    Re: -1
    
        
    The comment on vacation... that was my wife!

    Sterling Hayden's novel, "Voyages."  It's a fun read,
    with an interesting contrast of conditions aboard
    a trader and a "yacht."

    no one has mentioned the 60 ft. tri "Great American" from Newport
    Beach, California...
                          she holds the record!!!
    
    					John Papa

    I believe Thursday's Child's feat was superseded by Steve Pettingil's
    on Great American a few days later!  It is my impression that they had
    a crew of two.
    
    (Steve finished 2nd in the Bermuda 1-2 on his own boat, Freedom, as
    described in my note on that race, #1189.)
    
    /Don