What we like about Seth Radow, owner of Bull, the Sydney 40, is that he is not afraid to tell things like he sees them. Like most guys who are young and succesful, Seth has his critics, usually limited to the very bitter and jealous. We're jealous too - we wish we had his dough! 'Cause if we did, Bull would have a For Sale sign on it, and the TP 52 would be on order!

Some of us wondered what Bull's Pac Cup story was, and here it is. Enjoy.

We had high hopes for the race though we did look at the race as a bit of a test bed for some new ideas, some heavy upwind and reaching sailing. Transpac 2001 was by all accounts a pretty moderate year with the upwind portion being particularly light and the reaching legs being quite moderate. Local So Cal conditions, other than Long Beach, does not provide the opportunity to test boats in heavier air conditions and we though that Pac Cup would be an interesting opportunity for us.

By Day Two, Bull was using some of the new sails. The new CF/Carbon main was exceptional, and even lighter than the previous sail. To take advantage of the six seconds 125% Nor Cal headsail credit, we left all of Bull's So Cal sails at home. Bull sailed very well with the Jibtop last year and we would regrettably have to leave that sail at home as well (140%). We worked with Dave Armitage at Halsey Lidgard to come up with a fractional Code 0 to fill that gap. We went back to Cuben Fiber to material and came up with great sail.

A word of advice: If any of you are going to consider such a sail for your inventory, have the builder or designer run some design load specifications for you. A sail of this nature will take out a few rigs if one is not careful, it will heavily load the boat in ways and degrees in which it may not have been designed!!! Bull experienced a series of problems we believe may be a direct result of this sail… we are working with Sydney Yachts to find the root cause of our problems.

The Code 0 adds so much load to the boat in terms of the rig, the rigging, sheaves and pins, and the rudder and steering that we really need to inspect each and every part of the boat to see what may have been fatigued. We do know that the steering chain exploded twice in different locations with the Code 0 up. The load on the rudder was enormous. No other Sydney 40 has ever reported such a problem and they have been sailed in much heavier conditions. The only difference with Bull was the Code 0.

Sydney Yachts will try to determine the loads we put on the boat with the Code 0 and check the specifications of the systems to insure that we are well within design specifications.

Let's put it this way... anyone can put up a Code 0 on their boat... It will not sail particularly well on most boats. Most boats can't handle the loads. I have seen sailmakers try to talk people into these sails when the boat probably shouldn't have one. I always suggest contacting the designer or builder to make sure the boat can handle the high loads of this type of sail. Andy Dovell was adamant about not going with a masthead Code 0. The fractional one was more than enough for Bull.

This leads me to the primary reason for our disappointing performance. Bull was essentially out of contention by Day Two. We took a course that was south by southwest to avoid the high. We wanted to sail the 1016 isobar line to Hawaii. Granted this was a bit south, but we set a "gate" a few hundred miles off the coast of Los Angeles that we wanted to pass though to sail close to the 1016 line. This line would be flexible as the high would surely move, but it was a "gate" nonetheless. While reaching south on Day Two with winds in the high teens and low twenties, sailing with the Code 0 (beam reaching), we blew the steering chain (a 2' length of chain passed over a sprocket at the wheel). When I say "blew", I mean exploded. We were 150 miles off the coast of Santa Barbara at the time and when I learned of the nature and extent of the problem, I gave serious thought into turning for LA. A few of the guys aboard thought that they could repair the chain with parts from elsewhere on the boat and I gave them the go ahead.

After a few hours of near surgical caliber work in the steering station the chain was repaired. I had a talk with the crew. I asked each and everyone aboard what their thought were and whether or not they wanted to continue. We knew that we would have to unload the rudder and sail deep taking us to the southern course layline and that we would likely not be competitive. Each and everyone aboard agreed that sailing under this kind of pressure would be a terrific exercise for the team and we decided to continue. Mind you that if we didn't have a hand line aboard for fishing, we only had 10 days worth of food so that did play a bit of a role in the final decision.

So off we went. We pulled down the Code 0 believing that the very heavily loaded rudder was the cause of the problem. When I say "loaded", I represent that the load was so high that when I was driving I had to lay on the wheel to keep the boat down. I don't believe that the boat had too much sail up in that there was reasonable heel, but the loads on the rudder from the sail were extraordinary. Mind you Bull used a stainless steering chain rated at 4400 lbs. tensile strength…so we are still a bit confused since we never thought the loads would be nearly that high.

Back to the story. We had two choices… sail 20 degrees deeper with our next reacher or head up 20 degrees with our 125% headsail. We decided to run deeper. It looked like a good choice as the wind continued to build the further south we went. Within a few hours we were sailing in mid 20's and making great time and the wind was turning westerly… until that kite blew in a 28 plus knot gust. We started to round up, eased the kite, got the boat back under control, refilled the kite…and that was the end of the that…the kite was in two pieces. Down with that kite and now for the next decision. Sail another 20 degrees deeper or 20 degrees higher. 20 degrees deeper was not really an option as this would have taken us way off the course. The chain was holding beautifully so after a discussion with the rebuild crew and a careful inspection of the chain, we decided to go back to the Code 0, head up 20 degrees and consolidate with the fleet.

After a half a day of terrific sailing conditions, the chain blew again. By now the wind had made a full turn to the west and going back to LA was NOT an option. I asked the rebuild team of we had enough parts left on the boat to rebuild the chain again and they though they could do it. So off they went, the chain was back together again and off we went. We could no longer risk the steering again… it wasn't smart. We had to sail deep with very active trim and a light touch on the helm.

I have been asked repeatedly why the move so far south. Well now you have it. It wouldn't have been smart in our minds to notify the fleet of our failures during the race. If you are hurt, you certainly don't want to let anyone know about it. No reason to give you competition that edge. Had we dropped out we would have surely notified the race committee. We knew if we sailed deep that we could sail fast and that if we went far enough south that we would have more wind that the fleet. The question in our minds during the race was whether or not we would have enough wind to compensate for our substantially longer course.

As the race progressed, we learned that the answer to that question was "no". We knew we could beat some in our fleet but not all. Scorpio was well sailed, Rainbow is simply much faster than the Nor Cal PHRF rating in 16 knots of breeze and ET was well sailed and really in another race altogether. Interestingly, in 16 knots of breeze, according to Farr & Associates, the Mumm 30 is as fast as a Farr 40 downwind (see the last Seahorse article on the new Farr 36). That anyone beat that boat is a testament to how well those boats were sailed. Quite frankly before the start we thought we had a long shot to win our fleet and that the chances would be better in light air. We thought that Rainbow and ET would take first and second and that we were really in the running for third with the J-130's.

In the end, it was a nice race, decent wind, and a great learning experience for all aboard. We now know what we need to do to improve the boat in heavier air conditions and we will be working on that. The fractional Code 0 is an awesome sail and the super light Cuben Fiber that we used is just amazing stuff. It is remarkably light weight and unbelievably strong. When you pick the stuff up, you scratch your head in awe that this is what you are going to use for your most heavily loaded sail! I still don't believe that the chain broke before the sail… amazing!

So what do we do now. If the market holds up and I can get away, we will consider the Isla Navidad Race in October/November, maybe the PV race in Feb. and definitely Transpac 2003. Hopefully we get to do a bit of work on Bull: improve durability, improve reliability, make a few enhancements here and there. One thing this race did tell us is that we have the boat pretty much dialed in. There is not much left to do to make the boat any faster or more efficient on deck for the crew. We have a few ideas to improve crew work, but not all that much… details… It's all in the details.

Seth Radow