Chasing the oldest record in sailing
How the underdog’s underdog prevailed in the race from New York to San Francisco via Cape Horn. NEW: POSTSCRIPT ADDED MAY 26, 2023.
Crack!!! It is a frightful sound, louder and closer than any thunder I have ever heard. The headstay, the stainless steel wire that supports the mast on my trimaran, falls into the Pacific Ocean, stopping Great American in her wake less than a week from certain victory in the race for the oldest record in sailing.
Our powerhouse jib and its furling gear, normally mounted on the headstay, drag in the water beside the trimaran.
I shout for Steve Pettengill, my one crew. He’s off-watch and asleep down below.
Will we save our mast? How will we sail to windward without our big jib? Can we maintain our lead on the famed clipper ship Flying Cloud and her pace in 1854? Will we stay ahead of other contenders in the current race for the record?
Watch the video to see how I managed to sail into the Guinness Book of Records in 77 days despite this and other challenges.
Much thanks to Peter Rowe for producing the video and to Vern Vihlene for his footage and other assistance. Thumbnail photo by Billy Black of Great American departing New York.
What follows is the fact sheet I used when appearing at boat shows and in media interviews following my record run in 76 days 23 hours 20 minutes.
GOAL
To achieve the fastest elapsed time for the 14,000-nautical-mile passage from New York to San Francisco via Cape Horn, without stopping in any port for rest or repairs.
The record of 89 days 8 hours was set by the famed clipper ship Flying Cloud in 1854.
OUTCOME
Since the first modern-day challenge for the record in 1982, five boats attempted the passage prior to 1989: two were dismasted, the other three capsized or sank.
In the winter of 1989, five more sailboats aimed for the record: one turned back, another barely made it, three eclipsed Flying Cloud’s time.
The record was likely to fall, but who was to be the swiftest of all? The obvious underdog: the last boat to depart, the only team without commercial sponsorship, the one the media all but ignored at the outset. This made a convincing victory only sweeter for Georgs Kolesnikovs.
THE CANADIAN GREAT AMERICAN
The ocean-racing trimaran known as Great American was designed by John Shuttleworth, the British multihull designer. She is 60 feet long and 40 feet wide, the size of a singles tennis court, with a recorded top speed of 27 knots (32 mph/37 km/h).
The mast is 75 feet tall to help spread 1,700 square feet of sail upwind, 3,700 downwind. The weight is 12,000 pounds (5,700 kilos).
The trimaran was launched in May, 1982, at Topsham on the River Exe in the U.K. Initially campaigned by Peter Phillips as Livery Dole and Travacrest Seaway, the trimaran was purchased by Canadian Georgs Kolesnikovs in 1986 and commissioned as Great American at Newport Yacht Club in Newport, Rhode Island, on January 21, 1989, the anniversary date of Flying Cloud’s departure on the second and fastest of her two 89-day runs to the Golden Gate.
The name was in recognition of the success Kolesnikovs had enjoyed in the U.S. with Great American Media, a Canadian-owned event management and promotions business that he headed. Because of his Canadian citizenship, the trimaran remained a British-registered vessel.
THE ROUTE
From the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbour, the route was southward in the Atlantic, across the Equator and Doldrums, to Cape Horn at the southern-most tip of South America, then northward in the Pacific, across the Equator and Doldrums again, to finish off Pier 39 in San Francisco Bay—without stopping in port for rest or repairs.
The record run was officiated by Manhattan Yacht Club which provided the Clipper Challenge Cup to the winner.
RECORD RUN
Great American started on March 10, 1989, at 1:06 p.m. local time. She finished on May 26, 1989, at 10:46 a.m. local time. Total elapsed time: 76 days 23 hours 20 minutes.
Surpassing Flying Cloud’s time by almost two weeks, Thursday’s Child by four days, Elle et Vire by five days, and Finisterre Bretagne by more than three weeks.
Three decades later, Great American still holds the doublehanded record. Georgs Kolesnikovs sailed with one crew, Steve Pettengill.
There was a fifth boat in the 1989 challenge, but Guy Bernardin aboard BNP/Bank of the West failed to finish—the second time Cape Horn had defeated one of France’s best offshore sailors.
As the winner of the Clipper Challenge Cup, Great American was, at the time, the only sailboat ever to have completed the entire 14,000-nautical-mile voyage without stopping in any port for rest or repairs.
EPILOGUE
The record held for five years until French sailing star Isabelle Autissier, assisted by significant sponsorship, obliterated the record with a three-man crew aboard the 60-foot monohull Ecureuil Poitou-Charentes 2, reaching San Francisco in a superb 62 days, 5 hours, 55 minutes. It was her second attempt, the first having ended with boat damage off the Horn.
Since then, there have been several other well-funded Cape Horn record attempts and runs by French sailors. The current mark of an astonishing 43 days 3 minutes 38 seconds for crewed yachts is owned by Gitana 13, an 110-foot catamaran with a budget beyond belief.
After his record run, Georgs Kolesnikovs moved to Canada’s Northwest Territories, never to sail Great American again. He sold the trimaran to Rich Wilson for an attempt to better the record of the clipper Northern Light from San Francisco to Boston. Wilson hired Steve Pettengill as his crew but, unfortunately, they ran into an “ultimate storm” that twice capsized the trimaran on the approach to Cape Horn. They were rescued but Great American was lost at sea.
While living and working in Yellowknife, N.W.T., Kolesnikovs fell in love with the idea of passagemaking under power and crossing oceans in comfort. He went on to launch the West Marine Trawler Fest series of boating events in major markets in the U.S. as well as Passagemaking Under Power seminars. He was the founding editor and publisher of Circumnavigator magazine and founder of the Trawlers & Trawlering online forum. For many years, he cruised Lake Ontario and inland waterways with a power catamaran called At Last! but, always enamored by trans-oceanic passages, jumped at the chance to crew on Nordhavn yachts across the Atlantic and Pacific.
Postscript added May 26, 2023:
Hard to believe it was 34 years today that I sailed into The Guinness Book of Records after making the fastest passage ever under sail from New York to San Francisco via Cape Horn.
A lifetime has passed since then, yet the details of that sunny day in San Francisco are clearly etched in my memory.
As my trimaran (named Great American after the event management company I founded and ran for eight years in California) passed under the Golden Gate Bridge, I heard clanging and cheering. Looking up, I could see steelworkers perched on girders saluting our arrival.
Soon, we were met with a flotilla of boats carrying well-wishers, with much blowing of horns. Then came a San Francisco Fireboat looking like a giant floating water fountain.
Once we were docked at Pier 39, the champagne flowed.
What I remember most from that momentous day are faces, the beaming faces of family and friends:
—My parents, Romans and Velta Kolesnikovs, who stood by me even though their hearts screamed for me to not attempt the Horn run;
—Martin Levesque, long-time friend and strong supporter, business partner, employee, employer, we’ve done it all;
—Eleanore Drago Levesque, mother of Marty and long-time family friend;
—John Cooper and Jean-Pierre Belmonte, editors of Cycle Canada and Moto Journal, the motorcycle magazine I started way back when, business partners in Great American Media and supporters.
—Little sister Mara Holdenried and her husband, Josef, always ready to cheer and support;
—Joe Hvilivitzky of Niagara Falls, oldest friend on the planet. He and I and brother-in-law Josef ran the Golden Gate Bridge from one end to the other the morning after my arrival;
—Peter Rowe of Toronto, without whose help the Cape Horn video would not have happened;
—Vern Vihlene of San Diego, who helped greatly in many ways, including setting me up with video cameras and other equipment for the voyage;
—Michael Kane of Newport Beach, multihull sailor extraordinaire, who lost his trimaran off Cape Horn in 1983 and who was instrumental in talking me into taking on the Horn with my trimaran rather than “merely” circumnavigating. I was honored that Mike brought with him Victor Stern, the elder stateman of multihull racing on the West Coast;
—Peter Hogg of Mill Valley, another multihull sailor extraordinaire, who helped with arrangements for a reception at Corinthian Yacht Club and a mooring for many months afterward;
—Michael Webster, my exceptional right hand at Great American Media, who surprised me with a visit with his wife, Stephanie;
—The love of my life, Lin Chong, then girl-friend now wife, into whose arms I would fall that night after an absence of many months.
How sweet it was, a day to remember forever.
This is a great story. After you get some mileage here, I'd be happy to pick it up and thus promote this Substack.