GUILLAUME VERDIER
CHILE AIR FORCE
Update
‘Some of our guys are running on budgets of less than US$100,000 to buy their boats, refit them and prep them ready for the race, others are of course spending more.’ While two sailors will race Suhailireplicas and there will be other small boats, the front of the fleet is likely to be sailing in the Falmouth-built GRP Rustler 36, the most popular boat being nominated by many of the strongest entrants, who are all expected to drive their boats hard.
The grandfather of the fleet will be Jean-Luc van den Heede (71), five-time circumnavigator, a father-figure of French solo sailing and the oldest entrant in the 2018 Golden Globe. Van den Heede con- tinues to hold the record for the fastest solo west-about non-stop circumnavigation. He was second in the 1986 BOC Challenge, third in the 1994 BOC Challenge, third in the 1989 Vendée Globe (the first) and second in the following Vendée Globe in 1993. These are small sturdy boats and, as Van den Heede says, if
In our post-Vendée Globe issue we touched on the apparently subtle but actually fundamental difference between the two Imoca 60s Hugo Boss (top) and the winning boat of Armel le Cléac’h Banque Populaire. This sketch from the co-designer of both yachts, Guillaume Verdier, neatly illustrates the narrower hull of the British entry and the contrasting foil arrangements; while Le Cléac’h adopted a ‘generic’ Dali foil, Thomson’s team successfully developed a DSS-style quasi-horizontal foil that exits Hugo Boss’s hull in a convex rather than a concave curve
‘The competing boats must be of a broadly similar size, design
and rugged construction to Suhaili. They are 32-36ft long, and must have been designed prior to 1988. Minimum displacement six tonnes. Full keel with a classic trailing-edge rudder. The most popular boats so far are the Rustler 36, Biscay 36, Tradewind 35, Baba 35 and Endurance 35, plus we have two full Suhailireplicas! ‘They are not fliers, but nice little cruising boats; with a watertight bulkhead added, they are safe, wholesome, reliable ocean boats that are well and truly proven and they are incredibly affordable. And there is no handicapping, first boat home wins. ‘For navigation these sailors must rely on paper charts, a sextant, trailing log and a wind-up chronometer. For weather forecasts they must rely on a barograph, their own observations and whatever they can pick up from HF and VHF radio bulletins. For steering they must rely entirely on themselves and simple wind-vane self-steering equipment. For nourishment they will have only canned food and whatever they can catch at sea, and they must capture and store whatever water they can. ‘We launched the race in April 2015 and we were immediately snowed under, with hundreds of people enquiring and a whole bunch of very serious people who were clearly determined to enter. For safety and management reasons we set 30 as the maximum fleet size, but we will be very happy if we get 25 across the line because people always have issues right at the last minute. ‘The ironic thing… the event is so much bigger than I ever expected and now I have to stay onshore to organise it all. I have withdrawn my own entry this time but I am bloody determined to sail in the next race in 2022!
PARTING SHOT – Merfyn Owen
If you receive this message then I’m already on my way to getting married on the remote South Atlantic island of South Georgia, some 850 miles southeast of the Falkland Islands. First it’s a flight with the RAF to the Falklands and then a trip by sea on a Russian expedition ship. The first stop is in King
Haakon Bay, where Shackleton and the James Cairdlanded just over 100 years ago.
Suffice to say there will be little and then no comms. I don’t think you should expect any until I’m back in the UK in late February. Urgent matters can be expedited by… Best wishes for 2017 Merfyn
10 SEAHORSE
470 champion and transatlantic record holder Gerry Roufs would not have been saved when he capsized in winds of 80kt+ during the 1997/98 Vendée Globe. He had lost contact and was deep in the Southern Ocean, but this glimpse of his 60-footer Groupe LG a few months later shows how in stormy seas, without DayGlo identification, a capsized yacht is very often impossible to locate
you get any two boats together they are always going to race, in this case like ‘petits escargots’. Professional sailors and adven- turers dominate the entry list but competitors also include a farmer, a foreign exchange trader, an engineer and two teachers, in all representing 11 countries: Australia, Brazil, Estonia, France, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Palestine, Russia, UK and the USA. The average age is 48. The youngest are 27 (one British woman, one American man). McIntyre reminds us that this will be another historic ocean race. ‘The winner in the 2018/19 edition will be only the second person ever to achieve the feat without modern aids or outside assistance.’ The notice of race and the full list of entrants can be seen at
www.goldengloberace.com.
UPSIDE DOWN EXPERIENCE Sir
As one who has been upside down far offshore, in my case in the Route du Rhum in 2006, I find it beyond belief that currently it is only the big offshore multihulls, plus the most serious shorthanded monohull classes such as the Class40 and Imoca 60s, that are required to carry compulsory hi-vis areas on their appendages plus a similar large hi-vis patch on the bottom of the hull. Nowhere in the small handful of recommendations following the
Ramblercapsize in the 2011 Fastnet or the loss mid-Atlantic of the production yacht Cheeki Rafikihas this simple safety feature been added to the offshore requirements for the much larger, general fleets that regularly race offshore. It seems even some of those who have already experienced a capsize have not changed their approach – when Rambler 88took part in the last Round Ireland Race she crossed the startline with a beautifully presented low -visibility grey hull… In my humble opinion RORC should consider taking the lead in exploring a simple, low-cost safety feature. I could go on about liferafts being located so they can be accessed and deployed when inverted, access to the inside of the hull when inverted and many other safety features that would save lives. But then maybe I learn and live to race again where others ignore the writing on the wall. Ross Hobson
q
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