A terrible sight from the bow of any yacht, but particularly horrible if you are barely one-third into a race around the world…
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men… (but this time they could)
VO65 class manager James Dadd and the resurrection of the Vestas
I write this sitting in a cramped office I share with Matteo Bisio (Persico project man- ager), Mike Vittorio (Farr Yacht Design) and Neil ‘Coxy’ Cox (Vestas shore man- ager) where the sound of grinders against carbon has thankfully now been replaced with what would be the quiet of laminat- ing… if it weren’t for the thumping music that seems to drive all boatbuilders on. So how is Team Vestas Wind? Well, boat #6 just went back into one piece. Two days ago the original deck met her new hull. Many may look at the wreck that arrived here and consider that the front half didn’t look bad at all, and as such all we needed to do was build a new piece of hull and get back in the water. The reality is that this is not a custom one-off. The only way this boat is going to get back into the race is if she is a true one-design again. To me there was only one way of making sure the two hull halves lined up and that was to have only one piece. The only alter- native was to sand the surviving half back to carbon, remove the bowsprit and colli- sion bow and set her back in the hull mould, then hope that you got it right and scarf the new bit in. This would still create a small join, but with modern techniques that really is a minimal weight gain. But what if the old part didn’t go back in exactly the
same place? The only time we would find that out was after she came back out of the mould. By then it is far too late, and not only have we missed the deadline for Vestas to get back into the race but we would have a boat that was of no use to the next race. To me the decision was simple. For the boat to be a one-design it needed to be a combination of old components and, where they were damaged, completely new components. The assembly then had to be completed in exactly the same way as the original. But there were two big potholes ahead: we didn’t have the time to replace everything that got damaged and at such short notice the original build consortium of Green Marine, Multiplast, Décision and Persico didn’t have the time or personnel to do the work. Fortunately, Persico did have a building they could make available with the hull tool already stored next door. Marcello Persico also thought that with some key personnel available, and the pos- sibility of getting more from other yards down south, they could take on the lion’s share of the work. But they would not be able to build a new deck in time as well as everything else. So it was agreed the origi- nal deck would be saved and the portion from the mainsheet pod aft replaced, with a joint between the new part built at Multi- plast and the original. So we would have a repair to an old component – not ideal. My view on this is the same as for any other boat currently racing. The class rules are written specifically to cope with the
possibility that one of the boats could need a major repair. The corrector weight pockets are intentionally filled so the fleet is all the same weight, all with correctors, allowing for repairs to be done with no weight penalty. So Vestas had 43kg she could gain before the corrector pockets were empty. That sounds simple, but not only does the weight have to be within the limits, but the distribution too. Of this weight, 28kg is at the traveller bulkhead and 15kg at the J3 tack bulkhead. So if all the weight was gained at the bow then she could only gain 15kg before going out of class. Luckily, this boat has most correctors aft, where they are needed in this instance. But 28kg still isn’t much to play with when the boat weighs 12,500kg. Furthermore, repairs to the exist- ing structure would only be approved with the same criteria as the rest of the fleet. If an item was too badly damaged, or a similar repair had been rejected in the original seven builds, then this would be rejected here too, irrespective of whether or not it meant the end to the fight to get afloat again. A good example is the main keel bulk- head D. This is a substantial structure and not only forms part of the keel support assembly, it also acts as the main support for the mast. There was minimal damage where this joins the hull at the forward end of the reef damage and following ultra- sound investigation it was clear the main structure was still 100% sound. However, to install it back into the new hull the whole assembly needed disassembling.
SEAHORSE 31
BRIAN CARLIN/VESTAS
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