News Around the World
Portsmouth, UK the day before, he reported that repairs to the damaged rig on his Rustler 36 were standing up well. ‘I am on course to pass west of the Falkland Islands and have
winds on the beam. I am taking it easy with three reefs in the mainsail. If I was “racing” I would only have two. I do not want to stress the spar any more than necessary and will have to nurse it all the way back to Les Sables d’Olonne.’ Meanwhile, the Frenchman confirmed that this had been his
10th rounding of Cape Horn. ‘Six times the right way [west to east] and four times the wrong way [against the prevailing winds].The last time was in 2014 when I was cruising in the area and we stopped to meet the lighthouse keepers… Conditions were good this time round and I was doing more than 8kt heading up through the Le Maire Strait.’ When asked by one old Cape Horner ‘What are you missing
most?’, ‘Nothing’ came the reply. ‘I chose to be here and am very happy. I know that my wife and friends are waiting for me to return and look forward to that.’ A month and a half after rounding Cape Horn Jean-Luc, now south
mast is the most exposed. His other problem is that he can only produce electricity with his hydro generator (there is no gas any more for the engine and the solar panels stopped operating) and he needs enough speed to charge the batteries and get sufficient electricity for receiving weather patterns by HF (he must also use his manual watermaker which produces a small cupful of water for more than one hour’s hard work). The lack of weather information could be critical to who wins the
race. What luck for the organisers, however, who could never have dreamt they would have two boats approaching the finish neck and neck, considering that only five boats are still in the race of the 17 to start! Third and fourth boat will probably still be in the south Atlantic when the winner crosses the line, while the fifth and last boat, lying at about the same position where Sir Robin Knox-John- ston’s Suhailiwas 50 years ago, should be just around Cape Horn…
New challenges Our famous French skipper Franck Cammas has joined the Oman Sail team to manage their Diam 24 and new Figaro 3 campaigns this year. Cammas will also join the race squads during the 2019 season as Oman Sail tries to build on its previous achievements. Cammas’s CV of course includes victories in the Volvo Ocean
Race, Tour de France à la Voile, Transat Jacques Vabre, Route du Rhum and Solitaire du Figaro, as well as six Orma multihull champion ships! He will co-ordinate Oman Sail’s activities through his company Franck Cammas Racing and skipper a Diam 24 himself. Cammas’s recruitment also marks a big step-up for Omani Sail.
‘This is a big call for all of us, but it also marks a turning-point in Oman Sail’s history,’ says Cammas. ‘Until now the programme was about training first-class crewmembers, now it wants to produce skippers, Omanis who are self-sufficient and technically proficient.’ The 2019 programme includes Diam 24 multihull and Figaro
Yannick Bestaven and Pierre Brasseur show what it took to win the Class40 division in the 2015 Transat Jacques Vabre onboard Le Conservateur. Bestaven and sponsor Maître Coq have opted to purchase the 2016 Safran rather than Hugo Boss for the next Vendée Globe, in part because of the support package offered by owner Roland Jourdain (and it was also €300,000 cheaper…)
of the 20°N parallel and after 190 days at sea, served out his 18-hour penalty and was cleared to race the remaining 2,150nm to the finish at Les Sables d’Olonne where he was expecting to arrive by the end of January. While he was serving his ‘time out’ in the penalty box second-
placed Mark Slats was powering northwards through the east trades at more than 5kt (we said these are old boats!) and on day 190 had reduced the gap in distance-to-finish to just under 417nm. Worse for Jean-Luc, the NE trade winds disappeared and he was likely to be facing the frustration of calms for several days, while Slats continued to make strong gains on Maverick. On day 196, at the time of writing, the gap between the two
leaders went down to only 200nm at 1,784nm from the finish. The 18-hour penalty, plus the lack of wind in the mid-Atlantic where usually the trade winds blow generously, have been unkind to VDH, as was demonstrated by the ETA that had been running since the start of the race on 1 July 2018 in Les Sables d’Olonne. Jean-Luc’s ETA had stayed very close to 200 days for the total voyage all the way round to 190 days… However, after what happened back in the Atlantic that had already grown to 211 days on day 196! Matmut and Maverick are near-identical Rustler 36s. VDH has
a smaller mast than his Dutch rival because he has a furling genoa in front and wanted to maintain the same stability on his boat while Slats is using the lighter solution of headsails with hanks. At about 15-20 days from the finish the main goal for VDH is to
sail fast enough to keep in front of his rival without breaking his mast. Unfortunately the last part of the game could be played on port tack, which is the wrong tack for Matmut where the damaged
22 SEAHORSE
campaigns. Cammas will join regular members of the team including Ali Al Balushi and Hussein Al Jabri on the Diam 24 project which will actually feature three campaigns – one an all-female team – culminating in the Tour Voile in July. Racing for the small Diam trimarans begins in February with EFG Sailing Arabia-The Tour in Oman, which will include a fourth all-Omani squad. Franck Cammas will be very busy in his new job. There will be
two new Figaro campaigns continuing the offshore development of the Omani sailors. These projects will start as double-handed and eventually, when the Omani sailors are considered ready, evolve to singlehanded with the aim of one day participating in a major shorthanded oceanic race. ‘But that is a real challenge,’ said Franck. Franck Cammas is a very wise skipper. Patrice Carpentier
NEW ZEALAND Family affair One look at New Zealand’s geography gives anyone contemplating a circumnavigation of both main islands good reason to think again. The northern third of the North Island pokes sufficiently into the tropics to be subject to summer cyclones, while the southern extremities of the South Island extend well into the Roaring Forties. In the deep south the tortured forms of the sparse trees testify to lifelong exposure to extreme winds. Even the rocks seem to bend in one direction. Between the two the rugged west coasts of both islands are
exposed to the prevailing strong westerly winds with few options to shelter from the boisterous Tasman Sea. Even the relatively benign east coasts are strewn with challenging navigational hazards and capes that can throw up bewildering currents, confused seas and capricious winds. Little wonder then that so far the two double-handed Round New
Zealand yacht race has only happened twice, in 1990 and 2012. Organised by the Shorthanded Sailing Association of New Zealand (SSANZ), the race has been completed by just 13 yachts and 26 sailors, not unreasonably now regarded here as quite an elite local group of ocean sailors.
JEAN-MARIE LIOT/DPPI
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