News Around the World
Sadly the 36m expedition yacht Tara – formerly Seamaster – will for ever be associated with the death of Sir Peter Blake, murdered onboard while in the Amazon in 2001. It was therefore especially poignant when Tara arrived in Auckland at the same time as the America’s Cup – which first travelled to New Zealand after the Blake-led Team New Zealand wiped the floor with (all) the opposition at the 1995 Match in San Diego. Designed by Bouvet-Petit 30 years ago, Tara shares an unmistakable resemblance to the designers’ rather different Open 60s of the time, one of which, Titouan Lamazou’s Ecureuil d'Aquitaine II, won the first Vendée Globe in 1989/90
and supplies. Designed by Luc Bouvet and Olivier Petit, Tara was built in France in 1989 for well-known French explorer Jean-Louis Etienne. Everything about the boat, originally named Antarctica, was calculated for extreme conditions: 36m long and 10m wide, the plating is up to 50mm thick on closely spaced stringers and frames. The bow incorporates a 450kg solid aluminium casting to smash through ice. It has twin 350hp engines with the propellers protected by cavernous ice tunnels. The rounded shape of her hull with retractable twin rudders and
centreboards was designed to prevent her from being crushed by ice. In the event of being trapped, the pressure of the ice would force the dish-shaped hull up and onto the surface, like squeezing an orange pip. Once atop the ice and kept level with struts, the yacht could survive until the summer thaw. This is not theoretical: it was demonstrated by a wintering in
Spitzbergen in 1995-96. Then, following the Blakexpeditions Antarctic voyage and the fateful Amazon expedition, her capabilities in high latitudes were demonstrated once again. In 2006 she was icebound for 506 days and drifted closer to the geographic North Pole than any surface vessel before her. Now, moored back in the Viaduct Basin, Tara looked brutal and
raw, an ocean warrior wearing its battle scars with pride. Outwardly, nothing about the vessel suggests a link with yacht racing’s most pedigreed contest, but the Cup connection remained strong. Onboard was Bruno Troublé, for so long the flamboyant impresario who presided over the prestige image of the event on behalf of luxury goods giant Louis Vuitton. After Blake’s murder in the Amazon in 2001 his boat and mission
were taken over by the Troublé family, with Bruno’s sister and head of the fashion label Agnès B taking ownership and Bruno’s son, Romain, heading up the Tara Expeditions environmental programme. Bruno, of course, cut his Cup teeth as helmsman for Baron Bich’s
French challenges in the 1970s before taking on his Louis Vuitton role, while Romain sailed with the two French campaigns that com- peted in Auckland in 2000 and 2003; so among a very small club of father-and-son duos to have competed in the modern Cup. Since then Tara has completed 10 major expeditions and is now
midway through her 11th – an extensive investigation into the health of Pacific coral reefs. She has sailed 250,000 miles to date and
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supported a wide range of scientific projects. At a small civic function in Auckland the night before the Cup’s
triumphant return, the connections to the Blake legacy were high- lighted. ‘This is Tara’s first visit back to New Zealand and it therefore raises a lot of emotion,’ acknowledged French Ambassador Florence Jeanblanc-Risler. Bruno Troublé told the gathering, ‘To see Tara and the Cup back
in Auckland in the same week is a dream come true.’ That coin- cidence was not foreseen three years ago when Romain Troublé scheduled a New Zealand refit during the Tara Pacific expedition. But earlier this year when he compared dates the thought did just cross his mind that the boat and Cup could conceivably be returning to New Zealand at the same time… The day after the Auckland America’s Cup parade I visited aboard
Tara. This revived intense personal memories as I was privileged to sail onboard for that first Blakexpedition voyage to Antarctica in 2001. In the saloon where we shared stories, played killer games of Scrabble and marvelled at each day’s experiences in the ice, the distant world of the America’s Cup that Blake had left behind only rarely entered the conversation. Now, 16 years later, very little has changed. A large black and
white portrait of Blake – a reminder of the legacy that Tara strives to continue – is the only obvious addition. Otherwise it is the same functional interior, blonde joinery, blue upholstery and the familiar sight of crew sitting at the long saloon table working on various projects and discussing job lists. Given the circumstances and the timing, of course the America’s
Cup was now top of the conversation. Troublé, for whom the Cup has been a central part of his life for four decades, spoke with relief. ‘I had to stay away from Bermuda,’ he said. ‘After criticising it as a beach event smelling of French fries and
sunscreen, and the way it showed no respect for the rules and traditions and history of the America’s Cup, I could not be there. I watched it on TV.’ But as he pondered how New Zealand would shape the next
event, he expressed every confidence that the newly reinstated guardians of the Cup would pay ‘the Old Lady’ the respect her history and traditions demand. Ivor Wilkins
w
IVOR WILKINS
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