News Around the World
We had the gennaker up the whole time to Grenada and you would think that the tack line and head strop would get chafed but no problem – partly because they’re kept so tight the whole time. ‘However, the steering gear gets a hell of a beating, especially the
windward rudder because it’s going in and out of the waves the whole time so it’s constantly being juddered. If you could lift it, it would be nice. So normally any damage that happens is on the windward side… ‘The boat is not really designed to be fully foiling as the main hull
is super-rockered to make it fly gently and lift the hull. I can see design going more like an Ultim, with a flatter main hull so it’s easier to get it in the air without lifting it so high. With our boat to get it in the air you’d have to lift it super high because it’s got such a deep hull. So we’re better off skimming like we are… ‘Equipment-wise you want to be nice and light. There are two
proper bunks and a mattress on top of the engine – which is not as bad as it sounds, we used to have bunks in the back to keep the bow up but now with foils it’s not quite as important.’ Over coffee we covered the global scene and in particular Italian sailing which is really on the rise. Brian pointed at the Class40 scene
NEW ZEALAND Hard yakka In the middle of last year’s New Zealand winter Marc Michel found himself in a company board meeting where the conversation became ‘pretty unpleasant’. There and then he decided he had had enough. He resigned the same day and decided to fulfil some goals that had been too long delayed by full-time employment. The first was to take his wife to Italy for the northern summer. The second was to tackle the Sydney-Hobart Race two-handed with the Dehler 30 Niksen, which he owns in partnership with Logan Fraser. ‘I decided now was the time to do these things, not in four or five
years.’ In the spirit of life being about embracing challenges and chasing dreams, he reasons, ‘You are a long time dead.’ For Kiwi yachts completing the Hobart race involves a double
crossing of the Tasman Sea – a serious proposition in any boat, let alone a 30-footer – plus the 620-mile race itself, which, likewise, is never to be taken lightly. This was not Michel’s first rodeo. Apart from nine previous Sydney-
Hobarts (fully crewed), Australian-born Michel is a previous chairman of the Short Handed Sailing Association of Australia and completed many events on the east coast. He also finished third in class in the 1991 Melbourne-Osaka Race – ‘in a totally unsuitable Holland 43 with a masthead rig and overlapping, hank-on sails’. In 1994, partnering with Mark Turner, who went on to establish the Extreme Sailing Series, they were the first non-French pair to compete in the 1994 AG2R Transatlantic Race sailed in Figaro 30 one-designs. Since joining forces with Fraser in 2021 the pair have competed
regularly in local two-handed events, plus longer races including the 500-mile Three Kings Race, the Round North Island Race and the Coastal Classic last October. A serious knockdown in the final stages of the Coastal Classic, which saw the boat on its side for some considerable time, might have given pause over the whole Sydney- Hobart project. However, Michel and Fraser absorbed the lessons learnt and set off across the Tasman. ‘The Tasman crossing to Australia was everything we wanted,’
Not bad for a Pom. Loïck Peyron and Brian Thompson celebrate the entente cordiale with a new Jules Verne record on Banque Populaire V in 2012. Thompson’s 4th non-stop lap of the planet…
that he’s also heavily involved with: ‘Looking at Italian sailing, where I’ve been on the Class40s, Italy is dominating with Pirelli and Ambrogio Beccaria – that guy is really good. You can see it watching the tracker, he will gybe three times more than anyone else and really works hard – he’ll have an Imoca soon. Definitely watch Italy, inshore, offshore, America’s Cup.’ Talking through the shift to foiling dinghies, Brian’s enthusiasm
shone again: ‘It’s very exciting to have foiling so accessible in a Waszp or Nacra and then the fun stuff like kite-foiling, wing-foiling or even just surf-foiling. If we were all 18 again you wouldn’t want to go out in an Enterprise! ‘I don’t see many downsides to it. I’m a little worried about safety
–for sure, all the rescue boats need to upskill. Crashes if they happen will be bigger, a lot of people who aren’t very good suddenly doing it, safety gear will need to improve and, a bit like rock climbing, you won’t just be able to jump in a boat and go. But making it exciting for people is great. Offshore you do worry about the wildlife a bit… it’s very depressing if you hit something.’ For now it’s back to the Caribbean: ‘I’ll be in St Maarten on a
Gunboat 66, day racing. Loïck Peyron is going to be there too, my old skipper, and then I’m going to sail that boat to Antigua and join Argo for the Caribbean 600. Later on we’ll do the Middle Sea Race and the Transatlantic Race and then onto the Class40 almost certainly for the Quebec-St Malo. Plus I’ve recently become a director of Doyle Sails for the Solent
with a new office in Woolston…!’ Busy just got busier. Magnus Wheatley
24 SEAHORSE
reports Michel. ‘Sadly the Hobart was everything we didn’t want.’ With three onboard for the Tasman passage (to fulfil insurance requirements), Niksen departed from New Zealand’s northernmost shores in a rising southwesterly and big seas. ‘It occurred to me that if anything went wrong there was no turning back in those conditions,’ says Michel. ‘It was Australia or bust.’ However, after that boisterous start the wind gods were kind. ‘The
southwesterly took us well out into the Tasman. Then we hooked into the top of a high-pressure system and the wind obligingly bent around to take us in a high arc all the way to Sydney. We were reaching and running for 85-90 per cent of the time and on autopilot for 85 per cent of the passage, averaging 7kt for 1,350 miles.’ Hopes that this might be a portent of things to come in the actual
race to Hobart were quickly dashed. That realisation began to dawn when, as part of their preparation for the big event, Michel and Fraser competed in the 172-mile Cabbage Tree Race, which takes the fleet north of Sydney to Cabbage Tree Island and back. On the Saturday night the fleet was hit by a violent electric storm. ‘The lightning was just incredible,’ says Michel. ‘It started out with sheet lightning like a beautiful fireworks display. But then it became large lightning bolts hitting the sea all around us, which we were less enthused about.’ Having lived in Sydney for many years Michel believes climate
change is making the Australian east coast more dynamic and stormy – a verdict that was reinforced by the Sydney-Hobart experience. The big race was preceded by days of incredibly hot weather punctuated by bursts of torrential rain, which made boat preparation a challenge. Heading out to the startline on Boxing Day, the fleet was once again slammed with a deluge, leaving a very light southeasterly in its wake. ‘Over the first 24 hours of the race I have never seen such dynamic
conditions,’ says Michel. ‘There was massive energy in the atmos- phere, big storm cells. The wind going from zero to 25kt. Boats were knocked down repeatedly. Boats within a mile of each other were expe- riencing totally different winds. Wind from every which way – even vertical wind, with water being whipped up off the sea surface and
BENOIT STICHELBAUT
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