News Around the World
Chilly start to a long day... Another wave of Imocas prepares to lock out for the start of the Route du Rhum with the crowds already building and a lot of attention going on keeping those deck-spreaders off St Malo’s unforgiving dock walls. With 123-boats of every possible type starting a transatlantic race in November straight into a nasty low pressure, the final tally of 81 finishers is a credit to both the preparation by skippers of widely differing experience and the qualification process applied by experienced race organisers
FRANCE Where now for the Ultime? The new foiling giant multihulls showed their weakness during the Route du Rhum. It will clearly take more time to make these boats more reliable. During the first 48 hours the latest three boats suffered damage and one capsized and completely broke up during her tow back to Vigo. Armel le Cléac’h’s big blue racer is declared a wreck and will not be rebuilt, said Ronan Lucas, director of the Banque Populaire Team. For those reasons the two main Ultime races in 2019 have been
postponed: Lorient-Les Bermudes-Lorient and, later in the autumn, the Brest Ocean – a new solo race around the world. The question is when Brest Ocean can be moved to because there is the Vendée Globe in 2020 and in 2021 there are well-advanced plans for a crewed round-the-world Ultime race, starting from Nice. Another big issue for the immediate future of the Ultime class
is what Banque Populaire will decide to do after the loss of their 12million euro foiling trimaran. An answer is expected before the end of the year and will inevitably influence the prospects for the class. If Banque Populaire stops sponsoring ocean multihulls it makes for one less boat in an already small fleet, even though a new Sodebo is to be launched shortly (the existing one is sold to Actual/Yves Le Blevec) and a new Macif is scheduled for 2021.
One month after The 6m piece of the starboard float of the Ultime trimaran Edmond de Rothschild that broke away in the Gulf of Biscay during the Route du Rhum was found on 6 December, a month after the incident, on Gunwalloe Cove beach in Cornwall in southern England. Cyril Dardashti, general manager of Gitana France, told us that
examination of the broken part should give the team some much needed answers about what had happened during the race: whether the float struck an object; which way and in what manner the break occurred; and when and where all of the damage took place – since the Ultime lost some more bits off the front of the broken float during the delivery back to Lorient. Of course the designers, builders and engineers are also rather keen to understand better what happened to Gitana and Banque Populaire.
20 SEAHORSE
Destination Guadeloupe: two boats late and 40 retired On 7 December the finishing line of the Route du Rhum was closed with just two boats still at sea : one Class40 and one Rhum Mono. The race committee were wise to postpone the closing of the race
by five days (from 2 to 7 December) soon after the start because of the severe conditions that were already forcing many boats to take shelter before continuing to Guadeloupe. The class with the most retirements (18) was obviously the Class40 with a total of 53 starters. Actually, quite surprising after some previous accidents, the class with the lowest number of retirements was the Multi50 with only one out of the six entries, the unfortunate Lalou Roucayrol who capsized a few days before reaching Guadeloupe. Of the 123 solo skippers who started on 4 November, 42
abandoned the race and, with the two discounted because they were out of time (DNF), that was a retirement rate of 43 per cent.
Francis is off on tour (again) After two solo round-the-world records set in 2004 and 2007, three records across the Atlantic (2005, 2013, 2017), the conquest of the Jules Verne Trophy in 2017 and his recent victory in the Route du Rhum, 62-year-old Francis Joyon and his sponsor Idec Group are planning a new record campaign in Asia to begin next autumn after a warm-up attempt on the Mediterranean record between Marseille and Sidi Bou Said in Tunisia. The ‘Idec Sport Asian Tour 2019/2020’ has six long-distance
records scheduled, four over new courses between India and China, to finish with a historic record, the Old Tea Road from Hong Kong to London. The whole campaign tour is: Île Maurice/Singapore, Singapore/Vietnam, Vietnam/Shanghai, Shanghai/Hong Kong!
The new Sun Fast is the… 3300 On the first day of the Salon Nautique in Paris Jeanneau celebrated the launch of their new Sun Fast 3300 with a model of this very interesting new design by Daniel Andrieu and Guillaume Verdier. Daniel is a proven expert in optimising for the IRC rating rule who
has been working with Jeanneau for many years. His two previous Jeanneau designs – the Sun Fast 3200 and 3600 – have both been very successful in IRC. Guillaume Verdier, who is renowned for his
THIERRY MARTINEZ
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102
