News Around the World
Six round-the-world races, two wins. Seven America’s Cups, two wins. Tony Rae is very much hoping that if he can do his job well enough mentoring Bianca Cook’s new Ocean Race campaign he may be allowed to stay ashore this time… honestly, we would put no money on that at all. The goal is to raise funding quickly to secure the VO65 Turn the Tide on which Cook raced the last edition. If not there are currently plenty of other VO65s available, with interest in the 2021 race evenly split between the Imoca and VO65 divisions
Downwind in up to 14kt TWS the Figaro 3 feels quite loaded up,
which can make it harder for the pilot. But once you are going faster the foils really start to deliver and the boat flies along quite easily. To help the pilot – and go faster – the Figaro 3 sailors are working a lot on the balance between the angle of incidence of the foils and the mast rake; in strong winds they have been adding rake while increasing lift from the foils to make the boat more bow-up. ‘But there is a lot to learn!’ reckons Martin. Between the asymmetrical spinnaker and the gennaker the call
is critical because the boat is really fast downwind. Also, on a Figaro 3 you sail higher angles downwind than on the old boat, with its two symmetric spinnakers, which dramatically opens up the tactical choices – something that pleases Martin Le Pape. Unfortunately, the ‘baptism of fire’ in Vendée also revealed some
fragilities, particularly a weakness in the bars linking the upper spreaders (several competitors had to retire from the second leg and at least one mast was damaged). The problem was serious enough for the director of the Sardinha Cup to decide that the boats couldn’t go racing offshore for the third and last leg before the bars were changed… on all 34 boats!
Four years The Class Ultim arose at the end of 2013 from the will of three boat owners – Banque Populaire, Macif and Sodebo – who wanted to promote this category of king-size multihulls (32m long, 23m max- imum beam). They have since been joined by Group Actual in 2015 and most recently by the Gitana Team. The class gradually developed around a broad design framework plus an initial three-year racing programme including solo, two-handed and crewed Transats as well as round-the-world solo records – for the new Trophée Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. Then there were the incidents last autumn during the Route du
22 SEAHORSE
Rhum that forced the class to review its planned schedule of events between 2019 and 2023, and to postpone the first solo round-the- world race to be sailed on Ultims. Now a new four-year programme has been developed jointly by the sponsors and skippers, working also in partnership with the Fédération Française de Voile, as well as with the other major offshore classes. Apart from local races, plus the Rolex Fastnet, a new ocean race
is scheduled later in 2019 called Brest Atlantiques: a two-handed Atlantic triangle Brest-Rio-Cape Town-Brest. Brest Atlantiques will start on 3 November, one week after the start of the Transat Jacques Vabre from Le Havre (not something wished for by the organisers of the famous TJV!). The 2020 Ultim season will be divided between the Transat and
a round-the-world record attempt, either solo or crewed. In 2021 there is the Arch-Round Europe Tour and later in the year a crewed round-the-world starting and finishing in the Mediterranean. In 2022 the main event will be the Route du Rhum and in autumn 2023 the start of the Brest-to-Brest solo round-the-world (originally scheduled for the end of 2019). With a four-year programme in place and the recent launch of
Sodebo Ultim 3, the purchase of Sodebo Ultimby the Actual Group and the construction of two new Ultim for Banque Populaire and Macif, the Ultims are quite strong.
A short sprint François Gabart said of the triangle Brest-Rio-Cape Town-Brest: ‘The new race promises a little less than a month at sea, which is not much shorter than a modern round-the-world by the three capes… ‘The first part is quite classical, we will sail north of the Saint-
Hélène High before rushing from there to the equator, but the stage back to the finish will see us doing much more VMG than usual, which is interesting. As for the choice of two-handed, I believe this
JESUS RENEDO/VOLVO
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 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115
