News Around the World
FRANCE Back on the grid It has been many years since the Bénéteau Group has publicised the competition results of their boats. So we were quite surprised to receive a very official press release highlighting the results of the First and Sunfast (the latter under the Jeanneau brand which belongs to Bénéteau) during the 2024 Middle Sea Race. The announcement highlights victories in five categories: in IRC
Class 4, with local skippers Christoph and Aaron Podesta on a quite old First 45, Elusive 2, in IRC Class 6 with a Sun Fast 3300 skippered by Simon Toms, and a win in the two-handed division for Milan
Koláček and Milan Tomek on a First 36 designed by Sam Manuard and built under Bénéteau’s Seascape brand in Slovenia. The two other Bénéteau victories are in ORC, for the same First 45 (ORC 4) and the same First 36 in ORC 5. One sometimes wonders why two handicap models, IRC/ORC, are still used in offshore racing when the same boat very often wins in both categories! Sadly at this time Bénéteau have few plans to return the First
brand to the racetracks after a break of at least 15 years… except for the launch next year of a new First 30, designed by Sam Manuard and also built by Seascape. She looks very pretty and is said to surf easily thanks to her light displacement. Last but not least, her price should be very attractive.
Yves Parlier likes his kites Some 30 of the 40 boats participating in the 10th edition of the Vendée Globe are equipped with the LibertyKite, a source of wind- power that can be of great help in the case of a dismasting. Behind this innovation is Yves Parlier, one of the heroes of the fourth edition of the Vendée Globe race when he managed to rebuild his broken carbon mast on Stewart Island, living off mussels and seaweed which he scraped off rocks. Beyond the sporting dimension, Yves Parlier’s kites are intended
for ships of all sizes and could one day help maritime transport by reducing fuel consumption. ‘But about the kite produced for the Imocas, it’s very simple,’ explains Parlier. ‘In its small bag it weighs
22 SEAHORSE
just 2.4kg. It’s like a quarter of an orange skin with two ropes connecting it to the boat. And it moves a 60ft monohull along without any problem flying a wing of just 20m2. ‘We can equip all types of boat. During the Arkéa Ultime Challenge
five of the six Ultims competing around the world were equipped with a 40m2 kite wing. If a boat loses her mast the LibertyKite will also help her to be located because the kite is orange and therefore very visible – and it will also be able to keep on sailing averaging between 3 and 5kt according to the wind force, and on points of sail from running to reaching. Ultimately moving like this a damaged yacht can reach land without outside help, even if it is quite slow!’ Yves is also interested in supplying kites for motorboats. Liberty -
Kite currently produces sails up to 80m2 – enough to tow boats up to 40m. They are now working on kites up to 1,600m2 to tow much larger vessels. ‘We don’t yet know much about towing these mastodons,’ says Yves. ‘But we know the kite can be a solution.’
Solidaires en Peloton is back in St-Malo After racing the last round of the Ocean Fifty Series at Ste-Maxime, opposite St-Tropez, Thibaut Vauchel-Camus and his crew on Solidaires en Peloton were sailing back to their home port of St- Malo when an ‘incident’ occurred six miles off the Spanish coast. Thibaut explained: ‘We left Gibraltar with one reef in the mainsail
plus gennaker, and with water-ballast – truthfully we were under- canvassed for the medium winds we had. We’d decided to head away from the coast to avoid a protected nature zone, but as we turned the wind came up suddenly to 30kt. We then unrolled our J1 before rolling up the gennaker, but within a few seconds we had capsized! We didn’t even have time to trim on the J1… ‘The wind increased very quickly, probably because of a local
land effect. Axelle was inside, I was under the cuddy with Laurent steering – we all managed to take refuge in the central hull. We triggered a mayday and fortunately help arrived quickly. We evac- uated through the escape hatch to a raft then onto a lifeboat. ‘When we reached the Spanish port of Barbate we were checked by a doctor but the worst we had was a sore shoulder for Laurent!
ALEXIS COURCOUX
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