News Around the World
During the 2024 America’s Cup there were usually a thousand, occasionally maybe two thousand spectators around the beaches and the giant TV in the spectator area. There was a super atmosphere too… plenty of cheering on of personal favourites. Over two million people passed through Les Sables d’Olonne in the week leading up to the start of the Vendée Globe with around one million turning up on race day to cheer the skippers down to their boats like gladiators and then lining the mole as they motored out to the startline. Many of the Imoca skippers are now household names in France, including Charlie Dalin and Yoann Richomme (top left) and now too our own Sam Goodchild (bottom left). But every Vendée Globe starter receives the same heroic send-off and even the tailenders who might finish weeks after the winner know they are assured of a big public welcome on their return… whatever the time of day or night
20-25 per cent stronger than the existing one-design Imoca spar – which has barely been coping with today’s vastly increased foiling loads compared with when the spar was introduced in 2013. The third new feature is to reduce the carbon impact of construc-
tion. Antoine Mermod, Imoca president, explains: ‘We undertook life-cycle studies for all the new Imocas built between 2020 and 2024. We now have a validated measurement system mature enough to run studies of the composite components made around the world for these boats. Based upon what we have learnt, new Imocas built for 2028 should have footprint values around 15 per cent below what we measured with the current boats.’
Sables d’Olonne’s avenue Two very long parallel jetties mark the entrance to the marina of Port Olona at the bottom of the port of Les Sables d’Olonne. A great platform for the hundreds of thousands of spectators who come to cheer their hero aboard their boats on the way to the great adventure. It’s almost as if these sailors were parading along the Champs
Elysées avenue in Paris. It’s both huge and unique to the Vendée Globe. On start day the staging was carefully orchestrated as usual as one by one, starting at dawn, the skippers ambled down to their boats past the VG trophy standing proudly at the start of the pontoon. Charlie Dalin was the first to walk the ‘red carpet’ because his boat, Macif, located at the end of the pontoon, was the first to leave. The other skippers (and their boats) followed at regular intervals. Forty Imocas together, it’s a lot! Fortunately, the wind was very light for the start with no incidents
recorded. The only competitor to have a problem was Conrad Coleman who caught a rope in his propeller motoring to the start; he had to get outside help and so as dictated by the rules he did not cross the line until an hour and 13 minutes later. The happy irony was that a few hours later the Kiwi skipper, sailing a little north of the fleet which was struggling in the calm, caught the breeze before the others and was soon almost in the lead of the race…
A promising fight Three days after the slow start from Les Sables the first boats had already passed the latitude of Gibraltar and were rushing towards Madeira. Charlie Dalin, the race’s great favourite, had taken the lead from day one, but he was overtaken by Sam Goodchild off the coast of Portugal. The British navigator, who is steering his teammate
24 SEAHORSE
Thomas Ruyant’s previous Verdier design, confirms his ability to play a leading role in this solo global race. We also saw some spinnakers set on start day, mainly on
non-foilers (although not solely, Paul Meilhat was flying a kite on Biotherm). It should be noted that the Vendée Globe wardrobe is limited to eight sails, which had to be declared no later than 11am on 8 November – a time when the weather forecast suggested a lot of running down to the Equator. While early weather predictions encouraged a few skippers to
take a spinnaker, when the wind built approaching Cape Finisterre kites were quickly replaced by gennakers… Soon the foilers were delivering a succession of spectacular 24-hour runs, with Nicolas Lunven setting a new 24-hour record of 546.60nm (1,012km!!) on only the fourth day of sailing. Really, it’s amazing, knowing that the race ends in 75 days’ time… or thereabouts! Patrice Carpentier
NEW ZEALAND The successful private-public model that funded the 37th America’s Cup in Barcelona has stimulated interest in exploring the potential of a similar arrangement to stage the next defence in Auckland. The Barcelona hosting fee, estimated at 70-80 million euro, was built on foundations laid by a group of wealthy local families and business owners with a substantial contribution ahead of any political commitments being made. Emirates Team New Zealand boss Grant Dalton has confirmed
that an unnamed person with political connections was exploring the possibility of doing something similar in New Zealand. ‘The message is simple,’ Dalton said once back home. ‘We are com- pletely genuine in terms of, if we can get this home, we will.’ Later, in a recorded message to members of the Royal New
Zealand Yacht Squadron, he doubled down. ‘We want to find a way to bring it home,’ he said. ‘If it’s possible we will.’ However, while New Zealand has successfully hosted three Cup
regattas in 2000, 2003 and 2021, some significant obstacles would have to be overcome before anotherhometown defence would have any chance of flying. The most obvious is funding. The Barcelona benchmark is a far
cry from the previous offer from the NZ government and Auckland City Council: $NZ30 million towards the event, a further $NZ69 million ‘in kind’ (services, infrastructure etc)… and zero for the
JM LIOT
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