After nine months of racing, Dongfeng Race Team has won the closest ever Volvo Ocean Race
Leg 11, from Gothenburg to The Hague, arrivals. Dongfeng Race Team wins Leg 11 to take overall victory in Volvo Ocean Race 2017-18. 24 June, 2018.
BREAKING NEWS: After nine months of racing, the Volvo Ocean Race was undecided until the final cross this afternoon.
The short last leg to The Hague was littered with traffic separation zones one the final few hundred miles. Dongfeng made an audacious tactical call to split from their equal rivals Mapfre and Team Brunel, heading east and inshore, with no-go TSS zones dividing the waters between them and the main pack.
As Dongfeng reached into the final mark with three headsails flying, Brunel and Mapfre were gybing in on a lower course. It wasn’t until the final hour of the race that the verdict came in: Dongfeng crossed in front, the Volvo Ocean Race was won.
The fleet had set out on Thursday 21st June with an unprecedented points tie – a three-way tie in a dead heat on the overall leaderboard. The finishing order between MAPFRE, Team Brunel and Dongfeng Race Team at The Hague would determine their place on the overall race podium.
Each of those three teams led at various points on the leg and had their opportunities to grab the prize.
But Dongfeng skipper Charles Caudrelier and his team made a bold call on Saturday evening to take a coastal route to the finish, pinned against the shoreline by a series of Exclusion Zones. It hurt them in the short term as they tumbled down the leaderboard.
However, by Sunday morning, with less than 100 miles left to race, weather routing projections had the top teams finishing within minutes of each other. None had been able to breakaway, despite the significant splits on the race course.
At 15:22:32 UTC, Dongfeng Race Team, flew down the coast from the north to win the leg, and the race.
Leg 11, from Gothenburg to The Hague. 24 June, 2018.
It was the closest finish in the 45-year history of the race and the first win for a Chinese-flagged team. It was also, remarkably, the first leg win for Dongfeng, who had scored consistent podium places but missed out on the leg 1st place throughout the event.
“It has been an amazing opportunity to lead this dream team, and I am so proud to realise their dreams,” said an emotional Caudrelier shortly after the start.
This is the second Volvo Ocean Race win for Caudrelier, who previously won as a crew member with Franck Cammas’s Groupama in 2012 before leading Dongfeng Race Team to 3rd in the last edition.
Leg 11, from Gothenburg to The Hague, day 04. Helicopter shots taken as the fleet blast south to The Hague. 24 June, 2018.
The final results were 1st Dongfeng Race Team, 2nd Mapfre, 3rd Team Brunel, 4th Team AkzoNobel, 5th Vestas 11th Hour Racing. Sun Hung Kai Scallywag and Turn the Tide on Plastic are currently tied on 32 points apiece for 6th place, a split which will be decided by the result of the in-port race series. The final in-port race takes place in The Hague on Sunday 1st July.
Look out for a full report, as well as an in-depth look at the future for this legendary event, in next month’s Yachting World, out 12thJuly.
Volvo Ocean Race organisers have confirmed that the 2021 edition will be held in IMOCA 60 designs. We spoke to sailors and team organisers about what a change of class might mean for the race:
After months of speculation – Yachting World broke the story than the IMOCA 60 class were in the final stages of negotiation with the Volvo Ocean Race back in April – organisers have confirmed that the next edition of the crewed multi-stage round the world race will take place in IMOCA 60 class yachts.
In the very final days of the race, a confidential Educational Session for interested parties was held around the IMOCA Class Rules in The Hague last week. The announcement was only publically confirmed yesterday, after the prizegivings for the 2017-18 event had been held and the Volvo Ocean Race teams and sponsors dispersed.
At the session, sailors and team managers from the most recent Volvo Ocean Race and IMOCA events, along with yacht designers currently involved in construction of new IMOCA Class boats such as Guillaume Verdier and Juan Kouyoumdjian, discussed the changes.
Co-President of the Volvo Ocean Race, Johan Salen, presenting at the IMOCA 60 partnership information session in The Hague, 28th June 2018.
“This is a first step of many in preparing for the next edition of the race in 2021,” said Johan Salén , co-President of the race. “There is an ongoing co-operation process to put in place the elements we need to make the next race a success from a sporting and business point of view.
“This is a complex matter with many perspectives, and we are respectfully welcoming continuous input from all key stakeholders, from World Sailing to individual sailors, teams and partners. We are confident that this is the right way forward.”
Organisers are certainly likely to receive plenty of input – during my visit to the last stage of the Volvo Ocean Race, before the announcement was made, I spoke to numerous sailors about the possible choices of boat for future editions of the race and found almost no consensus.
Team Brunel skipper and eight-time race expert Bouwe Bekking was a big proponent of the IMOCA 60 plan. Peter Burling, helmsman on Brunel, speculated: “I’m not sure if the exact IMOCA rule would work well for the Volvo, maybe a variant of that rule. For me it’s just got to be fast and modern, and I think they’ve got to make the race shorter as well.”
David Witt, skipper of Sun Hung Kai Scallywag, told me: “I think the IMOCA 60 would be a mistake. I have a feeling their [organisers’] motive is to try and get the Hugo Bosses and big corporates to come in from the Vendée Globe.” Witt was concerned the move might make the Volvo Ocean Race a second-tier event in the IMOCA calendar to the single-handed Vendée Globe.
Chris Nicholson, watch captain on Team AkzoNobel and a veteran of six Whitbread/Volvo races, supported using the one-design 65s again. He was among those that raised concerns about the robustness of the existing IMOCA design.
“A current IMOCA boat won’t handle a crew of four or five, so that has to be a complete structural redesign,” Nicholson said. “I wouldn’t sail around the world in an IMOCA boat with five of us Volvo-type sailors. If you had a race like we’ve just had, I don’t believe it would handle it.”
Bruno Dubois, team manager for winners Dongfeng Race Team, felt that the race needed to modernise: “I think if we go with a boat with no foils we are in the Stone Age,” he said.
“We have to be at the forefront of what’s going on. I think IMOCA are strong boats, they would have to be modified to sail with crew, but it is a way to go to get development.” Dubois also suggested using the 65s as a ‘B’ fleet, restricted by a gender, age or nationality rule. The future of the Volvo 65s is yet to be announced.
The current crop of IMOCA 60s more usually race single- or double-handed. ‘Fully crewed racing’, with four or five crew, is limited to a few events such as the Rolex Fastnet Race are. Photo Carlo Borlenghi/Rolex
In yesterday’s press release, organisers say a joint committee is being formed to draft a specific section of the IMOCA class rules for a crewed IMOCA 60, “respecting the spirit and intent of the partnership, which includes cost control, security and sporting fairness”.
The committee will have to consider factors such as whether any more components are made one-design to reduce costs, and any necessary structural modifications to ensure the boats’ reliability – many have speculated that the race could once again be dominated by rig failures, after just two rig breakages in 14 circumnavigations by the robustly over-built 65s across the last two editions of the race.
Critically, the rule relating to crew numbers on board the IMOCA class is still to be determined and among the items under consideration. Organisers say they have “the goal of retaining an On Board Reporter role”.
One issue with the IMOCA 60 plan is that it is likely to greatly reduce the number of crew racing at any one time – although sailors may be rotated in a squad. This could put one of the biggest legacies of this race, the gender crew rule that saw 23 women sailors racing in mixed crews, in jeopardy, although organisers have said it is a trend they hope to continue.
“Moving the race into foiling monohulls under the IMOCA class will motivate more sailors, teams and the wider marine industry to prepare for the next edition,” Salén commented in the press release. “Partnering with the existing IMOCA infrastructure means the professional offshore sailing calendar becomes more unified and efficient, this helps the sport as a whole and helps to build a sustainable business model for teams and sailors.”
Tough audience? IMOCA designer Guillaume Verdier talks to sailors and team managers in The Hague.
Part of this plan is likely to involve extending the calendar of events beyond a single round the world race every three or four years. “It has been quite difficult, and also not sustainable, to build a boat that is not very well adapted to use for other events,” Salén told me by phone before the announcement.
“So we are trying to get more continuity for the teams. To achieve that the IMOCA class is a very attractive option because there is so much in place already. The teams can go to a sponsor with an agenda with events every year and a four-year cycle, much more continuity and a much better resale value for the boats.”
Salén says they are considering options that include a round Europe race to cover key sponsorship markets, as well as ocean courses, such as a transatlantic, but the current IMOCA calendar is governed by the next Vendée Globe, starting in November 2020.
Winning skipper Charles Caudrelier of Dongfeng Race Team has competed in the IMOCA class previously. “This change is very exciting,” Caudrelier said in the event press release. “The Open 60s are just amazing boats. I really enjoy sailing on these boats and I think when people see it, they will enjoy it. If the two best offshore races in the world are going to join the same class, to me it’s good news.”
“I think as a sailor, this is very exciting,” said Bekking. “For the younger generation of sailors, they’re all about foiling and surfing and going fast and you have to get the best sailors involved in the race. With the Open 60s, they’ve nailed it, because this is what the sailors want.”
“We’re trying to make a boat for the future that is capable of doing both short-handed and fully-crewed races,” said the highly successful IMOCA designer Guillaume Verdier. “My opinion is that it is doable with a bit of compromise from both worlds to meet in the middle.”
Nick Bice, who has been running The Boatyard shared maintenance department for the Volvo 65s, is leading the development of the new rule.
“The process is just starting,” said Nick Bice, who is leading the project to develop the Open 60 rule for the next race. “We’ll forward everyone’s input to the joint committee and get started on developing the rules that will be used for Open 60s to participate in the next race. Our goal is to have this ready to go by the end of the year.”
We look at more of the questions surrounding the future of the race, including opportunities for female crew and possible future routes, in the August issue of Yachting World, out on Thursday 5thJuly. We also have a personal account from Dongfeng Race Team’s skipper Charles Caudrelier and shoreside navigator Marcel Van Triest of how the final leg and overall race was won.
Could you cross the Atlantic with no power? Valentina Vela did just that on her ARC crossing - she explains how they adapted to life without power, while Chris Tibbs has expert tips on dealing with power failure at sea
A complete power failure mid-ocean is thankfully rare, and it is usually the charging system that fails rather than batteries, writes Chris Tibbs. That said, when we bought our boat the batteries were so poor that once disconnected from shore power they only lasted a couple of hours before being completely discharged.
Nowadays it is unusual to find yachts with only one battery bank and without a dedicated engine start battery. Many of us have experienced selector switchers that can be left in the wrong position, so I prefer a set up so that it is impossible to link batteries like this. One boat I looked after had a paralleling switch to temporarily link all the batteries should the engine start battery not be up to the job. This had to be held in place so it could not be left on; we use a simpler solution and carry jump leads.
Long distance cruising yachts will usually have more than one means of charging the batteries and the majority of cruisers have solar, wind vanes, or hydrogenerators to back up the engine. Whilst these may go through one single regulator, each system will often have its own regulator adding some redundancy and backup.
Get your priorities right
If you have lost power production you need to reduce consumption and prioritise; top of my list is navigation lights – a masthead LED tricolour draws around 0.3A which even on a tropical passage with long nights is less than 3.5ampare hours. It also has the added advantage of lighting up the windex so we can reduce the time we use instruments.
The compass light is also important and this may draw as much or more than the tricolour, but steering at night is difficult without this reference point, particularly without nav instruments.
The Seraphina crew (below) crossed the Atlantic the old fashioned way – paper charts and log books
On an ocean passage like the Atlantic you do not need to know our position at all times, once or twice a day is adequate. This does mean that chart plotters can be turned off, and the GPS used only a couple of times a day to log position. A handheld from the grab bag can be used for this, as can the handheld VHF, as long as you have enough spare batteries.
High on the list of priorities must be starting the engine in case of an emergency; if all the batteries are connected together, as in Seraphina’scase (see right), it may be possible to mechanically split the batteries and use the solar panel (or petrol generator) to charge the engine start battery and keep it isolated for emergency use. I would also look at which batteries were in the best condition and reduce the number of batteries in the bank to try and get a couple of batteries to a reasonable level rather than all of them to a low level. By careful monitoring it should then be possible to prevent a total discharge.
On smaller and particularly older engines there may be decompressors to facilitate hand starting. I’ve never had much success hand-starting engines but have found it possible with a weak battery to decompress the cylinders, which then requires less power to turn the engine over before dropping the decompressor, as if hand starting.
Whilst AIS is a brilliant invention and I would not like to be without it, it is no substitute for keeping a good watch and in areas of good visibility, particularly in daylight, I would turn it off, or set to ‘receive only’ to save power. On a dark windy night it can be turned on again but I would rather have two crew on watch and hand steering for safety. Hand steering keeps us alert and I think much better watch keepers. The AIS alarm and MOB is essential, particularly if one person is watch keeping, so a balance needs to be found between conserving power and safety.
Small changes in the daily routine can also help save on power, having your evening meal before darkness will get food preparation and clearing away done without needing lights. Solar powered cockpit lights have become common and these can be used below when making drinks at night or visiting the heads.
Having to rely on a pressurised water system is not great and an additional foot pump is very useful. We do not have a foot pump on our boat so we carry a small syphon pump in case of electric pump failure as it is possible to get to the tops of the tanks and pump it out manually.
You can live quite comfortably on limited power – on my first ocean passage from the Virgin Islands to Bermuda without a fridge we had a very strict rule and only opened the ice box once a day to get food out. Seven days later arriving in Bermuda we still had ice. This may work for a freezer but the fridge would quickly warm and foods spoil. Just like you would not rely on one tank of water neither should you rely on one source of food. It may seem old fashioned but a good supply of tinned food is worth carrying; many have their own liquid which also reduces the dependence on watermakers.
With full-on trade winds, hand steering all the way will tire the crew so when short-handed the autopilot becomes more important to avoid excess fatigue. If you are two handed and restricting your autopilot use then reducing sail or even heaving to for a rest are options, however a good watch still needs to be kept for other vessels.
The Dufour Sortilege Seraphina
A dark transat
In November 2017 I joined the ARC+ on the Dufour Sortilege Seraphina, a 12.5m centre cockpit ketch, writes Valentina Vela.
On 15th November we left Cape Verde on our way to Saint Lucia and the first couple of days of our transat were pretty smooth. But on the early morning of our third day at sea, the battery level was unexpectedly low.
The yacht’s core power system was based on seven batteries, one starting and six house batteries, charged by an alternator connected to the diesel engine. As back up, there was a small solar panel and a portable petrol generator.
As soon as we got the first alarm flagging that we had an issue we turned the diesel engine on to recharge our batteries through the alternator. We were still wondering what caused such a high power consumption during the night (maybe radar or autopilot) when we joined the 0900 fleet daily chat on the SSB radio. But, after few minutes of transmission, our SSB switched off. All our batteries were completely flat, although our diesel engine was still running in an attempt to recharge them.
We left the engine running for another few hours but made no progress, so we decided to use the portable petrol generator. Slowly we got some power back into the batteries, and realised that the alternator was not working properly.
The crew hand steered and used a wind vane after power failure left them without an autopilot
For two days we kept testing and attempting different repairs, using the generator to produce the power required to re-start the diesel engine again and again. During our tests we discovered that the power system had not been implemented as designed: the starting battery was not isolated from the other six house batteries, and all of them were part of the same circuit. So the charging problem was also impacting our engine starting system.
With only two small 4-litre tanks of petrol onboard and a minimum of two hours required to recharge the batteries, using the generator was not a viable option to produce power for the entire crossing. It could only be used from time to time, to avoid damaging the batteries by letting them experience multiple deep discharge cycles in a row (due to the solar panel), or to start the diesel engine in a distress situation.
After a long discussion, we decided to keep going with our transatlantic, despite not having any power, and began putting in place all the workarounds that became our new routine.
Not being able to immediately turn the diesel engine on to complete a recovery manoeuvre was our main concern. Obviously a man overboard situation was the worst scenario an, unfortunately, even the AIS MOB devices installed in all our lifejackets wouldn’t be any help without power to run our VHF system. To mitigate such a huge risk, I started wearing my lifejacket and Personal Locator Beacon all the time and routinely clipping myself on at night and during daylight when out of the cockpit (to work at the mast or the bow).
Being unable to use any radio (except a handheld VHF) our only way to send a distress message if needed would be through our sat phone. To conserve its batteries, we decided to turn it on only once per day to download emails with weather forecasts and other notifications from the ARC rally control team.
With no navigation lights, radar or AIS, collision avoidance was another significant safety issue. The risk of heavy weather was another concern because we wouldn’t be able to quickly reef the main in the case of an approaching squall because we had an electric winch on the halyard. For the last two points we had no real workaround, only a commitment as a team to be 100% focused all the time when on watch and to put our trust in each other.
Seraphina’s route was mapped on the YB tracker – the team finished 4th in their division
More minor challenges including having no sailing instruments to track wind direction and speed, but we quickly improved our ability to feel the wind. We had no electronic plotter, but did have a small handheld GPS powered by standard AAA batteries, combined with a good compass and detailed charts which saw us safely navigate across the Atlantic. We also had no autopilot, but an old-fashioned wind-vane helped steer all the way to the Caribbean.
Life in the darkWith no fridge, we had to hurry to consume all the fresh perishable food and move on to the preserved stores. We had no lights, but our head torches covered basic needs, allowing us to prepare a warm coffee at night as much as double check the sails or rig during night watches.
For the first ten days, the solar panel was able to daily recharge our batteries enough to power the solenoid valves installed on the gas stove and the electric water pump to transfer water from the tank to some empty bottles every day. By day 18 of our crossing, probably because of the progressive decay of the batteries, the solar panel wasn’t anymore able to squeeze any power into our batteries. So during the last couple of days, we used a small camping gas stove to cook and manually pumped water out of the tank to fill the bottles.
Arriving safely in St Lucia
The YB Tracker installed onboard had his own battery, so families and friends were able to keep monitoring our daily progress on the YB Racer App. Moreover, the YB Tracker allowed us to send and receive short messages to stay in touch with our families on a daily basis. And, thanks to a small USB solar charger, we were also able to regularly recharge our smartphones, tablets, and an mp3 player for music.
With all these small workarounds in place, on 5th December after 20 days at sea, we safely landed in St Lucia proud of having completed a transatlantic crossing the ‘old-fashioned’ way.
For Dee Caffari, skippering a Volvo Ocean Race Team has been the culmination of an extraordinary career (so far!). So why doesn't she feel like she's made it yet? Helen Fretter talked to Dee on her round the world adventure to find out.
Leg 4, Melbourne to Hong Kong, Day 12 onboard Turn the Tide on Plastic. A candid moment where I caught Dee Caffari staring out the hatch. What is she thinking? Photo by Brian Carlin/Volvo Ocean Race. 13 January, 2018.
Dee Caffari puts most of us to shame. She turned up in the cliquey world of offshore racing in her mid-twenties without a reputation built on years of Figaro or Mini Transat racing, no childhood spent dinghy sailing, no private backer, no technical advantage. No leg-up at all, in fact. And yet she was the only skipper in this year’s Volvo Ocean Race who has also completed a Vendée Globe. She has achieved so much.
Dee is a big believer that anybody can do the same. That can be a little confronting, leaving those of us who haven’t realised such dreams feeling a bit like a failure. For the pros who spent a lifetime racing off Brittany or the IJsselmeer it must be disconcerting to have someone who did a fast-track Yachtmaster course line up next to you on the skipper’s rostrum.
Perhaps because of that the armchair critics have not always been kind. Some questioned her lack of podium results, but in offshore racing a huge achievement lies in getting to the start – and an even greater one in getting to the finish. And that is what Caffari does – she gets around (the Volvo Ocean Race was her sixth lap of the planet).
Actually, looking back at her 2008 Vendée Globe what stands out is how she finished just five hours after Brian Thompson (who, with a Jules Verne title, nobody could accuse of not being performance driven).
Leg 8 from Itajai to Newport, day 9 on board Turn the Tide on Plastic. 30 April, 2018. Skipper Dee Caffari.
She has just completed the Volvo Ocean Race skippering Turn the Tide on Plastic. It is the second time she has led a crew around the world, and it is, in many ways, the perfect job for Caffari. It is also not a role many others would have taken on. But this is a woman who set off on her solo round the world record attempt in 2005, against the prevailing winds and currents, having never actually sailed single-handed before. Caffari is not easily daunted.
How did she work her way from being a newbie Yachtmaster to having one of the most complete and accomplished CVs of any offshore sailor?
“I’m stubborn and bloody-minded, and wasn’t going to take no for an answer,” she muses. “It’s about building connections and networks, and taking opportunities as they arise, and I’ve been very fortunate to be in the right place to do that. I’ve also had to be a bit more resilient than most.”
“She makes smart decisions, and she’s prepared to put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into making it happen,” observes Brian Thompson, who also raced with Caffari in the 2009 Transat Jacques Vabre, and navigated on Turn the Tide on Plastic. “She’s not afraid to have a big goal and work really hard to get to it.”
She may have come into the sport late, but her first job gave her a rich seam of connections. Starting out at Mike Golding Ocean Racing as a nipper on his corporate sailing programme, she joined a team that included Graham ‘Gringo’ Tourell, who was boat captain for Dongfeng, Jonny Malbon, as well as Golding himself. For a rookie it was the perfect teaching ground.
Dee (Denise) Caffari aged 6 in 1979 aboard her father’s motor yacht the Jolly Rotter en route to Holland.
Allie Smith, who recruited Caffari straight from her UKSA Yachtmaster course, recalls: “Every step of the way she learnt from the best. So she learnt how to sail a Challenge 67 yacht from Mike [Golding]. And then when she got her Open 60, who did she turn to to tune the boat up and learn from? Mike again.”
Dee’s approach was to learn, and work, and then learn some more. “Dee would always ask questions,” says Smith. “‘Why are you doing that?’, ‘Why are you doing it that way?’”
Golding recalls: “When she was made skipper of the 67 she literally spent three days just parking the boat in Ocean Village, going into all the horrible difficult spaces.”
“Whenever she was given a task, with each successive job, she was thrown straight into it in the deep end. And each time she rose to the challenge and did it really well.”
But going straight from the classroom to a top-level campaign meant she had to hold her own.
“I used to be able to get her into tears pretty easily,” recalls Golding. “I think she was quite highly strung then. Not intentionally, but neither was I going to let things go by just because she was a girl.”
Emotions run high
When Caffari later announced she was going to skipper a team in the Global Challenge (the pay-to-sail, westbound round the world race sailed by crews of 18 amateur sailors with a professional skipper), Golding was concerned that Caffari was too sensitive. “My fear was that Challenge crew can wither you! They are very intelligent people who’ve made money and time to do the race, they’re used to being the boss, and they can cut you to ribbons.
“So I said: I fear you’re going to have to harden up. And she obviously did, because she had to.”
Briefing her Global Challenge team
When she skippered Imagine it. Done in the 2004 Global Challenge Caffari not only survived some challenging crew politics, but gained respect for how she handled a potentially life-threatening situation on board when one of her crew developed severe internal injuries.
Golding said he noticed a huge change in her on her return. “I think that emotional side had gone for her, she had a confidence that wasn’t there prior to the Challenge.”
But the ebullient Caffari we are used to wasn’t always so positive. After the Challenge, she rolled straight into a solo west-about round the world record, an experience she describes as ‘an emotional rollercoaster’. So, in preparation for the Vendée Globe two years later she worked with a sports psychologist.
“That was probably the biggest growth in my sailing I ever had, learning how to manage me,” she says.
“I used to easily say what I didn’t want to happen: I didn’t want to let people down, I didn’t want to come last. But I would struggle to say what I did want to happen.
“I learnt that I had to practice positive language, and completely turn that on its head.
“Even now, my default setting when I’m stressed is I can feel myself going back to the negative. I have to have a word with myself and change my language again. And as a result I’m much more positive.”
Timing is everything
That positivity has been thoroughly tested in the Volvo Ocean Race. The Turn the Tide on Plastic team was a late entry put together by Volvo, the UN Clean Seas campaign and Mirpuri Foundation. It has been stunningly timely – as the race ramped up the plastic oceans issue became a hot topic globally, giving Caffari the kind of platform that commercially backed teams could only dream of.
It was also timely for Caffari, who told me in Alicante how before Tide came her way she had been throwing herself – unsuccessfully – at other teams trying to get a trial for this edition of the race.
The opportunity to skipper a campaign was huge, but daunting. The project came with unique challenges – stipulations that six crew should be under-30, at least one Portuguese. The budget and timeframe meant there was little warm up, sailors needed to be fit and ready to go, but many of the youngsters had almost zero ocean racing experience before they set off.
Performance analysis was rudimentary compared to some teams. In Cape Town we chatted about how teams had been analysing the onboard footage during the Atlantic leg and she was intrigued that some had allocated resources purely to that. “We’re still going “’Oh, that’s a nice picture!’ We are just so not on that level,” she joked.
So it has been a surprise to many just how close Turn the Tide has run some of their competitors. For much of the first Lisbon to Alicante leg they were neck and neck with Brunel – so when Brunel complained of rudder issues Turn the Tide watch captain Liz Wardley forthrightly told me she felt it was patronising, and suggested that Tide’s performance out of the blocks had rattled some of the Volvo stalwarts.
The team continued improving: on the final approach into Auckland Turn the Tide on Plastic was in front. They clung to the top three until the final 20 miles, when Mapfre and Dongfeng relentlessly hunted them down the North Island’s coast. Turn the Tide eventually finished 5th and even Dee seemed lost for words.
On the northward Atlantic leg Turn the Tide sailed near-faultlessly, in the front half of the pack for the entire leg and enjoying several days in pole position. Two days away from the finish they again seemed set for a podium finish, but it would be a three-way fight.
An onboard video shows Caffari explaining the situation on deck; she’s met with nervous silence. “Come on, yes Dee!” she rallies them. Clearly the crew wanted to believe the podium is still in grasp, but had been denied it too many times. They were denied it again, as the light winds and fog of Newport rolled Turn the Tide back to sixth.
She commented in a post-leg interview. “Yet again I’m stood here saying for the fourth leg running, ‘They didn’t get the result they deserve’. So I’m kind of stuck as a skipper on how to pick them up and get going for the next leg, but that’s what I’ve got to do.”
Rallying the troops is something Caffari is good at, and she’s often praised for her people management skills – even if at the beginning of the race she wasn’t entirely confident in her, abilities. “I [do enjoy it] although I think I’m not very good at it,” she told me before the start in Alicante. “I get stressed by it. I don’t want to get it wrong.”
She talks about her crew with more of a sense of responsibility than the other Volvo skippers; part mother hen, part enthusiastic school sports coach. Her management style is based on nurturing strengths.
“I’m not very much a dictator,” she observes. “I don’t tell them all what to do. I go OK, this area is yours. Are you OK? Do you need any help?”
Leg 10 from Cardiff to Gothenburg.
So good at empowering her team is Caffari, that she revealed in Cape Town she felt almost redundant at times. “I kind of feel like I’m second to [the navigator] and then I go on deck and Martin [Strømberg] is running his watch and Liz is running her watch and I don’t really fit in there, so you end up being quite isolated. And as a leader you generally are. It’s lonely at the top.”
Thompson explained they later restructured so Caffari also ran a watch, a move Caffari said she hoped “might restore my confidence a bit!”
Despite the billboards plastered around Volvo Race villages with her name and face on, Caffari is instinctively modest. She admits that for much of her racing career she compared herself to sailors with entirely different backgrounds. “Even now, when you’re in an environment where you have Olympians or America’s Cup sailors, you’re like ‘Oh, what have I done?’ And actually, there’s a bit of a reality check, that in fact I’ve done quite a lot.”
But as the race was drawing towards a close, Caffari was taking stock. “I think if I was honest with this campaign, there isn’t another skipper that could do what I’ve done with the team I’ve had and the timescale and budget I’ve got.
“But I want to show how close the racing’s been with a result as well. I do believe what we’re doing is right, but my concern is if you look at the scoreboard we look no different to Team SCA, yet how we’re racing and how this campaign is going is so much better.
“The team deserve it, and I think we’re probably the one team where every other team would be happy if we got that result.”
She’s right – after the Auckland and Newport finishes, rival skippers like Charles Caudrelier commented on how cruel the result had been for Turn the Tide. It says a lot about the respect and goodwill Dee and her team have earned. With three legs to go, Caffari remained as determined as ever.
“I don’t want the sympathy vote, I want to justify it on the water.”
Postscript: After this article was published in the July issue of Yachting World magazine, Turn the Tide on Plastic finished Legs 10 and 11 of the Volvo Ocean Race in 5th place, their best results of the race. This left the team tied in 6th place overall with Team Sun Hung Kai Scallywag.
In order to break the tie, Caffari’s team had to beat Scallywag in the in-port series, which meant not only finishing ahead of the Hong Kong team in the final in-port race in The Hague, but finishing with at least one boat in between them to give them a two point advantage. In the final in-port race Turn the Tide on Plastic were 4th, ahead of MAPFRE and Vestas 11th Hour Racing, with Scallywag in 7th. This gave Caffari and team 6th overall in the in-port series and overall Volvo Ocean Race.
The organisers of the International Multihull Boat Show in La Grande Motte, estimate that somewhere between 900 and 1,100 catamarans were built last year.
Demand is raging, leaving manufacturers scrambling to increase capacity to meet it.
The benefits of catamarans are obvious: more living space, faster performance off the wind (and sometimes on it) and a stable platform for a more family-friendly experience.
Sailors the world over were also thrilled by the performance of the boats in the last two America’s Cups, while the circumnavigation endeavours of Thomas Coville, François Gabart et al have shown that multihulls are up to the rigours of the oceans.
Charter has been one of the catalysts for demand: the facility to pick a new or favourite cruising ground from Tahiti to the Med and try out a catamaran there.
“In our time we have seen the standard go from pretty basic 27ft monohulls to an expectation of 40ft+ monos and cats, with air-con and many more comforts,” says Julian Adams, yacht sales consultant for Sunsail and The Moorings.
“Today’s charterer can now enjoy the thrills of a performance sailing boat without having to compromise on comfort. The added stability of achieving great performance while remaining upright also opens a door to bringing non-sailing friends on trips, without the anxiety of a white knuckle ride.
“Our fleet has approximately 40 per cent catamarans currently, and the demand for catamaran purchase is now equal or greater than for that of monohulls,” he adds.
Charter ownership is attractive because you’re not responsible for the boat’s upkeep, and you can typically spread the costs of ownership more widely than you can with an outright purchase.
As first-time charter boat owner Julie Boyd explains below, you can swap weeks on your own boat for weeks anywhere the company has a charter base: “We can now sail in places that we would never have taken our previous boat.”
Location, location, location
Pick a location where you are interested in sailing, not one that you think will charter well. And don’t be put off by that old story about the Med being unsuitable for catamarans because of tight berths. Adams says: “Those smaller spots where space is at a premium are often as easily accessed by berthing your cat on a buoy or anchor and using your larger RIB to access the dock. With berthing fees as they are today, this has more advantages than one.”
The best advice is to charter with the company before you join their ownership programme – you’ll quickly see how well they take care of the boats and of their customers.
“Looking around their fleet of boats will tell a story about the level of damage they suffer and the standards of day-to-day maintenance,” says Neil Bingham of Sail Grenadines. “I would strongly recommend viewing a five-year-old boat as well as the new ones.”
Maintenance is the crucial factor here. Of course, accidents happen sometimes, but a company with a good feel for its customers and a decent repair programme should be able to keep its boats in tip-top condition. Also, check who bears the upfront cost of maintenance – usually it’s the charter firm.
What programme?
Most charter companies offer different ways of paying for your boat. At one end of the spectrum you buy the boat outright and take an annual income (often guaranteed at between 7–9 per cent). You must have the capital available and commit to a four- to five-year contract. On the other hand, you can opt to pay a smaller proportion of the boat’s cost – typically 30-45 per cent – upfront, receive no income, then buy out the remaining value of the boat when the contract reaches term. This works out more costly in the end, but it is less capital intensive.
Sunsail and The Moorings even offer their owners a buyback option at the end of the contract, where the company pays you 20 per cent of the value to surrender the boat. “It’s popular because it avoids the final cash outlay, uncertainty of costs until sale and, in the EU, hefty VAT payment,” said Adams.
Dream Yacht Charter is another big operator with bases across the globe, including some less common destinations such as Baja California, Fort Lauderdale and Mauritius. As well as the more standard contracts, it offers a Performance programme, which gives boat owners exposure to two-thirds of charter income and access to tax benefits.
The downside is that you have to pay maintenance expenses. Dream also has a Crewed Yacht programme, suitable for boats over 45ft, where it will source the crew for you.
Does it pay?
Don’t expect ‘free’ sailing, but if you have the time to make full use of your 8-12 weeks of sailing each year, it should be much cheaper than chartering. And as you can see from the figures above, the cost of ownership is substantially lower than the upfront price of the boat.
Comparing the figures is useful – up to a point, but charter ownership is no commodity, and perhaps the best advice comes from Neil Bingham at Sail Grenadines: “It is important to choose a yacht or catamaran that suits you. This is an investment in leisure; the financial return is often not the most important thing you will get from a yacht partnership arrangement.”
Ocean Cat Sailors
Lucy Van Hove, La Cigale, Nautitech Open 40Sailors
Cruising round the world as a family has been a dream of Xavier and mine for decades – even before the kids came along! When we first started going out, we enjoyed sailing holidays in Europe on monohulls, but it was on honeymoon in the Grenadines that we fell in love with catamarans, chartering a Leopard, aptly named Two Purrfect.
When the opportunity came along to take a two-year sabbatical and follow this dream, the space that a catamaran afforded a family of five made it a logical choice. We wanted each child to have their own cabin, and there were also the other advantages, like the view from the galley when cooking, no roll and not having a keel trying to sink you in the case of a hull breach.
We also knew that we wanted a boat that paired aesthetics with performance rather than a floating caravan, which quickly narrowed the field for our selection. The Nautitech Open 40, with its sleek lines and good sailing record, was our preferred option. We had lusted after the Outremer, when looking round La Grande-Motte in 2016, but the maths of the Nautitech (80 per cent of the performance, 50 per cent of the price) made the choice a no-brainer.
We bought La Cigale in La Rochelle in September 2017, and set sail for the Canaries in October, negotiating fishing nets and tankers hugging the Iberian Peninsula.
In Las Palmas we joined the ARC Atlantic Rally. The seminars, support and tracking devices set us up for the ocean crossing, while the open cockpit of the Nautitech came into its own as a social hub, hosting impromptu parties that sometimes numbered more than 30 adults and children.
Since then we have taken on board that sailing around the world often just means fixing our boat in exotic locations. Some of this may be due to wear and tear, but in a new boat like ours it tends to be due to manufacturing faults. The scariest moment came on a night sail past St Vincent, when, in 30 knots of wind, we turned to take in another reef only to discover the wheel had totally stopped responding – the steering cable had snapped. We couldn’t open the engine compartment for repairs for fear of flooding from waves over the stern, and our Garmin autopilot was finding it impossible to cope on just one rudder.
On top of this we discovered that the handle of our emergency rudder was too long and was blocked by the helm seat.
Luckily, our secondary Raymarine autopilot managed to cope on a single rudder, and we were able to steer safely into Rodney Bay, St Lucia, eight hours later, using our port and starboard engines.
We have had a couple more dramatic lessons along the way, such as don’t try to get wind by edging a gale; cats really don’t like it! Otherwise, it has been pretty much a case of plain, downwind sailing.
In March we headed to Panama, crossing the Canal and the Equator in April – both epic maritime milestones, which we celebrated accordingly!
We are still pinching ourselves now to be in the Galápagos, preparing for our hop across the Pacific with a couple of other ARC families. Ultimately, we are heading to the Antipodes, where we plan to sell our boat before our sabbatical is over and we return to the UK. But the wind may change. Who knows?
Charter owner
Julie Boyd, Ciceron, Lagoon 39, Dream Yacht Charter
We have been catamaran owners for the past 25 years.
We kept an Edel 35 in Neyland, west Wales, sailing her to the Med after we retired, before we bought Ciceron, a Lagoon 39, last July.
The Edel was fun to sail, but we decided to upgrade to a more comfortable boat with extra room for family and friends.
We were looking to buy a used Lagoon 380. We also decided that we were going to cut down on our time away from months to weeks. This would mean that the boat would sit unused in a marina for most of the year.
While we were discussing all this, we were offered London Boat Show tickets by Dream Yacht Charter, who kept in touch with us after we’d made inquiries some years before. Looking more closely at the owner-charter option, we decided that this would be an ideal way for us to fulfil our sailing desires.
We opted to buy Ciceron, based in Calanova, Mallorca, via the Dream Easy programme over five years. We paid 35 per cent of the cost of the yacht at the start and will pay another 25 per cent at the end. At that point we will either keep the boat, sell it, or put it into a charter programme and receive an income.
It is worth mentioning that the boat is of much higher specification than standard, including Yanmar 45hp diesels, 2,000W inverter, B&G touchscreen electronics, gel batteries and additional storage in the galley.
We don’t receive an income with this programme, but nor do we pay any fees for berthing or management. We just pay a small turnaround fee when we use a boat.
During the five years, we get to sail our own yacht for 8–10 weeks per year in any of Dream’s bases across the world, such as Sardinia, Stockholm and the Seychelles. Being able to walk on board with a small bag to start our holiday, then walk away at the end without any maintenance or cleaning makes a pleasant change. We are very happy with our choice.
Jessie Zevalkink and her fiancé Luke Yeates, sailed from her house to his - 4,800 North Atlantic miles from Michigan to Cornwall
Luke asked me marry him. My feet didn’t touch the ground, I was airborne in saying yes. Within a month we were discussing sailing trips, big sailing trips, the kind of trips that people spend lifetimes planning. Luke is the kind of guy who chases big ideas. He tackles them and they become his reality. His athleticism in this department is impressive.
I was never hankering to cross an ocean. It rested on my mind as a possibility but it wasn’t eating me, in fact I probably had to be gently sold on the idea.
Luckily for Luke, he is a salesman, and a damn good one. My perspective on sailing oceans changed in meeting someone who had an admirable passion for the sea, and a confident familiarity with handling its multiple personalities. I began to think that I, too, had a small fraction of what he had. We had barely sailed together, but knew that we needed to.
I grew up as a leisurely passenger aboard Desireé, my father’s 1962 Pearson Invicta, sailing the Great Lakes. Then, I had no interest whatsoever in the action of sailing, purely catching rays and swimming to land. It wasn’t until five years ago that I sailed a boat alone for the first time. I bought a 1979 Cal 27 with one of my best friends, and we dreamed of taking it to the Bahamas.
Luke had his first taste of sailing as a kid growing up in New Zealand. The first time Luke sailed an Optimist he decided sailing was all he ever wanted to do. He forged sick notes and skipped school to go sailing. As a 12-year-old, he would disappear for lengthy afternoons sailing, much to the annoyance of his family, as he never told them where he was sailing and when he planned to return. He became obsessed, with racing in particular.
I remember the first night I met Luke, at the Annapolis Boat Show. There may have been tequila involved but one conversation I recall was sobering. Luke and a friend had sailed a Hobie cat around Britain at 21 years old, setting a speed record on the way. I understood his extremity; his pushing of boundaries, which made me feel like I had yet to push mine, even though I thought I already had. Simply imagining being on the trampoline of a Hobiefor 28 days straight, soaking wet and freezing, had my mind ping-ponging with questions. I wanted to know everything.
In agreeing to spend the rest of my life with Luke there was no question about my future on the ocean. When I realised what ingredients we had laid out in front of us, I pitched him my brilliant idea: “Let’s sail from my house to your house, Michigan to England, before we get married. The ultimate premarital test!”
I didn’t even have to finish the pitch before Luke was speaking in numbers, routes, seasons, and logistics. I sat my father down and chose my words wisely: “Dad, can we sail your boat to England?”
Desireéis solid, built by wooden boatbuilders during the early days of glass. She is a beautiful design tastefully crafted by Bill Tripp Jr. She is a yawl rig with long overhangs, a big, full bow and a lovely counter stern, with sweeping sheer lines and low freeboard.
Luke was in love with the demi bulwarks with their mahogany cap rail, essential for keeping all lines on board, not to mention having stopped both of us from sliding off the deck on several occasions. She was designed for the Newport to Bermuda Race, which her sistership won back in the Sixties. This was the first glassfibre design to win an offshore race anywhere. It was guaranteed the boat would be fast and strong enough for any ocean.
The never-ending job list began. Inside an ice-cold storage unit during a northern Michigan winter, we prepped Desireéto cross the Atlantic. With numb fingers we installed self-steering, solar, AIS, a new head, and pieced together a newly rebuilt engine.
We measured the rig for new sails, installed an inner forestay… and the list went on and on. By spring’s first thaw, we launched her and sailed away on 17 April, just a few degrees above freezing.
Our route took us across four of the choppy and unpredictable Great Lakes, out through the ripping currents of the St Lawrence Seaway and into the Atlantic Ocean.
We were to cross the North Atlantic from St Johns in Newfoundland to Falmouth, south-west England. I had never been so terrified and never wanted something so badly. Planning and executing this voyage took everything we had mentally, physically, emotional, and financially. Our relationship orbited Desireé, our conversation rarely straying from the Atlantic Ocean. We were completely consumed.
It took one month to get out of the Great Lakes and over to Montreal, a wicked and arctic experience of frosty decks with both water and air temperatures just a few degrees above freezing. The Great Lakes were fierce, but my motivation to sail the boat to the ocean was to gain the confidence and to prepare for conditions that we expected to be much fiercer.
Heading for ‘Iceberg Alley’
Sailing double-handed on a classic boat was demanding. Our first night out of Quebec City we had to short tack up a narrow shipping channel, all hands required on deck. With 9 knots of current and ships navigating the channel, we both remained awake until the following day. Progress was hampered on several occasions, by headwind gales and wicked tidal currents pushing and shoving us as they pleased. Time was ticking away and we were far behind our ambitious schedule that had been based around career obligations. ‘Iceberg Alley’ was up next, and it was not the place to be rushing.
We opted to sail without radar, agreeing it was just another distraction, another drain on the battery, and another excuse for our eyes not to be on the horizon. A controversial decision? Yes. We entered the iceberg zone on the south coast of Newfoundland where seven bergs had been reported. The sun had set, and I disliked that night more than any other. It was foggy and windy, the kind of fog that messes with your mind. We turned off our running lights to eliminate the back glow, in hopes of seeing just a few more feet ahead of the bow. We dropped all canvas apart from two reefs in the main to slow down. Lightning flashed twice a minute but there was nothing to see besides birds circling, fog, wind, and blackness.
We agreed to take shorter shifts and I went down below to try and rest. I tried to sleep, unsuccessfully, and I smelled ice. I didn’t say anything because I didn’t trust that it was possible to smell ice.
When we switched shifts we sat together for a few moments in the companionway, looking ahead into the fog. I squinted to focus, and gripped Luke’s arm. “Look, look!” Just 200 yards away a wall of white passed down the port side of the boat. Visibility was so poor we hadn’t spotted it until we were already passing it. A chunk of glacier the size of a hotel silently drifted back out of sight.
It was terrifying and magnificent. I’m just a girl from Michigan; this was hard for me to wrap my head around. We decided to stop on Newfoundland’s south coast the following morning and review our iceberg tactics.
The anticipation of crossing the ocean was the worst of it. It was mental preparation for ultimate disaster. An uninsured, borrowed, classic yawl in which I held huge emotional value, captained by two opposites: Luke, a dinghy racer and accomplished super sailor who thrives on speed and efficiency; and myself, the slowest coastal cruiser known to man who knew a thing or two about diesel engines and virtually nothing about sails, a green ocean sailor.
By the time we reached St Johns, Newfoundland, we had learned a lot about the boat, and even more about each other. We had done our studying. We’d read our books and had a thousand conversations with experienced sailors. We took every precaution. Information was everywhere, it was just up to us to decide on the validity of that information, to agree or disagree.
We had to make our own decisions based on our own abilities and our own boat, no one else’s. This is tricky.
The whole reason for sailing all the way to St Johns, Newfoundland, was so that we could sail the great circle route over the North Atlantic, the fastest possible crossing for that section of ocean. Although it is the shortest mileage, timing is tricky. Leave in June and there are icebergs everywhere; wait too long and the ice has gone but it’s hurricane season. You have two choices: mountains of water, or mountains of ice. We decided ice would be better as you can sail around ice… if you can see it. We kept a diligent lookout for the first 600 miles until we were well clear of the Labrador Current.
Violently ill for the first two nights, it took five days for my body to adjust to the swells and sleep patterns. Energy and motivation was restored after week one and Luke and I found our divine rhythm. We were in a water park along for the ride, fine-tuning the sails and the Hydrovane. Days would go by on the same tack with only the most minute of adjustments. Gales and torrential rain would pass by, stirring up the seas and making the simplest of tasks effectively impossible, only to be followed by hours spent floating upon a sea of mercury, rocking side to side in the leftover swells, completely becalmed.
It took 17 days to cross the ocean. Two days of headwinds, 15 days downwind, three days becalmed. We never saw waves over 15ft, or winds higher than 45 knots. We did see three icebergs and six cargo ships, over 102 watch changes. I kept waiting for it to get worse, to meet God in a 30ft wave, to be locked inside the cabin under bare poles. But it never got worse and I didn’t meet any gods. The only thing that locked us inside was rain. We considered ourselves extremely lucky.
Desireécame alive once out on the ocean, beam reaching in 35-40 knots of wind heavily reefed, the staysail set with the Hydrovane self-steering gear engaged, and she proved herself as a truly excellent ocean-going yacht.
However, in under 10 knots of wind the boat would start to wallow in the dying swell, and it took a full sail change using the big asymmetric and the mizzen staysail to get her moving again. We had a bombproof set of Hyde Sails and went through every possible sail combination several times. We tried goosewinged, Twizzlerigged (double genoa goosewinged), poled back asymmetric main, mizzen and mizzen staysail, sometimes when really windy just sailing on the staysail only. The inner forestay and staysail combination was essential for this boat and this trip. The Hydrovane was our best friend and our Mazu weather app prepared us for the gales.
Making landfall
On the 17th evening we flew by the legendary Bishop Rock and made landfall in the Isles of Scilly under moonlight. We dropped the hook in St Agnes under the stars. We drank our last two beers and watched the sunrise in the stillest of waters.
It was the greatest reward, and the greatest sense of accomplishment. After 88 days since leaving Michigan and 4,800 miles in total from ‘my house’ to ‘his house’, Luke and I had solidified our joint capabilities. We had short-cut years of married life getting to know each other’s ‘worst’ selves. In very close quarters, we were forced into endless physically and mentally uncomfortable scenarios. When we made it to the other side, I can honestly say I’d never felt so complete, so entirely connected to another person, so in tune with how I wanted to spend my life, my time, my money.
We believe that any decent coastal sailor is capable of crossing the Atlantic, it is truly simpler than many of the hazards that coastal sailing brings. I never expected to feel so relaxed in the middle of an ocean; I became most anxious when we closed in on land. The nervousness of actually going often forces you to over-prepare, and all those precautions stacked up make for an ultra-safe vessel. And once you understand your ability to cross an ocean, you can go anywhere.
We have agreed to sail Desireéback to my father in Michigan. Now it’s just a question of if we’re going to take the long way or the short way home.
Just eighteen months after their first J launch, HH Catamarans has grown the on-water fleet to six bespoke performance cruising catamarans: four semi-custom HH66s and two unique HH55s.
Having already sailed a combined 30,000nm, the HH fleet is quickly racking up miles and ticking off the world’s most prestigious regattas and idyllic cruising destinations. The HH66s have found great success on the race circuit, with 66-01 R-SIX and 66-03 Nala landing on the podium in every event entered in the 2017-2018 season.
R-SIX finished 2nd in class in the formidable 600-mile Rolex Fastnet Race, proving the sturdiness and reliability factor.
Newcomer 66-05 Flash joined her sisterships at Les Voiles de St. Barths, bringing the HH count to three – comprising fifty percent of the Offshore Multihull class.
20-30kt breeze and 2-3m seas challenged the fleet, with multiple competitors being forced to withdraw in various races.
The HH contingent sailed tough and overcame obstacles, landing in 2nd, 3rd and 4th place overall in the event.
While competitive pursuits captivated half of the fleet, the remaining three HH cats spent the season cruising. Onboard 55-01 Minnehaha, the owners explored the far reaches of the Caribbean with friends and family, working their way through the usual haunts of the Virgin Islands and Lesser Antilles and then making their way to the Saints and eventually on to Grenada. Minnehaha is now set to enjoy a little spa time before continuing on to Panama and through the canal into the Pacific later this year.
Her sistership, the newly launched HH55-02 Hai Feng, spent the season in Florida, and is now preparing to head North to enjoy the summer in New England.
She’ll be joined there by Nala and Flash, as well as the fleet’s newest member, the soon-to- launch HH55 Utopia.
This Fall we’ll see the HH on-water count grow yet again, with a fourth HH55 and a fifth HH66 scheduled to launch before the year’s end. With the HH50 now also in production, the pace is showing no sign of slowing – an exciting time for one of yachting’s most exciting brands. To learn more visit HH Catamans or click here to contact their sale team.
While many prefer the looks and potential speed of some of the faster cats, in reality the majority of sailors do not actually want to cruise particularly fast. This is the wind-down time they’ve looked forward to – why rush it? Space is king. These production cats rely on a formula of maximum deck and accommodation space for the length and money, and, in terms of a holiday platform or for all-round family cruising contentment, are seriously hard to beat.
The market is dominated by Lagoon, Fountaine Pajot and Leopard, who have order books that read like cricket scores. But companies like Bali and Bavaria/Nautitech are also becoming increasingly popular as they bring a more open and exterior focused layout. If you are still on the fence.
Just launched: Leopard 50
In its guise as the ‘own brand’ catamaran of Sunsail and the Moorings, Leopard has been extraordinarily successful. The Cape Town yard of Robertson and Caine has turned out over 1,500 catamarans and almost all of them have been sailed to their new homes around the globe – a phenomenal calling card, when you think about all those South Atlantic miles.
The new 50 replaces the popular 48, updating it with a host of features that have proved popular in the smaller models. From the outside, the boat has been restyled rather than redesigned. The topsides have been jazzed up with a stripe of smoked glass that conceals bigger portlights. The coachroof is more angular and square. This has the advantage of increasing the window area in the saloon, including a full-length skylight.
Leopard makes a point of putting the table and seating at the back of the saloon and the galley at the front. The logic is to connect indoor and outdoor social spaces – something that is enhanced by the sliding door and windows at the aft end. This leaves enough space for another unique feature among its series catamarans: a weathertight door out of the front of the saloon into the forward cockpit.
But the real ace in the Leopard 50’s feature list is the option of having a true flybridge on the hardtop over the cockpit. This comes complete with a lounge area, table and sunbed plus further choices for speakers and a shade awning. This adds weight high up and raises the boom, so for those in search of better sailing performance, there is also a classic hardtop version, the 50P. The ‘lounge’ version can still manage 40° off the true wind, and the polars predict a top speed of just over 12 knots. The key difference for the market over the 48 is its ability to offer five cabins with crew quarters, allowing four cabins to be sold.
The other key changes have taken place “under the bonnet”, as naval architect Alexander Simonis of Simonis Voogd puts it. Carbon-infused ring frames have been used to make the boat stiffer in key areas, making the more open-plan layout possible without adding too much weight. It is a technique that was successfully pioneered on larger racing cats.
First impressions
The European press launch for the Leopard 50 hinted at the phenomenal space this new model offers. At one time I counted 31 people on the aft deck, most sitting comfortably!
And it was the space that continued to amaze me as I walked through the boat. Not so much the colossal volume in the hulls – that’s almost expected in today’s family/charter cats – but more the amount of social space there is on deck and the separation between these areas. There is room enough for one family to chill in the forward cockpit, for example, another on the flybridge, one in the saloon and a fourth in the aft cockpit!
At the same time, I appreciate how Simonis Voogd has retained the stepped hulls to keep a narrow entry but beam above the waterline. Launched into the unforgiving waters off Cape Town, these cats are still expected to sail to weather. Visibility from the single helm station will be an issue – indeed forward-and aft-facing cameras are fitted to aid berthing manoeuvres.
The standard level of fit-out and finish also looked good. Some 17 boats were sold in first three days of the Miami Boat Show, half of which are destined for The Moorings charter fleets.
Born of racing stock in 1975, Fountaine Pajot has since evolved into building seaworthy cruising catamarans.
It has just launched the Astréa 42, a replacement for the Lipari 41 and one that completes its line-up from 40ft to 67ft. She shares the design DNA of her sisters, namely a trademark positive sheer, slightly inverted bow, bulkhead helm station and ease of handling.
The Astréa is all about comfort. She features a good-sized cockpit, with armchair-style seating along the aft crossbeam. Between the skirts at deck level, there’s an optional ‘beach club’ – a teak slatted platform, to you and me. This can be lowered 25cm below the water or raised with the dinghy on it. There’s another social area in front of the coachroof by the trampoline.
Although she measures just 42ft overall, FP and designer Berret Racoupeau have put much thought into the area around the helm. To keep the boom lower, they’ve stuck with their favoured bulkhead helming position, with all control lines running back to a double seat there. On the hard-top to port there is a sunpad and aft of the mainsheet track, optional solar panels.
The interior has also been designed for optimum communication: sliding doors connect the saloon and the cockpit into one big space. Configuration is highly modular, but there are plenty of options, including 12 shower/heads layouts and either three or four cabins. The show boat had a clever central shower area that is accessible from either forward or aft.
First impressions
This is the little sister to the Saona 47 that launched last year, and shares much of the styling.
FP sold 120 Saonas in a year. Now consider that it had already sold 130 of this new 42 before the first boat was launched. Such sales figures are driven by a market demanding as much space and comfort as possible in a smartly designed and easy-to-manage package.
The volume of the cabins is almost on a par with the Helia 44. It even boasts an island berth in the owner’s cabin. My chief concern is how such volume in the hulls and the low bridgedeck might affect her performance, particularly in waves. If you do opt for one, be wise that the 40- 50ft family cruiser cat market is truly booming, so you’d better be patient if you want a new boat.
One of the few cruising trimaran builders out there, Neel is really making its mark at the moment. The company is doubling in size this year, thanks to the success of the 51 last year. It has just re-skinned its popular 45 into the faster 45 Evolution and the La Rochelle-based yard has now announced a new 47, fitting snugly between the 45 and 51. Unlike its sisters, this is designed by French veteran Marc Lombard, best known for his Figaro II designs and work with Jeanneau.
The 47 borrows from the larger 51 with the strangely copyrighted ‘Cockloon’ concept, marrying cockpit and saloon living spaces through fully opening rear doors. The master cabin is carved out of the starboard corner of the saloon, to offer the benefit of views from the main deck. Up to four further doubles are available in the outrigger hulls.
Where the three-hull design really comes into its own is in performance terms. You get more righting moment from the broader beam, a much stiffer rig because the mast and stays are all fixed to the same monolithic centre hull, and consequently sharper performance to windward. Comfortable, fast and with styling that is guaranteed to turn heads when she hits the water in early 2019.
Craftsmanship and semi-custom build are the calling cards of French brand Privilege Marine. The yard may have increased its efficiency under the ownership of the Hanse Group, but don’t expect anonymous production line boats. The team will incorporate whatever finish and features you desire.
First out of the shed under Hanse’s watch is the Serie 5 – the brand’s entry-level cat. She offers a big hull with plenty of volume, but with lines by racing veteran Marc Lombard she won’t be slow. The accent is on stability for a rounded bluewater performance.
The bulkhead helm station helps keep the weight lower and is well-connected to the social space of the cockpit. The distinguishing feature is the ‘nacelle’ structure between the bows, which creates a huge volume entirely devoted to the master cabin.
The latest in Bali’s range picks up on many of the attributes that made a success of the smaller Bali 4.0. Cruising comfort remains the key characteristic of this catamaran, with lots of social space and comfortable cabins.
Bali, owned by the Catana Group, is unique in the cat market for connecting its two hulls fore and aft with a rigid deck, rather than dropping a deck on top of deck beams. The skirts of the two transoms are bridged by a solid piece of GRP, and the area where the trampoline would usually be is half turned over to a foredeck lounging and eating area.
There are no centreboards to worry about – the boat relies on stub keels to keep her sliding forwards rather than sideways. This means less performance to windward, but easier handling. A forgiving package, offered with either three or four en-suite cabins.
Unveiled in 2017, the Lagoon 50 plugs the gap between the 52 and the 450. It has been given a new look on deck, with a slight bevel to the top of each hull, huge portlights and even more glass around the saloon. There’s an easier-to-handle rig with shorter boom, high-aspect main, self-tacking jib, and all lines lead back to the flybridge helm station. Designer VPLP has also moved the mast a little aft to reduce pitching.
As with all Lagoons, comfort, simplicity and ease are the keywords. The flybridge features comprehensive lounging space, and there’s a large cockpit with modular dining options. Another seating area exists between the saloon windows and the foredeck trampoline.
The saloon is on two levels, with a retractable windscreen, and the hulls can be configured with anything from three to six double cabins.
Buy a catamaran, but pay the berthing costs of a monohull. This is the idea behind the variable width Futura 49, launched a few months ago at La Grande Motte. But between the theory and the practice is a huge gulf, and it has taken designers Uli Bullmer and Gerhard Euchenhofer more than four years to bridge that.
The result of their labours with naval architects at Judel Vrolijk is a craft with a beam of 7.98m in sailing mode, shrinking to 4.93m in ‘parking’ mode. The key to the system is the twin carbon cross beams that provide the stability for the electric motors to pull the two hulls together.
It has something of the true catamaran to it: the two hulls serve solely as floats, with no accommodation inside, while all the living is done on the platform that connects them. The Polynesians would have approved. Removing the living space from the hulls has allowed them to be more hydrodynamic.
Futura has created a large superstructure that runs much further forward than it does on fixed cats. The dark wraparound windows contain a space that is divided up to form cabins at the forward end, with a galley and dining space at the stern opening onto the aft deck. The helm station is set into the coachroof, to starboard, with the winches mounted between seats, plus a big sunpad.
Anything from one to four cabins are optional. Note that the chart table is just a fold-down surface in the saloon, with no forward view and very limited side visibility. If the 49 proves successful – there is already a charter unit available in Croatia with Pitter Yachting – Futura plans to expand the range.
Many monohull sailors who are thinking of converting to mulithulls for distance cruising seek a combination of the speed and feel of performance cruisers together with the space multihulls provide. To offer proper bluewater cruising ability yet not be too sluggish, a fast cruising cat or tri needs to be smartly designed with payload in mind and built relatively light. Here’s where the fast distance cruisers like Outremer, Catana, Swisscat, Seawind, Balance, Atlantic, Neel and Ocean Explorer help offer that potential sabbatical or retirement dream.
Just launched: Outremer 51
The original Outremer 51 launched in 2014 and proved popular, selling more than 50 models. It also garnered a number of European and US yacht of the year titles. But things can always improve, so the French catamaran builder has updated the design with the help of feedback from hundreds of owners.
The improvements are superficial and substantial: the interior and exterior styling has been changed, but the boat’s performance has also been tweaked. Not only does this make the boat more fun, it is also “an important safety attribute”, says Outremer. With speeds in excess of 20 knots perfectly achievable, you could certainly outrun bad weather and potentially clock up 400 miles over 24 hours.
This sleek-looking boat has on-trend reverse bows, curved coachroof and low-profile steering positions. The helms are slightly raised above the cockpit with a clear 360° view out over the coachroof. It may lack the real estate of a flybridge helm station, but it saves weight and allows the boom to be lower on the mast, all of which helps stability and performance.
Control lines all lead back across the coachroof to winches within easy reach of the helmsman, except for the mainsheet, which runs along a track on the aft crossbeam behind the cockpit.
The fine entry and reverse of the bows should allow her to cut efficiently through the waves for a ride with less pitch to it. Outremer says it has raised the clearance between the waterline and the bridgedeck to prevent uncomfortable slamming.
For all their speed, these are still solid bluewater boats. Yes, you can choose a whole range of carbon upgrades, from masts and booms to tillers, but everything below the waterline is in solid glassfibre, laid up by hand. Outremer uses carbon fibre reinforcing and foam sandwich elsewhere, for rigidity and lightness, but the hull is designed to survive a heavy grounding or a mid-sea impact. Outremer claims that its boats are designed to last more than 50 years, and cover ‘millions’ of miles.
The interior offers everything that you would expect from a modern family-oriented boat.
The saloon has comfortable seating and a table for six to eight, with a forward-looking navstation that is a good size. Accommodation is three or four cabins, depending on whether you opt for an owner’s-only hull. If you do, there’s a separate heads and shower, desk, seating and storage. Outremer makes much of the boat’s quietness, free from the grinding and cracking noises you hear as some cats flex. For liveaboards this could be a welcome feature.
First impressions
Outremer has done an impressive job of updating its most popular model, outside and in. I like the modern, muscular look of the sculpted-out topsides and dreadnought bows. Improved build techniques – partly acquired since its takeover of Gunboat – have also allowed the yard to save 600kg over the original model.
The 51 has enough of a go-faster appeal for those converting from performance monohulls – the majority of Outremer’s clients, says sales manager Matthieu Rougevin-Baville – while at the same time retaining the seaworthy build and features for which the brand is known.
It’s about keeping things simple, good-looking yet durable. For those with the budget, this is the ideal size of boat, in terms of speed bought by long waterline length, volume for accommodation and payload capacity (3 tonnes), for long-term, fast bluewater sailing.
Rubbing shoulders with Nautor’s Swan in Jakobstad, Finland, the new team behind this boat have a long track record in building low-impact yachts with high performance. And it’s not just a postcode they share with Swan – German Frers is also the designer of this yacht.
The OE60 is the first in a range running to 78ft. There is carbon load-point reinforcing and an all-carbon rig for performance, with the further option of a carbon hull as well. Cutter rigged with a self-tacking jib and staysail, it has a long, sculpted bowsprit for launching downwind sails. Dual helm stations on each hull have long clear views ahead.
Clearly built with Nordic winters in mind, she has an exceedingly cosy navstation in the saloon, with access to all key controls via push buttons. The saloon doesn’t encroach on the two hulls, and is relatively low-profile with sweeping 360° views, as well as access to the foredeck and halyard winches through a watertight door.
You can devote an entire hull to the owner’s suite, or go for up to five double cabins. There’s also the option of putting the galley in the hull to free up the saloon. And with solar panels, regenerating prop, electric propulsion and black water treatment systems as options, the OE60 is designed to minimise its environmental impact.
First impressions
I wrote about this catamaran during its conception five years ago, but La Grande Motte was the first time I had seen one. Wow, talk about worth the wait… this is quite simply one of the most impressive luxury multihulls I have been aboard.
Four main subcontractors to Nautor’s Swan and Baltic Yachts formed the company and the quality of their craftsmanship is, as you would expect, world class. It is the first production cat for Frers, yet the Argentinian designer has managed to maintain his reputation for alluring lines – this is a long, low and particularly elegant design.
I like the helms right in the quarters, a more familiar position for monohull sailors, while the glass-based coachroof allows the helmsman a reasonable sight to the opposite bow. Step inside and it is the true panoramic view these vertical windows all combine to give that really appeals.
The forward cockpit is a practical area for manning halyards or standing watch. I also like the clean, spreader-less rig and massive yet practical stowage areas.
The skipper told me he had sailed a Gunboat 60 across the Pacific and that this OE60 matches its performance. A key is the C-foils, the most reliable appendage system he has used.
This was the second OE60 to be built (the first has done four Atlantic and one Pacific crossing in four years) and is being used for charter. What I’d give for a week aboard this…
The new flagship performance cruiser from the Australian brand made a welcome world debut at La Grande Motte in April. The Reichel Pugh design sits in a similar market to the Outremer 51 – a fast composite cruiser, aimed at couples going long-distance cruising.
The first six 1600s sold off plans and Seawind, which owns Corsair, now builds in Vietnam. All boats are built using vinylester and Diam foam.
The 1600 is Reichel Pugh’s first production multihull and has a practical air about it that sailors will appreciate. “It has been properly designed to sail fast when loaded,” says Seawind sales manager Jay Nolan.
The helmsman can steer from under the solid bimini or can stand outboard, with a good view over the low coachroof. Retractable, captive daggerboards, along with foam-cored lifting rudders in cassettes, allow true shoal draught capability. The daggerboards are housed underdeck and controlled from the cockpit.
The running rigging is, unusually, led under the coachroof and bridgedeck aft to a single central winch on the aft crossbeam. Reefing lines and the self-tacking jib sheet also lead to this protected, vertically mounted winch. The cockpit is smallish, linked to the interior via a huge sliding window.
The interior, also designed by Reichel Pugh, has a pleasingly yacht-like feel to it and good natural ventilation. Both the navstation and galley are well proportioned, though the dining space is less generous. The cabins don’t feel quite as light and airy, largely because the portholes are small. Seawind says these are already being enlarged for the third boat.
Three or four cabins are offered and an optional performance pack includes carbon spars and synthetic rigging.
First impressions
I quickly took to this boat. The choice of performance monohull specialists to design a cruising cat is unusual, yet here the combination of Reichel Pugh’s reputation for winning lines and Seawind’s three decades of catamaran building experience has worked admirably.
Sailors will appreciate the practical elements incorporated throughout. The design itself has particularly narrow hulls at waterline level, a low freeboard and coachroof, and the incorporation of a proper payload capacity into the light displacement. The use of captive boards and rudder cassettes allow for both sailing to windward and shoal cruising. The cassettes also create the option to replace or repair a blade easily and the low coachroof allows proper forward visibility from either helm.
With the addition of larger portholes in the cabins, the 1600 gives an interesting fast cruising option for couples.
This is where the worlds of racing and cruising multis meet, where we see high-tech lightweight craft that use exotic materials and daggerboards to help produce electrifying sailing. Gunboat was arguably the first to identify this market on a luxury level, and has since been joined by HH, McConaghy, Ice Cat, and ITA.
And then there are the performance multis that are more minimalist and lean more towards the offshore racer than cruiser – like Marsaudon, Dragonfly, Banuls, Dazcat, and Rapido… fun factor guaranteed!
Just launched: McConaghy MC50
Fresh from the Australian composite wizards McConaghy, the MC50 is the smallest series catamaran in a new range that runs up to 90ft. Drawn by Jason Ker, renowned for his IRC winners, the MC50 has performance in her DNA, designed as a fast cruising cat, capable of crossing oceans.
The MC line has incorporated input of experienced owners and sailors, and includes some impressive features. For example, the doors between the saloon and the cockpit concertina, while the saloon windows slide open electrically for al-fresco living. A skylight down the middle of the coachroof lets light flood in, and can be specced as a large ‘solar glass’ generator to keep batteries topped up.
Then there is the standard cross brace between the bows, which has been eliminated by using a carbon fibre longeron down the boat’s centreline, tensioned with Nitronic rod stays.
The first hull launched in time for La Grande Motte boatshow in April and the performance predictions are bold. Polars from McConaghy suggest speeds of over 10 knots in a stiff Force 6, at 30° off the true wind. Bear away onto a broad reach and she is expected to manage 21 knots-plus.
Upwind performance is boosted by 3.5m-deep hydraulic daggerboards in each hull, which include a fail-safe in the event of underwater collision. “We expect her to track upwind extremely well,” says James Kinloch of McConaghy.
And yet this is no pared-down raceboat. The saloon has deep seating to starboard and an extending table gives dining space for at least eight, and can convert into lounging room if you drop the table and install the fill-in cushion. The galley and island unit to port are more penthouse than deckhouse, with induction hob and moulded-in sinks. Sensibly, there is a navigation station at the forward end of the saloon, with good visibility ahead and access to all the systems.
The styling was undertaken by Design Unlimited.
“The concept was to create a penthouse apartment on the living deck,” says Ole John, director of McConaghy Multihulls Europe. “The 35-40m2 of space must be the biggest for a 50ft yacht.”
There’s a true flybridge at the aft tip of the sloping coachroof, with twin helm stations that give excellent visibility. The key control lines come back to winches here for easy single-handing. This is also a social space with seating for seven people.
“No other manufacturer to date has built a catamaran that gives effortless pace and upwind capability combined with an ultra high quality, stylish and spacious interior. This is primarily because the latter two are not comfortable bedfellows,” says Kinloch.
The flybridge means a compromise of having the boom higher up the mast, raising the centre of gravity and centre of effort on the boat – both enemies of stability. McConaghy has tried to mitigate this by slanting the boom slightly up from the gooseneck.
The MC50 has a square-top 104m2 mainsail and a 50m2 self-tacking jib, broadly similar to a Lagoon 50. But the key to her performance lies in Ker’s optimised hull shape, and the 40 per cent of her lay-up that is in carbon fibre (she is six tonnes lighter than the Lagoon 50), meaning greater stiffness.
The MC50 is available in a three- and four-cabin layout, each with dedicated heads and shower.
First impressions
The MC50 is a clever boat. A Ker/McConaghy project, it might be expected to be all about the performance. That has yet to be proved, but the first MC50 to launch stole the show at its La Grande Motte debut in April thanks to the sheer amount of open-plan living space it offers.
The natural light and ventilation offered by using sliding doors and windows needs to be seen to be believed, and the general feeling is that of a condo/apartment on the main deck.
The view from the helms on the aft flybridge is excellent, but I wonder how these relatively high positions will feel in a rolling sea. The most impressive aspect for me, however, is the engineering detail, something Ker is known for. It can be seen in the length to which he and the yard has gone with the mast base and bowsprit longeron supports, and the hydraulic centreboards that swing into the hulls.
The latter offer a clever solution to the problem of providing the performance benefits of 3.5m-deep boards without swallowing excessive accommodation space. The boards have fail-safe pins that break in a collision without risk of leaking hydraulic fluid; and they take just 12 seconds to raise.
This is a boat that we are itching to sail.
Italy’s ICE Yachts has been on the scene since the turn of the millennium, but it is only now making a foray into multihulls. And it is starting big, with a 61, and a 67 further down the line. Its calling card has always been style at the service of performance, and the cats will be no different. Enrico Contreas has designed a dashing hull with just a hint of reverse bow and a long, curved quarter. It’s stylish, but also practical. “Avoiding highly reversed bows allows for easy recovery of the mooring lines,” says Marco Malgara, ICE Yachts’ CEO.
Likewise, the shallow curve of the coachroof is more than just a flick of the designer’s pen: it is intended to reduce windage and help the catamaran go to windward. This is one reason that she can reportedly manage near 30° true wind angles. Another is the manually-operated carbon foils that reduce her displacement by about 15 per cent, and the way the rig is designed.
“The angle going to windward is almost like a monohull,” Malgara says.
The yachts are built using ultra-modern techniques. On the standard version, the hull and superstructure employ a mix of glass and carbon fibre vacuum-infused with epoxy to ensure that just 35-40 per cent of the final weight is resin. Everything on the boat is foam-cored. Customers have so far unanimously opted for the RS version of the 61, which uses all carbon fibre.
ICE has tried to mitigate the handling of a large, technical boat with electric winches and a self-tacking jib. The sheets of both sails are on travellers, giving maximum sail trimming options and a tighter sheeting angle for better windward performance. The helms are towards the aft end of the cockpit, behind a pod-like console, giving the skipper more the sense of a monohull. Dispensing with a raised helm station keeps the boom and the centre of gravity low, making for a more comfortable ride and better performance, predicted at 25 knots.
The interior is more architectural than your average luxury yacht. Expect more of a kitchen than a galley in the large open space of the saloon. The configuration allows for three, four or five cabins, including a compact crew berth in the starboard bow.
HH Catamarans has been turning heads since 2012 with a line of sporty, high-tech boats that feature a luxury fit-out. What started off on the drawing board as a fast 48ft cruising cat has grown to 50ft in the building.
“One of the biggest reasons was the addition of a second helm station aft,” explained marketing manager Will Hobbs.
“That and, during the design review, we found we were able to increase sail efficiency by 6 per cent if we lengthened the hull.”
The lay-up is all carbon, with twin bulkhead helm stations and long-skirted hulls. With a self-tacking jib and push-button controls at the helm station, she should be a breeze to sail short-handed.
Her accommodation all looks very elegant – dark teak contrasting with lighter fabrics. The saloon windows are huge, letting light gush in, with a semi-horseshoe galley to starboard, a navstation forward and dining table to port. There are configurations allowing for three or four cabins.
Morelli & Melvin’s design generally looks modern and aggressive (even if we question the aesthetics of the hard biminis above the helms).
Even if you haven’t heard of Marsaudon, you’re likely to be familiar with its work. The Brittany-based boatbuilder is responsible for some of the world’s biggest and fastest multihulls, including the trimaran IDEC 2, in which Francis Joyon demolished the round-the-world record in 2008.
Operating out of an old U-boat pen in Lorient, France, this composite expert has only been crafting its own brand of cruising catamarans for a few years, but it has already become its mainstay. It began with the TS42, which has reached 10 units, then the well-regarded TS50. The new TS5 is a remodelled version of this, with all-new tooling and a length overall of 55ft. Even before the first one hit the water, half a dozen boats had been pre-sold, such is the reputation of this builder.
In line with its racing heritage, Marsaudon is building the boat to be as fast as possible, with plenty of features stemming directly from its experience with the world’s best racing skippers. There are lots of carbon-fibre options, including a rotating mast with Spectra standing rigging, daggerboards, forward crossbeam and even a carbon main bulkhead. The hull and deck are in high-quality vinylester with foam sandwich core. Designer Christophe Barreau says that she will sail 5 knots faster than the old TS50, which was already a strong performer. The TS5 has already recorded 23 knots in 18 knots of wind while reaching.
The cockpit is relatively compact, offering a fixed table and seating for up to six. The mainsheet runs along the back of the cockpit, which is good for performance, but encroaches a little on social space. The hulls are fine, meaning that cabins are simple and berths fill all the available space – 160cm at the stern and 140cm in the bow. But don’t expect the fineries of modern catamarans.
Marsaudon doesn’t build cheap boats, but will accommodate design requests. The TS5 shares the pared-back, short-handed philosophy of the smaller TS42, but the extra length allows more concessions to comfort. The second boat, already launched, is for Gerald Bibot, founder of Squid weather routeing software.
ITA Catamarans is a new brand, but the team behind this 14.99 are no strangers to the trade and have experience from many of the major Italian shipyards. The naval architecture is by Francois Perus, whose Yacht Design Collective has worked with brands such as Catana and North Wind on their multihulls.
The result is a sleek-looking craft with stylish dreadnought bows and refreshingly low-profile coachroof. This sets the tone for the boat, due to launch this summer, which is all about stellar performance within the envelope of a fast cruiser.
Take the twin helm stations, for instance – they are perched on the aft coaming. This frees up the cockpit for socialising, without compromising the boat’s stability by putting the weight of the helm on the coachroof. The result looks as if it could feel exposed in bad weather, although there is a wraparound seat, and the Jefa pedestal can swing inboard if necessary. The outer position gives you optimal views ahead and to windward.
The dreadnought bows are designed to give extra waterline length for speed, while the long, fine underwater profile of the hulls is optimised for comfort through the waves. The flatter sections aft mean that she should plane at speed, and the winch-trimmed daggerboards improve performance to windward. High-tech foam sandwich lay-up and the use of carbon fibre in key areas keeps the hulls light and stiff.
There should be plenty of power from her fathead main and self-tacking jib. “Since most cruisers consists of one couple for sailing, the deck and running rigging had to be of a design so that one person can easily manage all sailing manoeuvres from the safety of the cockpit,” says Sonia Segato, head of marketing at ITA Catamarans.
The mainsheet runs back to blocks on the aft crossbeam, where Harken 50 winches are within easy reach of the helm. It is a set-up that has worked well for monohull sailors, and this boat’s low profile coachroof makes it possible here too.
The designer’s ambition is clearly bluewater, because the boat’s equipment and latest technology includes a Schenker watermaker and Oceanvolt electric propulsion, backed up with twin regenerating props that allow you to recharge the lithium-ion batteries as you sail.
There’s scope for owners to choose their own interior design. “Nothing is set in stone”, says ITA. The heart of the boat is its comfy saloon, which has wraparound toughened glass windows, and the starboard hull is turned over to the owner’s suite. There are several configurations to choose from, including one with an office and another with bunks.
Weight management is taken very seriously. The complete hulls weigh 2,250kg, and the whole boat is infused in one shot to come in under five tonnes. The first 14.99 will be shown at Cannes, before the owner takes it on a circumnavigation.
Gunboat is back to what it does best with a show-stopping design for a 68ft oceanic catamaran. An all-carbon build again, the new 68 has heavily reversed wave-piercing bows and super low-profile coachroof, giving it an elegant but muscular look. There’s something of Gotham City about this yacht.
Gunboat, which is now under French ownership, has brought in VPLP design for the naval architecture. They are veterans of some of the world’s biggest, fastest racing multihulls. The design team has broadened the beam of the boat and moved the mast further aft to make her more stable and easier to handle. That said, she’ll be no slouch, particularly if you select some of the turbo options, including longer rig for bigger sails, lighter weight and longer daggerboards. Speeds in excess of 25 knots in a blow, and up to 16 knots in a Force 4 are predicted. Benoit Lebizay, Gunboat’s managing partner, says: “500 miles per day is an achievable target”.
At 68ft, there is plenty of real estate to toy with here. We like the interior helm station with its sunroof – handy for keeping an eye on the sails as well as ventilation. There’s also easy access to the forward cockpit and the foredeck through two watertight glass doors in the front of the saloon. This will also bathe the interior with light.
The galley to port is big enough to sport an island unit, and the rear windows open to connect the inside and outside seating/dining areas. At this size, the two hulls offer lots of room for four, five, or six full-sized double beds with panoramic views.
Vittorio Malingri, Italy’s first Vendée Globe sailor, is the nautical brain behind a new fast cruising catamaran, christened the Unlimited C53. With no website, his is a stealthy operation, but the first hull is sold and already in-build on the Adriatic coast between Ancona and San Marino.
The boat has been designed with an experienced navigator’s eye, so the beams connecting the two hulls are an unprecedented 1.3m above the waterline, to minimise slamming in heavy seas. Tankage and heavy equipment are all positioned low and in the centre of the hulls for balance. And there is a heavy longeron, which makes for a stiffer forestay and therefore better windward performance.
The twin helms are on swinging pedestals, and the boat uses foils and T-shaped rudders to provide lift to windward. There are three broad specification levels, depending on budget, with the top spec including full carbon lay-up.
Dazcat D1295
Launched at the end of last season, the D1295 is a potent new addition to the cruiser-racer cat market. It is the smaller sister to the very impressive D1495 we tested two years ago and leans on more than three decades of successful offshore racing builds from this Cornish yard. These cats can outrun weather or look after crew if caught out.
Weight is kept low and central, including the engines, to create a fast smooth ride. It is also minimised wherever possible, with carbon used for the rudders, spinnaker pole V-striker, davits and bimini sections.
“She points really high and is the fastest tacking Dazcat so far,” says Dazcat designer Darren Newton. “We did a two-second tack where she lost no momentum at all, which for a cruising cat is phenomenal!”
Hilary Lister, the disabled yachtswoman who sailed solo around Great Britain using a sip-and-puff steering system, has died aged 46
“When I’m sailing I go into a different world…it’s like flying.” This is how Hilary Lister described sailing, a sport she discovered in her thirties that took her beyond the limitations of her disability. She went on to become one of the sport’s most inspirational solo sailors.
Born able-bodied, she developed a degenerative condition, reflex sympathetic dystrophy, at the age of 15. Yet her increasing disabilities did not stop her from striving for her goals – she studied biochemistry at Oxford, though during this time lost the use of her legs and had to use a wheelchair. She went on to study for a PhD, but in 1999 lost the use of her arms and was unable to finish her doctorate.
The same year, she married Clifford Lister, a musical director, teacher and soloist.
In 2003, she was introduced to sailing at Westbere Sailing Opportunities near Canterbury.
“Within 30 seconds of being in a boat I was in love”, she said. But she found being unable to control the boat herself frustrating and decided to find a way to helm herself. She had also been following the exploits of Emma Richards, who was racing solo round the world in the Around Alone race, and decided she would find a way to sail solo across the Channel.
With the help of the UK Sailing Academy in Cowes and Emma Richards’s sponsor, Andrew Pindar (who became an indefatigable supporter of Lister), a Soling was adapted to be sailed using the sip-puff mouth controls that Lister used on her wheelchair. In 2007, she sailed alone round the Isle of Wight, and round the coast of Britain from Plymouth to Dover in 2009.
“As we got to know her more and more her bravery and zest shone through,” commented Andrew Pindar. ‘[That was] exemplified by her rocking up at the Extreme Sailing Series and persuading Olly Smith and Nick Crabtree to strap her to the trampoline before heading out for hull-flying, smile-inducing spins.
‘In 2014 an ocean crossing beckoned as she sailed from Mumbai to Muscat, with a necessary crew this time, on Albert Whitley’s Dragonfly trimaran using a sip and puff system installed by Roger Crabtree.’
Between these voyages, she founded Hilary’s Dream Trust, to help other disabled and disadvantaged adults realise similar ambitions.
Lister won many awards and accolades for her achievements, including a Sunday Times Sportswoman of the Year Awards and the Royal Cruising Club’s Seamanship Award. Her stepson, Alex Lister, commented on her life: “My stepmother was the definition of an inspirational woman. I never heard her complain once about her condition or the hand life dealt her. Instead, she turned a challenge into an opportunity and achieved things able-bodied people can only dream of.
“Her strength of character and desire to make the world a better place for others is a huge source of motivation for me personally. If I can make half the positive impact on the world that she did, I will be a very happy man.”
Double-handed racing is booming in popularity, with both inshore and offshore events introducing double-handed classes. We get expert tips on how to set up your boat and routines for success
Race Start - Redshift Reloaded, Sail No: GBR 419, Class: IRC Three, Owner: Ed Fishwick, Type: Sun Fast 3600
The popularity of double-handed sailing is on the rise. This year even Cowes Week ran a double-handed category for the first time, with inshore round the cans racing for two-person crews.
So why is two-up catching on in such a big way? Alexis Loison is a professional sailor who competes regularly on the Figaro circuit. He’s also been part of the winning crew in the Rolex Sydney Hobart Race. His biggest claim to fame came in 2013 when Alexis and his father Pascal raced their JPK10.10 Night and Day, to become the first double-handed crew ever to win the Rolex Fastnet Race; not just in their class, but outright, ahead of all the fully crewed boats.
According to Alexis, it’s partly because the logistics are much easier to organise with just two of you, rather than having to pull together a full crew of seven or more people all with different levels of commitment. Also, autopilot developments have made it much easier to handle a boat shorthanded. But for Loison the main attraction is that there is never a dull moment. No sitting on the rail for hours at a time. “When you’re sailing doublehanded, you have the helm, you navigate, you are busy during all the manoeuvres. There’s never a dull moment.”
So what are Alexis’s five top tips for successful doublehanded racing? Andy Rice found out…
It’s really important to team up with someone who you like and who you respect. You have to have a similar outlook on sailing and on how you approach competition. With my father, I couldn’t find a better co-skipper; he’s the man who knows me the best, and that’s very important.
When you team up with someone for the first time, make sure you have both discussed everything in detail before you go afloat; how you will communicate, how you divide the roles, what weather you expect. It’s all about agreeing the processes in advance, and having your systems in place. Routines are vital.
Night And Day, the JPK 10.10, rounding the Fastnet Rock
Choose the right boat
I love Class 40s, they are fast, powerful boats. But for two-handed racing a two-tonner is not all that much fun. The gear is big, and the boat is maybe too powerful in some ways. It can feel like the boat is in control of you, rather than you being in control.
A 33-footer, like the JPK10.10 that I sail with my father, that’s my favourite size of boat. It’s small enough to make it easy to change a sail; it is what I call a ‘human’ boat! Of course the boat is not the whole answer. Whichever one you choose, it’s important to really know your boat, to have practised all the manoeuvres so there is no hesitation about what to do. When it’s blowing hard in the middle of the night, you have to be ready.
Twin rudders
While we were racing in the Fastnet that we won overall, we found ourselves in a match race with another JPK10.10, pretty much identical to us except it was fully crewed. We were both reaching along in 25 knots of wind, yet despite them having more crew weight on the rail, we were faster in a straight line.
Why? Because our boat has two rudders and theirs only had one. They suffered a number of broaches while we didn’t spin out once.
Two rudders give you so much more stability and control, which is even more important when you consider how reliant we are on the autopilot when racing doublehanded. Two rudders are definitely better than one.
Prepare for the worst
Before a big race we do a lot of weather preparation. We look closely at the GRIB files, we analyse all the currents. We use Adrena, which is a really good tool for helping with your navigation plans. We make up a little route book with key points for different parts of the race.
Also, we talk through worst-case scenarios about what we’ll do if a sail breaks, and so on. Be meticulous about your safety planning, double-check your lifejackets, the life raft, and so on.
We have a personal AIS system and a small wireless remote control that has two functions. One, we can use it to change the course on the autopilot; and two, if we have a man overboard, the remote automatically registers a MOB situation on the computer.
A heavy wind gybe is the most difficult manoeuvre in two-handed sailing. We always follow the same procedure. Firstly, we use only one pole but we have two sets of sheets (guys and sheets) each side for the spinnaker.
I take the helm and my father handles the No.1. I think it’s safer for me to be steering rather than leaving the boat on autopilot.
Cleat the mainsail traveller in the middle of the track.
Adjust the sheet to the ‘standard position’ marked on the rope. At this point the clew is sitting near the forestay. Barber-haulers are set at an equal distance, in line with the top of the guardwires.
We ease a lot of downhaul on the pole and, once the boat is surfing nicely on a wave, I gybe the boat, with the new sheet in my hand so I am able to adjust the sheet for stability of the spinnaker and the boat. Obviously this is more difficult when the boat is bigger. If there is really strong breeze then my father will help me handle the sheet.
We make sure the boat is stable, and then my father passes the pole to the other side, with no stress because we have guys and sheets. I also keep the sheet in my hand to help him out.
Helen Fretter went to the start of the Golden Globe Race to find out why 17 men and one woman have eschewed modern technology to race solo around the world for 300 days
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***2018 Golden Globe Race - Mark Sinclair (AUS) Lello 34 Coconut, passing through the Marina Rubicon 'Gate' off Lanzarote in the Canaries.
A voyage for madmen, so was the original Sunday Times Golden Globe Race deemed. When the first non-stop race around the world began in 1968 few thought a man could sail around the world alone. The common opinion was that the limits of human endurance would be reached long before 30,000 miles around the planet could be completed.
In some respects those early critics were tragically correct. Donald Crowhurst was famously driven beyond the edge of reason during the race, falsifying position reports before his presumed suicide. Bernard Moitessier felt the siren call of the sea so strongly he continued on alone, unable to return to western life or even his family. Six others failed, one – Nigel Tetley – after his yacht sank beneath him.
But one man and one yacht proved them wrong. Robin Knox-Johnston and Suhaili showed it could be done when he completed his solo circumnavigation in 312 days.
Since then more than 200 people have sailed around the world alone, non-stop (for context, some 530 have gone into space, and 306 have summited K2).
From BOC Challenge and Vendée Globe competitors to record-breakers and record-seekers, pioneers of different ages and nationalities, sailing the wrong way round, or from start ports as various as Qingdao and Mumbai, solo sailors have pushed the limits of what a non-stop circumnavigation can be. No longer is there any question that it can be done: the current record time stands at a breathtaking 42 days, set by François Gabart in the 100ft trimaran Macif last winter.
Yachts have never been faster, communication equipment never more advanced, weather forecasting and routeing tools never more accurate. So why on earth would 18 souls bid to sail around the world with the same privations those nine original Golden Globe entrants had to endure? They will not be the first nor the fastest, so why voluntarily cut contact for months on end, place their faith in small, traditionally equipped yachts, and let their fates be determined by the wind, the waves, and their own mental fortitude?
The reasons are as varied as each of the 18 entrants. The premise of the 2018 Golden Globe race is a little extraordinary, and it has attracted a collection of unique and extraordinary characters.
The race was born out of a personal passion. Australian adventurer Don McIntyre finished 2nd in the 1990-91 BOC Challenge solo round the world race, but harked to sail around again in Knox-Johnston’s wake. As the 50th anniversary of Knox-Johnston’s return approached McIntyre started to plan how it could be done. Others showed an interest in joining him, and what started as a personal pilgrimage rapidly evolved into a full-blown race. McIntyre initially planned to take part, but the organisation required escalated until he sold his boat (to entrant Kevin Farebrother) and became race chairman instead.
Perhaps surprisingly, there was never any shortage of people willing to take part. At one stage the entry list was overflowing with 30 declarations of interest and another 15 on the waiting list. In the end, 18 became official entrants, 17 took the startline – the financial, practical and qualification demands of the race having seen all but the most determined away.
Among those 18 were numerous professional sailors, whose CVs include the Jester Challenge, OSTAR, Vendée Globe, BOC Challenge, superyacht events, the Whitbread Round the World Race, and many more.
But there was also a former firefighter, Kevin Farebrother, who admits that he ‘barely’ had the qualifying mileage under his belt; Palestinian currency trader Nabil Amra; 28-year-old Susie Goodall, taking part in her first ever solo race, and amateur yachtsmen for whom the event is a fantasy made reality.
For Jean-Luc Van Den Heede the race is a chance to recreate a formative moment in his own life. “I followed [the 1966 Golden Globe] at the time – I was 23. I dreamt about this race.”
From watching those early pioneers, Van Den Heede went on to carve out a sailing career few could dream of. He has five circumnavigations to his name, four of them podium finishes (2nd and 3rd places) in both the Vendée Globe and BOC/Around Alone Race. Aged 73, he has absolutely nothing to prove and is gleefully doing this for the sheer fun of it.
“I didn’t want to sail again around the world, for me that was finished. Even if Matmut [his sponsor] gave me €10million I wouldn’t do the Vendée Globe again. I’ve done it twice, and now it’s a technological race, and less of an adventure,” he tells me.
Eager entrant
Yet when a friend mailed Heede details of the Golden Globe Race proposal in 2015, he was signed up within the week. Having raced at the leading edge of competition, will he not find it frustrating to be sailing round the world so slowly? “No,” he says, “it is because it is different that I want to do this.”
At 73 years he considers that he might be “a little bit too old”, so says he’s taking part with an open mind. However, he is clearly not a competitor to be underestimated and after two weeks of racing was lying 3rd.
Australian Mark Sinclair is another sailor for whom a major draw is the sense of becoming part of maritime history. Sinclair’s diminutive orange Lello 34 Coconut carries a library that includes everything from Homer’s Odyssey to the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Naomi James’ Alone Around the World, and of course, Knox-Johnston’s A World of My Own.
“I think it’s crazy to sail single-handed around the world without stopping – why would you do that? Why not stop at all those interesting places? But this is a re-enactment of Knox Johnston’s voyage: frame it like that with a sextant and a Walker trailing log and Nories tables, and it’s just so exciting.”
Sinclair sailed solo from Australia to New Zealand in his early 20s and dreamed of a circumnavigation, but a career and family life got in the way. “One of the problems of sailing around the world is you can put it off, and put it off…” he admits, “But this is the 50th anniversary of Knox-Johnston doing the first circumnavigation. It’s on a date – if you miss it, there’s not going to be another. So it’s a catalyst to action, and I just found it absolutely compelling.”
Others discovered the notion much more recently. Former firefighter and SAS soldier Kevin Farebrother only started sailing five years before he started the Golden Globe, and confirmed his entry after reading A World of My Own during an Everest expedition.
Dutchman Mark Slats is another adventurer for whom the Golden Globe is another personal challenge. Intensely driven and competitive, Slats interrupted his Golden Globe preparation to row the Atlantic, demolishing the solo world record time by five days and rowing relentlessly for 18 hours a day.
He has set targets for the number of days he wants each ‘stage’ of the Golden Globe to take and says the thing he is most concerned about is losing motivation: “The hardest thing will be to not get lazy, every job can be
done tomorrow.”
Slats uses some bizarre psychological tricks to keep driven – even listening to music he hates for hours on end during his Atlantic row so he could ‘reward’ himself with something better at the end of a watch.
He has already completed two solo circumnavigations and has ambitions of one day doing a Vendée. “I want to be competitive in this, I’m going to be racing the whole way,” he says. He is one of the early stage leaders.
As individual as each competitor is the way they’ve approached the preparation and modification of their yachts. Philippe Péché, a Breton whose career has included twice winning the Jules Verne Trophy, is sailing one of six Rustler 36s in the race, but his is branded in the famous orange livery of PRB. His Rustler 36 has hanked-on headsails, lightweight Karver blocks and similar to make the cruising design as lightweight as possible.
Mark Slats is a world record breaking ocean rower
Mark Slats is sailing another Rustler 36. He too has focussed on reducing weight, packing as minimally as he can with no treats or luxuries. Uniquely, Slats also has two rowlocks fitted to his yacht The Ohpen Maverick with an over-length oar designed to be rowed standing. Slats plans to row for up to 12 or 15 hours a day if needed, giving extra impetus through 100 miles or so of the Doldrums.
Jean-Luc Van Den Heede has modified his Rustler 36 by shortening his rig and increasing the roach on his mainsail. He believes being able to sail consistently, reducing the need to reef repeatedly, will pay off. He also wanted to reduce weight aloft for the Southern Ocean.
Traditional aids
Mark Sinclair has kept his Lello 34 as authentic as possible, refurbishing original winches and engine and fitting a 40-year-old Aries wind vane.
Abhilash Tomy went one step further – his Thuriya is a new build near-replica of Suhaili.
Tomy, who was the first Indian sailor ever to circumnavigate the globe, wanted to build a boat in India but, according the rules, the only new build permitted was an Eric 32 – the original design of Suhaili (all other yachts must be production models, with at least 20 built and designed prior to 1988).
When he approached Knox-Johnston for advice, Sir Robin pointed out that it would be the slowest boat in the fleet. Undaunted, Tomy bought the plans for $200. “She’s the oldest design, from 1923, but the youngest boat,” he says.
Thuriya is actually a thing of loveliness, more spacious below than many of the more modern designs with beautiful woodwork on the gunwales and bowsprit. While Knox-Johnston was not always complimentary about Suhaili’s sailing capabilities, Abhilash seems fond of Thuriya.
“Upwind I don’t need to touch the tiller, she sails on her own. At 25 knots she starts moving. She likes it; I don’t have to shorten sails too much.
“The boat is in charge, she has a life of her own.”
Besides the restrictions to design, there are huge limitations on what each skipper may take. The banned list includes GPS, radar, AIS, chart plotters and electronic charts, electronic wind instruments, electric autopilots, electronic log, mobile phone, tablets, iPods, or any computer-based device, CD players, video cameras and digital cameras, satellite equipment of any kind, digital binoculars, pocket scientific calculators, electronic clocks or watches, watermakers, and materials including carbon fibre, Spectra, Kevlar, and rod rigging.
For safety the boats may carry an AIS transponder that does not give access to GPS. For emergency use only, they also carry GPS units in sealed packages. If the seals are broken, or the skipper makes landfall to carry out repairs, then they are moved to the ‘Chichester’ division of the race.
Navigation is by sextant, and all celestial observations and calculations must be clearly recorded for verification.
Communication is limited to Ham radio, weekly satellite calls with the organisers, and very brief telegram-style messages – outgoing only. Weather bulletins are received by radio.
Despite the drive for authenticity, curiously, engines are not sealed and competitors may carry up to 160 litres of fuel, buying them a few hundred miles of motoring through the lightest airs and at the compulsory film drops to handover their Super8 footage and stills photos.
Provisioning and stowage was a huge challenge for all. Every skipper I spoke to was carrying a spare mainsail, a massive item to carry on such small yachts. Spares included replacement headsails, spinnaker poles, and windvane gear. Endless tools and repair kits have to be carried – Mark Sinclair explained how he had planned to convert Coconut’s saloon table into a work bench if needed, with vices, clamps and timber packed.
Sinclair estimated he also had some 1,000 cans of food on board. Provisioning choices varied with a mix of canned and vacuum-packed meals. With no watermakers on board skippers will need to catch their own water, limiting the usefulness of freeze-dried food. Susie Goodall even opted to go plastic-free with her provisions, using dozens of glass Kilner jars.
A transformative experience
Few of the skippers who set out on 1st July had any real idea how they will contend with nine or ten months with virtually no contact from other people.
As the youngest skipper, Susie Goodall, born in 1990, will never have known life without the internet, email or text messages. It’s likely that music on cassette tapes is as alien to her as the Super 8 cine film supplied to each boat.
Goodall seemed brittle with nerves before the start, but it was hard to judge if she was nervous about the upcoming voyage, or more likely struggling to contend with the hundreds of people wanting to talk to her about the event in the final few days.
Mark Slatts thrives on utter isolation. Two days into his cross-Atlantic row he cut the wires on this GPS because he found the ‘miles to go’ countdown so intrusive.
Mark Sinclair, who has sailed thousands of miles solo, was also looking forward to it. “Moby Dick’s got 600 pages, if I read two pages a day I’ll just get through it,” he jokes.
“I spend most of my time sitting up in the cockpit watching the water go by, I find it hypnotic.
“Sometimes I have to make a radio sched and it’s so invasive, I feel like it’s invading my space.”
But not everyone can cope: within a week of starting, Ertan Beskardes withdrew from the race. He explained on Facebook: “Not talking to my family regularly to share the daily experiences has sadly taken the joy and happiness from this experience. These feelings gradually got worse until nothing else mattered except to talk to them. This wasn’t an experience I was prepared for.”
Before the start Kevin Farebrother admitted he was nervous about his lack of experience. “And to be honest, the solitude for nine months. It could be too much, I don’t know – if I only last two weeks we’ll know it’s a problem?” he said presciently.
In fact he retired after exactly two weeks, unable to adapt to sleep below decks. “For me it is like getting into the back seat of a moving car to sleep when no-one is at the wheel,” he said, as he retired from the race.
Abhilash Tomy is another looking forward to the isolation. For him the bigger challenge is rejoining the modern world.“It’s always the return, coming back that’s harder. It’s painful integrating back into society.
“I found it very amusing last time. You see people having conversations – they’re talking a lot but they’re not communicating what they want to say.”
Tomy believes the race will be transformative for all the skippers. “They all will be changed, but to what degree, to what extent and in what direction is something that will be decided by their expectations of this race, and what experiences they have.”
We will have to wait some 300 days to find out.
This article appeared in the September 2018 issue of Yachting World magazine – visit https://goldengloberace.com for latest updates on race places and retirements
Golden Globe solo skipper Abhilash Toby was dramatically rescued from the South Indian Ocean after he was badly injured and spent nearly 72 hours adrift in his dismasted yacht
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Photo Credit: Indian Navy/GGR/PPL
***2018 Golden Globe Race. Crew from the French Fisheries Patrol ship OSIRIS board Abhilash Tomy's dismasted yacht THURIYA to rescue the injured yacht yachtsman. Photographed from the Indian Navy P8i reconnaissance aircraft operating out of Mauritius.
Abhilash Tomy, the Golden Globe skipper who was dramatically rescued from the South Indian Ocean on Monday after nearly 72 hours adrift, is recovering well in hospital on Amsterdam Island.
Tomy was stranded, paralysed in his bunk after a dramatic knockdown in a 70-knot storm left him with a painful back injury, and dismasted his yacht Thuriya on 21 September.
Thuriya is a 32ft replica of Suhaili, the winner of the first Golden Globe Race in 1968. Abhilash Tomy is a former Indian Naval Commander, and was lying 3rdin the Golden Globe Race when he and other nearby competitors were caught in a low pressures system, which brought 70-knot winds and chaotic 14m seas.
Thuriya dismasted in the South Indian Ocean 1,900 miles south west of Perth, Western Australia Photo: Indian Navy/PPL/GGR
Nearby Gregor McGuckin on Hanley Energy Endurance was also rolled through 360° and dismasted, although McGuckin was not hurt.
Tomy texted race organisers after the knockdown to say: “ROLLED. DISMASTED. SEVERE BACK INJURY. CANNOT GET UP”
When there was no further communication for 12 hours, organisers alerted the MRCC in Canberra, which launched a full international rescue operation. Aircraft from both the Australian and Indian forces, and a domestic plane, flew over Tomy’s position, and found the yacht lying with the rig alongside the hull, and the main hatch open.
Tomy later reported: “ACTIVATED EPIRB.CANT WALK.MIGHT NEED STRETCHER”
Unable to reach his grab bag, Tomy had limited satellite communication, and it wasn’t until some 48 hours after his injury that he was able to try and consume some fluids. On Sunday 23 September, he sent the message: “Lugged cans of ice tea, Having that. Vomiting continuously. Chest burning.”
Tomy was rescued by the crew of the French Fisheries Patrol ship OSIRIS. They boarded the yacht via Zodiac RIB and carried Tomy back to the OSIRIS on a stretcher. Photo: Indian Navy/PPL/GGR
Tomy was rescued by the French fisheries patrol vessel Osiris on Monday, 24 September. Crew from the Osiris were able to board Thuriya and transfer Tomy to the rescue vessel by stretcher on a Zodiac RIB.
McGuckin, who had been making his way to Tomy’s assistance under jury rig, was not in distress but accepted a controlled evacuation of his yacht as he was sailing under jury rig without self-steering or reliable engine.
Tomy and McGuckin were taken to the small French territory of Amsterdam Island, a research station in the middle of the Indian Ocean with around 20 residents. There a doctor was able to X-Ray Tomy and assess his injuries, which are described as serious but understood to be muscular rather than skeletal.
Captain Dilip Donde, Abhilash Tomy’s shore manager, reported today that Tomy can now stand and is eating and drinking, but requires complete rest.
Abhilash Tomy in hospital on Amsterdam Island, two days after his Southern Ocean rescue
The Australian frigate HMAS Ballarat, which was despatched by the Canberra MRCC during the rescue, will arrive within helicopter range of Ile Amsterdam at first light tomorrow (Thursday 27). McGuckin, who is in good health, will then be transferred by helicopter to HMAS Ballarat for onward transportation to Fremantle, Australia, arriving there on 2-3 October.
Abhilash Tomy will remain in hospital on Amsterdam Island until the arrival of the Indian Navy Frigate INS Satpura on Friday 28 September, when he will be transferred by helicopter for ongoing medical treatment and return to India.
Neither yacht was scuttled during the rescue. Capt Donde told race organisers that the plan was for the Indian frigate to tow Thuriya to St Paul’s Island some 40 miles north, where a crew would stay with her to make repairs before sailing her to India.
Mike Golding OBE, ex-firefighter and twice winner of the IMOCA (Open 60) World Championship against the assembled might of France…
McGuchan’s yacht Hanley Energy Endurancewas also left drifting when the Osiris crew picked him off the yacht. In a statement today, Neil O’Hagen, spokesman for Team Ireland said:
“During the controlled evacuation of Hanley Energy Endurance, McGuckin was instructed to leave the vessel afloat.
“The French fisheries patrol vessel Osirisinstructed McGuckin that scuttling the vessel would be in breach of international maritime regulations. Hence, McGuckin removed all debris from the deck that could become separated, secured all equipment on board, and ensured the AIS beacon was active.
“The power source to the AIS device is solar panels which should remain active without any outside assistance reducing the risk to other vessels. Precautionary steps were also taken to ensure the relatively small amount of fuel onboard is secure.”
Look out for a full report on the rescue, and analysis of the circumstances which led up to it, in the November issue of Yachting World.
The new SailGP circuit will see six teams compete at five events around the world in one-design 50ft catamarans for a $1million prize purse
There had been many rumours and speculative stories, but last night at a glitzy ceremony in London the highly anticipated SailGP circuit was confirmed.
Funded by Larry Ellison, founder of Oracle and former America’s Cup holder, and run by Russell Coutts, the new Sail GP circuit will see last year’s America’s Cup catamarans, the AC50s, re-engineered and reworked to create a one-design class.
They will be raced by six teams, sailing under national flags – Britain, France, Australia, the United States, China and Japan – on a global circuit. The 2019 circuit will begin in Sydney in February 2019 before moving on to San Francisco in May, New York in June, Cowes, UK, for the first weekend of Lendy Cowes Week, and then onto Marseille, France in September.
Racing will be over two days, with evening races planned for some city venues, such as New York. Each grand prix will begin with five fleet races, before culminating in a final match race between the two leaders. The exception will be the season finale in Marseille, which will have three days of racing culminating in one, 20-minute match race for the two overall season leaders, racing for a prize of €1million.
The wing-sailed Foiling 50s are developed at Core Composites in New Zealand, which is owned by Ellison. Coutts said a staff of 110 has been working for a year on the catamarans, which are being stripped of their America’s Cup team development components and converted into a one-design.
According to Coutts, rather than having grinders (or cyclors) working constantly to provide hydraulic power, the F50s will instead have battery powered foil and rudder controls. Each cat will be sailed by a crew of five (one fewer than on the AC50s), with one dedicated to ‘joystick’ control of the foils, a helmsman and wing trimmer, and two grinders.
At last night’s opening presentation, Coutts said that whilst the boats will be one-design the aim is to allow them to evolve and adopt latest technology, with the Core engineers tasked with continually developing the catamarans. There was much talk at the launch night about how they will be regularly sailing at 50 knots or upwards.
“SailGP is the evolution of sailing,” said Ellison, SailGP founder, in a pre-recorded video message. “With equally incredible technology across our one-design fleet, we expect to see thrillingly close and competitive racing amongst national teams. And, with a modern, consistent format, SailGP will provide a new opportunity for talented sailors who want to race for their countries.”
“SailGP distills all of the most successful, exciting and relevant elements of high-performance, professional racing, while adding the extra edge that comes with nation-versus-nation competition,” commented Coutts, SailGP CEO, in the official press release. “We are aiming to be pioneers of new technologies, boat design, commercial partnerships and global audience engagement. But with every crew on the same groundbreaking F50 catamaran, this isn’t a tech arms race, rather the ultimate test to establish the best sailing team in advanced foiling catamarans.”
The opening show, for which an open air amphitheatre was built on London’s South Bank, was big on razzmatazz (smoke machines! fire! laser beams!). Whilst some details were forthcoming – for example how the nationality rule will be applied – others have yet to be unveiled, such as how the boats and circuit will tour the globe.
A 100 percent nationality rule will be applied to Britain, France, Australia and the US teams, while China and Japan will be required to have 40 percent of the crew from their home nation, increasing by a further 20 percent each year. World Sailing will sanction which sailors do, and which do not, qualify as which nationality. Effectively the rule forces countries like China and Japan to develop an elite foiling training programme.
The circuit is backed heavily by Oracle, Ellison’s cloud computing firm, with luxury goods house Louis Vuitton and Land Rover cars joining as founding partners. The plan is for the circuit to become commercially viable, and to increase to ten teams, racing at ten events.
The Great Britain SailGP Team was also introduced to home fans during the London launch. It will be skippered by Rio 2016 Olympian and 49er world champion Dylan Fletcher, with Olympic bronze medalist and highly experienced foiling cat sailor Chris Draper as team CEO and wing trimmer. Olympic silver medalist Stuart Bithell is flight controller, while Olympic rower Matt Gotrel joins Extreme Sailing Series winner Richard Mason, as the two grinders.
SailGP Great Britain Team (L-R): Stuart Bithell, Chris Draper Matt Gotrell, Dylan Fletcher, Richard Mason
“The concept of SailGP immediately excited me,” said Great Britain helmsman Dylan Fletcher. “This league allows us to compete with and against the best, and to challenge ourselves in every way possible while sailing the world’s fastest catamarans. We have the opportunity to push the limits of our sport, and this is a very proud chapter in my career. What Larry and Russell have created is truly unique, and I am confident it will capture the attention of audiences around the world.”
See SailGP.com for more information. We will be taking an in-depth look at the concept in the December issue of Yachting World.
Lucky Bird is a 1972 Swan 48 that has been given a spectacular new lease of life by Younique Yachts in the Netherlands
Can you improve on perfection? The Sparkman & Stephens-designed Swan 48 is widely considered to be one of the most iconic bluewater sailing designs of all time. To take a classic example of this 1970s yacht and turn it into a weekend sailor fit for a 21st century family was brave, possibly even a little heretic.
Lucky Bird’s radical refurbishment wasn’t always on the cards. When the Swan 48 arrived at Younique the original plan was to fully restore the interior carpentry, but to keep it fundamentally original.
As more and more of her traditional fittings were stripped out, however, the beauty of S&S’s original lines became visible inside the hull, as well as outside.
Inspired by what they found, owner Eric Bijlsma – who also owns the Hoek-designed superyacht Firefly – and the Younique team decided to change their refit plans. Instead of recreating something original they moved towards restoring her with a much lighter, more modern touch.
“I have always been in love with the designs of Sparkman & Stephens, and I know that Olin Stephens’s favourite design was the Swan 48. I’m very keen on the lines and the heritage of the brand, but I was missing a bit of the modern feel,” recalls Bijlsma, who wanted a simpler yacht to sail with his family.
Creating sightlines along the hull edges and cabin sole, rather than concealing them under heavy fitted joinery, was integral to the design. “Once you can see where the hull meets the floor, which gives a lot of space, you see how the beautiful lines work from the interior,” explains Egbert Wattel, co-founder of Younique Yachts.
“Actually that was the starting point, and from then on we came up with new ideas to show the construction of the hull.”
The main tool they chose was miles of thin strip sycamore planking, which creates an optical effect of illustrating the original hull lines through the shadows between the planks. The new woodwork takes its inspiration from the original Swan 48 interior, which had some areas of strip planking visible above bunks in the forepeak and saloon, but has now been used throughout in a much lighter finish. The fixings were also changed, from visible screws to aluminium bolts with each bolt head hand-sanded and polished for the desired finish.
“If you look closely you can see around the hatches and the corners of the bulkheads, we wanted to keep that and rather than do anything to smooth it away, keep it honest,” explains Wattel.
Some areas of the yacht’s construction have been modified, and the interior reflects that. Lucky Bird’s new rig has single stays, which has required new structure to be built underneath the chainplates for additional stiffness.
“The new rig has one chainplate, so all the stress is focused on one area now,” says Wattel. “So we designed a new strut under the deck, a large knee that we shaped in plywood first and integrated it into the bunks, and then the whole structure was covered with glassfibre and carbon fibre.”
In keeping with the overall ethos of showing rather than concealing the functional elements of the yacht, the contrasting carbon was instead integrated into the saloon berths. “All the things you need, it’s OK to see them, because if they are done properly each thing is a work of art,” explains Wattel.
A modern entrance
Other major structural changes were made around the companionway, where the pit area, coachroof and hatch have been entirely rebuilt.
“The entrance was not originally central in the boat,” explains Wattel. “It was 70mm to
the starboard side, and that was designed to get access to the aft cabin properly.
“But because we wanted to have all the lines symmetrical we changed the whole entrance, cut out the original one and replaced it, making it wider and symmetrical again.”
Over the companionway there is now a large custom glass structure, with a flush glass hatch sliding over the top of a fixed glass pane for maximum light down below.
A new curved structure forward of the cockpit also houses channels for submerged lines, leading to newly recessed electric Andersen winches.
“The whole goal for me with this area was that it had to look like it was original. A Swan owner would know straight away that it is new but other sailors would think it is original. So the lines flow with the original lines – actually I think it is even better now,” comments Wattel.
The goal of creating a flush, minimalist deck on a 1970s design raised some challenges, the most forward hatch proving particularly technically difficult due to the curvature of the foredeck area. To achieve a flush finish Younique Yachts had to custom design everything from the glazing to the hinges.
The original anchor installation was removed, and replaced with a concealed anchor locker in the starboard bow. The characteristic Swan toerail was also pared down.
“The original Swan has quite a lot of aluminium toerail. We discussed for a while if we could refurbish it or remake it. In the end we said we’d remove it, so we had to cut out the whole thing,” recalls Wattel.
“Then we had to grind out part of the laminate, apply new extra-strong laminate because some of the strength would be lost by getting rid of the toerail there, and then the whole deck was filled flush again.”
The steering pedestal appears original but is in fact also all-new, sitting slightly higher to accommodate hydraulic controls for the backstay and vang as well as a joystick for the bow thruster, with a new custom wheel and modern compass.
A new higher aspect carbon fibre rig with slightly aft-swept spreaders carries an updated sailplan, a furling genoa, small jib, and an asymmetric which is set from a fixed tack point on the bow.
Accommodation
Down below there is an aft owner’s cabin, while pipecots in the foredeck give additional accommodation for weekending. The saloon berths are on two different levels, giving a seating area that can also be adapted to provide children’s berths for Bijlsma’s young family.
The galley is one of the most dramatic redesigns of the entire boat. A custom designed white Corian galley includes a sink, concealed waste bin, and electric hob. Stowage is limited by cruising yacht standards with no over counter cabinets, but instead crockery, utensils and cutlery is stored in custom-cut recesses, and there are specially designed cupboards for glassware. The industrial-style door abaft of the galley is a large fridge, set into the bulkhead with an American-inspired door design.
The modern refurbishment is not to everyone’s taste, “Some people say you wrecked the whole boat, it’s not a Swan anymore. But we don’t do that. We wanted to make it a better Swan, it still has to be a Swan, but we tried to improve it,” explains Wattel.
Bijlsma adds: “I always had in my mind that if Olin Stephens were still alive and he had the advantage of today’s possibilities then how would he have done it? I really tried to rebuild this wonderful boat according to the way I think he would have done it.”
Lucky Bird is a 1972 Swan 48 that has been given a spectacular new lease of life by Younique Yachts in the Netherlands
Can you improve on perfection? The Sparkman & Stephens-designed Swan 48 is widely considered to be one of the most iconic bluewater sailing designs of all time. To take a classic example of this 1970s yacht and turn it into a weekend sailor fit for a 21st century family was brave, possibly even a little heretic.
Lucky Bird‘s radical refurbishment wasn’t always on the cards. When the Swan 48 arrived at Younique the original plan was to fully restore the interior carpentry, but to keep it fundamentally original. As more and more of her traditional fittings were stripped out, however, the beauty of S&S’s original lines became visible inside the hull, as well as outside.
Inspired by what they found, owner Eric Bijlsma – who also owns the Hoek-designed superyacht Firefly and the Younique team decided to change their refit plans. Instead of recreating something original they moved towards restoring her with a much lighter, more modern touch.
“I have always been in love with the designs of Sparkman & Stephens, and I know that Olin Stephens’s favourite design was the Swan 48. I’m very keen on the lines and the heritage of the brand, but I was missing a bit of the modern feel,” recalls Bijlsma, who wanted a simpler yacht to sail with his family.
Creating sightlines along the hull edges and cabin sole, rather than concealing them under heavy fitted joinery, was integral to the design. “Once you can see where the hull meets the floor, which gives a lot of space, you see how the beautiful lines work from the interior,” explains Egbert Wattel, co-founder of Younique Yachts.
“Actually that was the starting point, and from then on we came up with new ideas to show the construction of the hull.”
The main tool they chose was miles of thin strip sycamore planking, which creates an optical effect of illustrating the original hull lines through the shadows between the planks. The new woodwork takes its inspiration from the original Swan 48 interior, which had some areas of strip planking visible above bunks in the forepeak and saloon, but has now been used throughout in a much lighter finish. The fixings were also changed, from visible screws to aluminium bolts with each bolt head hand-sanded and polished for the desired finish.
“If you look closely you can see around the hatches and the corners of the bulkheads, we wanted to keep that and rather than do anything to smooth it away, keep it honest,” explains Wattel.
Some areas of the yacht’s construction have been modified, and the interior reflects that. Lucky Bird’s new rig has single stays, which has required new structure to be built underneath the chainplates for additional stiffness.
“The new rig has one chainplate, so all the stress is focused on one area now,” says Wattel. “So we designed a new strut under the deck, a large knee that we shaped in plywood first and integrated it into the bunks, and then the whole structure was covered with glassfibre and carbon fibre.”
In keeping with the overall ethos of showing rather than concealing the functional elements of the yacht, the contrasting carbon was instead integrated into the saloon berths. “All the things you need, it’s OK to see them, because if they are done properly each thing is a work of art,” explains Wattel.
A modern entrance
Other major structural changes were made around the companionway, where the pit area, coachroof and hatch have been entirely rebuilt.
“The entrance was not originally central in the boat,” explains Wattel. “It was 70mm to the starboard side, and that was designed to get access to the aft cabin properly.
“But because we wanted to have all the lines symmetrical we changed the whole entrance, cut out the original one and replaced it, making it wider and symmetrical again.”
Over the companionway there is now a large custom glass structure, with a flush glass hatch sliding over the top of a fixed glass pane for maximum light down below.
A new curved structure forward of the cockpit also houses channels for submerged lines, leading to newly recessed electric Andersen winches.
“The whole goal for me with this area was that it had to look like it was original. A Swan owner would know straight away that it is new but other sailors would think it is original. So the lines flow with the original lines – actually I think it is even better now,” comments Wattel.
The goal of creating a flush, minimalist deck on a 1970s design raised some challenges, the most forward hatch proving particularly technically difficult due to the curvature of the foredeck area. To achieve a flush finish Younique Yachts had to custom design everything from the glazing to the hinges.
The original anchor installation was removed, and replaced with a concealed anchor locker in the starboard bow. The characteristic Swan toerail was also pared down.
“The original Swan has quite a lot of aluminium toerail. We discussed for a while if we could refurbish it or remake it. In the end we said we’d remove it, so we had to cut out the whole thing,” recalls Wattel.
“Then we had to grind out part of the laminate, apply new extra-strong laminate because some of the strength would be lost by getting rid of the toerail there, and then the whole deck was filled flush again.”
The steering pedestal appears original but is in fact also all-new, sitting slightly higher to accommodate hydraulic controls for the backstay and vang as well as a joystick for the bow thruster, with a new custom wheel and modern compass.
A new higher aspect carbon fibre rig with slightly aft-swept spreaders carries an updated sailplan, a furling genoa, small jib, and an asymmetric which is set from a fixed tack point on the bow.
Accommodation
Down below there is an aft owner’s cabin, while pipecots in the foredeck give additional accommodation for weekending. The saloon berths are on two different levels, giving a seating area that can also be adapted to provide children’s berths for Bijlsma’s young family.
The galley is one of the most dramatic redesigns of the entire boat. A custom designed white Corian galley includes a sink, concealed waste bin, and electric hob. Stowage is limited by cruising yacht standards with no over counter cabinets, but instead crockery, utensils and cutlery is stored in custom-cut recesses, and there are specially designed cupboards for glassware. The industrial-style door abaft of the galley is a large fridge, set into the bulkhead with an American-inspired door design.
The modern refurbishment is not to everyone’s taste, “Some people say you wrecked the whole boat, it’s not a Swan anymore. But we don’t do that. We wanted to make it a better Swan, it still has to be a Swan, but we tried to improve it,” explains Wattel.
Bijlsma adds: “I always had in my mind that if Olin Stephens were still alive and he had the advantage of today’s possibilities then how would he have done it? I really tried to rebuild this wonderful boat according to the way I think he would have done it.”
An incredible fleet starts this year’s 40th anniversary Route du Rhum, but with potentially boat-breaking conditions forecast
Along a three-mile start line off St Malo, 123 boats set off on the 40th Route du Rhum singlehanded transatlantic race to Guadaloupe this afternoon.
For most of the skippers, setting off will be a temporary relief. The first stage of the solo transatlantic to Guadaloupe – the famous docking out through St Malo’s locks – started yesterday evening and ran right through to the small hours of this morning.
As well as being a spectacle, the drawn out process is a logistical necessity for the enormous fleet to exit St Malo’s medieval walls and huge tidal range. For skippers with support crews it was an enjoyable photo opportunity, a chance to acknowledge the huge crowds that assemble to wave every boat off, before a fast RIB ride back to a warm hotel bed for the last night. But for solo sailors on a shoestring – and there are plenty, in amongst the glossy branded boats – it will have been a tiring start before what looks set to be an exhausting race.
The forecast is intimidating. I spoke to Jack Trigger, who is sailing the Class 40 Concise 8, straight after yesterday’s weather briefing, and he said that the conditions for the first 72 hours were better than anticipated. This afternoon saw the huge fleet set off in sunshine and around 15-18 knots. With boats ranging from 39ft plywood trimarans to the foiling Ultimes all on one line, albeit a zoned one, the less frenetic conditions than previously predicted will have been a relief to everyone
But a low pressure system will reached the bulk of the fleet, particularly the Class 40 fleet, by Tuesday. The faster Ultimes may be able to escape the worst, but the IMOCAs will also have to go through 40-knot north-westerlies.
“Not immediately, but I think days three to five we will get hit pretty hard,” Trigger explained. “I think we might see 50 knots, and it’s going upwind and it’s about the predicted sea state. So we’ll get it in the middle of Biscay.” Predicted waves are up to 11 metres.
“It’s so changeable, there are multiple low pressures and secondary lows moving about, so we’ll just see what happens,’ Trigger added. “So we’ll end up coming down through Biscay, tacking across one front where we’ll see 50, then tacking back, then tacking through a second [front] where we’ll probably see the same again.” Was he worried about it? “I’m excited!”
St Malo in the sunshine has a carnival atmosphere, enormous crowds rammed 20-deep along the docks, their excitement heightened by an endless barrage of drums, pipes, light shows and no small quantities of alcohol. The Route du Rhum pre-start does not share the sombre intensity of a Vendée departure, but this race, with its November North Atlantic course, does have a reputation as something of a demolition derby and there was a definite air of nervousness.
“The thought of tacking one of these boats in 10m waves and 40 knots of winds is not something anyone looks forward to,” said Hugo Boss skipper Alex Thomson before the start, adding that he “doesn’t have any idea how an Ultime handles that kind of situation.”
All eyes will be on the Ultime class. The three magnificent new foilers – Armel Le Cleac’h’s Banque Populaire IX, Francois Gabart’s modified Macif, and the Maxi Edmond de Rothschild – have never seriously competed against one another. Some brief line-ups out of Port la Foret last month suggested Seb Josse’s Edmond de Rothschild might have the edge, but nobody really knows.
I asked Vincent Laurent Prevost for VPLP, designers of Banque Populaire and Macif, what he expected from the fleet. Ditto Loick Peyron, the current Route du Rhum course record holder (on the previous generation Banque Pop), and legendary multihull sailor. Neither would be drawn on the topic, but it’s not wholly down to being evasive. It’s partly down to the fact that even the skippers can’t predict how this will shake down, so relatively short are they of race time and solo flight time.
Two days before the start I asked Seb Josse, skipper of the Edmond de Rotschild Ultime, how far in advance he had planned his race in detail. “No, wrong question!” he laughed ruefully.
“The boat touched the water last year, and we had a lot of technical things to sort out. At the beginning of this year, each time after we sailed for 24 hours we’d be on the dock for two weeks.
“So it takes a lot of time to really know how to sail this boat in singlehanded mode. In some conditions I’m really confident – 20-25 knots of wind, it’s not easy but I know what I’ll do. After that, in more wind… we’ll see! We’ve never sailed this boat in these types of conditions before.
“Armel and Francois don’t sail one day alone yet in these flying boats, Francois knows how to go fast for 42 days, for definite, but we don’t know how to sail fast for five days. So the first thing we need to do is manage the boats, not capsize, and go fast and fly when we can.”
Unlike the Imoca and Class 40 fleets, the Ultimes (and Rhum Multi class) are allowed external routing, which removes some of the decision-making factor from the solo skippers and is intended to help keep them away from dangerous sea states. As foil controls and onboard telemetry have become increasingly advanced, those race rules have been clarified this year to ensure that any ‘remote control’ developments are outlawed.
The IMOCA class, with 20 entries, is another incredibly high quality fleet. There is much curiosity about how the show-stopping Charal, another unknown quantity, will perform. The VPLP-design is the first of the latest generation foilers, launched just weeks ago. It is aggressive and impressive, but as yet unproven. Alex Thomson, who has a VPLP designed IMOCA 60 currently in build, said it was hard to predict how Charal would be sailed in the Route du Rhum.
“It’s difficult to get a boat this new properly up to speed yet, and it’s difficult to be confident because you don’t know what its reliability is yet. But if they are competitive in this, then I tip my hat to their team because I know how hard it is to do.”
By contrast, Stuart Hosford, managing director of Alex Thomson Racing, said that he was very relaxed about their preparation of Hugo Boss for what will be Thomson’s last race on the boat that took him to 2nd in the Vendée Globe. “We know the boat so well, Alex knows it so well, there are no unknowns,” said Hosford.
“So for us it’s a really nice race start because we’re at the end of a cycle with this boat and everything’s ticked off. But we also want this boat to be successful, and deliver on all the love and attention that went into it – it becomes very personal to us!”
While the hull platform for Thomson’s new Boss has already come out of the moulds, Hosford said he will be among those watching Charal for information that might inform the design of the foils for the new Boss – particularly the second set of foils that is likely to be developed before the 2020 Vendée Globe.
“It’s kind of a mixed thing for us – we want to beat them and we hope the boat’s not too fast in this race, but at the same time it is the same designer and it will be our generation of that boat, so we’d hate to think it wasn’t fast. That would be more concerning.”
Alex put it more forcefully: “On one hand I want them to do well, because it’s another VPLP boat and that’s where ours is coming from. On the other hand, I want to kick their arse!”
Besides the two black boats, the likely favourites in the IMOCA class are Yann Elies, who won the last major transatlantic, the 2017 TJV, in the same yacht, and Vincent Riou. Riou has re-optimised PRB with new foils, and has been consistently quick during the Port La Foret training races. Thomson said his team would also be watching Riou’s performance particularly closely for clues as to what the next generation of Juan Kouyoumdjian foils might look like.
In a fleet packed with talent there are plenty of others who cannot be discounted. Among them Sam Davies, who has been able to put in plenty of training hours on Initiatives Coeur, leading many in St Malo to tip her for a podium finish.
The Class 40 fleet, with a staggering 53 entries, would make an impressive event all on its own. The level varies hugely. There are skippers like Yoann Richome, a former Figaro champion with a highly covetable CV, who has built a brand new Lombard-designed latest generation Lift 40 with the single intention of winning the Route du Rhum. There are amateur sailors, often highly successful individuals who have chosen the 40 class to fulfil a dream of racing against the pros.
There are plenty of young French sailors on some of the class’s more vintage designs. And there is a strong cohort of British sailors – Phil Sharp, Sam Goodchild and Jack Trigger – all of whom will be hoping they can survive the potentially boat-breaking conditions and make the right routing decisions to stay in touch for a podium finish.
Even the two ‘Rhum’ classes, which in many events you could be forgiven for assuming is a selection of also-rans and enthusiasts, here sees sailors of the calibre of Sydney Gavignet and Sebastien Destremau line up against first-timers in classic ketches in the monohulls.
Meanwhile in the multihulls there are three yellow Walter Greene trimarans, each sisterships to the 39ft plywood tri that won the first Route du Rhum back in 1978 for Canadian skipper Mike Birch (Birch, now 87, was there to wish his friend Charlie Capelle in Acapella good luck and treated like a true celebrity by the gathered crowds).
Among the skippers racing a little yellow is Loick Peyron, holder of the current seven-day race record, who was preparing for a 22 day crossing on his ‘little bicycle’, the bright yellow Water Greene tri Happy. For Loick, who has nothing to prove, this race is about nostalgia and a pure love of ocean sailing.
“It is about capturing that feeling of my first transatlantic, when I was just 19, on a Mini Transat with a sextant and alone for long periods. That feeling of being a bit lost was attractive to me.”
He has refitted Happy to be as authentic to her time as possible, with a simple deck layout, no furlers, and minimal electronic aids – he will be mostly using a custom yellow sextant, complete with a smiley face.
Although he is taking a box of books to read, the Route du Rhum will still present a challenge to even masters like Peyron. “A boat like this is much more stable the wrong way up. I am the old fighter, the old combatant, who has never capsized. And I would like to stay like that for a long time.”
Chasing the surf along the Pacific Line islands from Tahiti to Hawaii, Amory Ross enjoyed the trip of a lifetime
I could only laugh. Travis Rice, world-famous snowboarding pioneer, had just jumped into the Pacific waves to chase down his once-anchored dinghy, which was now floating away. Meanwhile Ian Walsh, professional big-wave surfer (and arguably one of the best ocean swimmers in the world), was nowhere to be found. He had gone investigating our abandoned island with Travis’s best friend, Graham Scott. I stood alone at the edge of the water, guiltily amused at our predicament.
We were effectively stranded on tiny Malden Island, 1,500 miles south of Hawaii and 1,000 miles north of Tahiti. Travis’ empty Gunboat 48, Falcor, lay anchored a few hundred yards off the beach after the four of us had gone ashore to explore, surf and fish. So impressed were we with Travis’ last catch, a fly-snared bonefish, that we completely missed the dinghy breaking free.
Its grey tubes were soon barely visible in the distance and I wondered how close it was to Travis’ limits as he swam away. Ian clearly wasn’t coming back anytime soon, so he didn’t have much of a choice.
Falcor had been based in Tahiti for the past three years. Travis had made the long journey from North Carolina to Tahiti via the Panama Canal as part of The Fourth Phase, a snowboarding movie made for his sponsors Red Bull on the hydrological cycle of water. Travis wanted to sail across the Pacific in the same air mass that would eventually hit the coast of Japan, where it would rise up the mountains to make the world-famous snow he’d ride back to the ocean. But first, Falcor needed to get to Hawaii and the Line Islands adventure was hatched.
The Line Islands chain consists of 11 central Pacific atolls and coral islands formed by volcanic activity, stretching 1,500 miles from end to end. It is one of the longest island chains in the world and was the route that ancient Polynesians used to sail north to Hawaii. Using no instruments, they navigated without maps, compasses, or sextants, way-finding by observing only the ocean and the sky, the stars and the swells.
No stranger to Polynesian wayfinding and local ocean lore, Ian – a Maui native – was ticking two boxes on Falcor. As a new owner of a Hobie 16 he has joined a growing contingent of Hawaiian surfers that have adopted sailing. He was also scouting the region for future surf missions on the remote, unseen breaks along the way.
Winds were light as we left Pape’ete so we motored north, knowing the edge of the tradewinds was close. We passed Tetiaroa atoll, and its five-star resort founded by Marlon Brando, just 30 miles from Tahiti. With humpback whales playing in our wake, we kept going, anxious to leave the last reaches of first-world luxury behind.
Two days and 450 miles later we arrived at Flint Island. Flint was long, a narrow strip of rock covered with thick vegetation and nothing more. We sailed down its flank and dropped anchor off the north-west corner. The four of us donned snorkels to be greeted by an active and vibrant reef. Turtles were everywhere, as were sharks; French Polynesia’s oceans appeared well and healthy. Then with nightfall approaching we raised sails and plotted a course 550 miles north to Malden Island, our first planned stop and more importantly, first potential waves.
The sailing was nearly perfect. Consistent south-easterly tradewinds and large following seas had us comfortably averaging 22 knots. First-time helmsman Ian was brushing 30 knots, his wave-surfing principles translating seamlessly to the art of downwind planing.
I have spent plenty of time offshore going fast, but this was entirely different because we were essentially doing it in a very luxurious Winnebago. The helm felt balanced and light with very little lag between steering adjustments and rudder actions. Falcor seemed happiest at an apparent wind angle of 120°, where it was easy to turn up to load up some power, quickly accelerate, before tearing off across the face of the wave, bows free and clear from the water. I did this for hours, alone, with everyone else happily dreaming in their bunks, and absolutely no sail adjustments required.
That is the beauty of a lead-less, lightweight cruising cat: the acceleration is immediate and exhilarating, but the high roach main and self-tacking jib need little attention. We were cruising – but with such a competitive group it wasn’t long before we were all monitoring our top speeds and multi-hour-logs at each watch change.
The Gunboat 48 is the ideal owner-operator fast cat. Though its performance may intimidate, its relatively small size means an experienced boatowner is capable of running it alone, and Travis was no exception. The considerable freeboard is safe and dry and allows for ample headroom below. First-generation Gunboat bows, high and straight, provide bottomless storage for things like sails, dive gear and boards of all shapes and sizes.
Travis and Graham had made the previous crossing from Panama but had done little open water sailing since, and Ian had never been offshore on a sailboat, so we started in a two-watch system with Ian and myself on one, Travis and Graham the other.
The B&G instruments proved easy for the less experienced guys to learn and it wasn’t long before we moved to individual watches of three hours, with next-up on standby in the bunk, if needed.
On a dark, moonless night we arrived at Malden Island, and with little faith in the accuracy of our charts – the island’s radar signature and supposed position did not line up – we anchored conservatively, well outside the breaking waves that we could hear, but not see. We spent that night surveying the island virtually on Google Earth, Ian and Travis scrutinising every wave via satellite images.
After a calm morning at anchor and a three-course breakfast, the dinghy was launched and we turned for shore. Malden’s beaches were deep and clean, the island low and bare. A single tree stood above a calm spot as if to say ‘land here’. The waves down the line were big, surely overhead, and Travis dropped us off with the fishing gear before hurriedly taking the dinghy back outside the break to anchor.
At one point in time Malden was an active guano farm, inhabitants mining its land for the valuable fertiliser and transporting it using a sail-powered railroad system. Ian disappeared over the bluff intent on exploring the ruins while Graham and Travis started fishing.
Juvenile black tip sharks patrolled the shore, visible from the beach through crystal-clear walls of breaking waves, like a window into the sea. All was well in paradise. Until the dinghy broke free.
Miraculously, Travis reached it. I was kind of amazed. The shackle had come undone from the anchor so we somehow managed to find it, reattach and re-anchor. This time, we swam ashore with surfboards. After a good laugh at our own expense Ian and Travis surfed until they could paddle no more – possibly the very first time anyone had ever surfed Malden. It was pure, remote bliss.
Surfing at the helm
The next day we resumed our northerly progress and set our sights on Kiribati, some 430 miles away at 1°N. I knew before we left that both Travis and Graham were certified ‘Shellbacks’, trusty aids to King Neptune and sailors of proven seaworthiness, having previously crossed the Equator on Falcor in 2016. My own first Equator crossing came in 2011, on Puma for the Volvo Ocean Race. But this was Ian’s first crossing and he was due for a king’s visit.
While researching the ceremony’s origins we learned that Ian would be joining an elite class of Shellback; a ‘Golden Shellback’ – awarded only to the sailor who first crosses the Equator at the International Dateline. So at 0°N and 156°W, Neptune clambered up the transom demanding Ian show his worthiness by consuming raw two-day-old fish from the fridge. It was a significant sacrifice for a guy who doesn’t like to eat fish, but he survived the encounter and we offered our thanks to the sea with a splash of good rum over the side.
Much as we would have enjoyed stepping ashore in Kiribati, there was no surf in sight and Ian had received word that the Fiji swell we were chasing was coming sooner than expected. Some 200 miles north was Fanning Island with its famed left-or-right wave, breaking on both sides of a deep manmade channel that gave surfers a choice of either direction. It was arguably the best chance for big waves on the trip and Travis and Ian had been salivating over Fanning’s promise since departure, so we pressed on.
Ten days after leaving Tahiti, Fanning’s trees broke the horizon. Approaching the channel, waves peeled off to both sides and it wasn’t long after we had settled into the atoll’s shallow interior that Travis and Ian were clammering for their gear. They surfed the channel, cut during World War 1 almost until it was dark.
The next day we went ashore to clear customs, since we were now technically in the Kiribati Republic, and explore the island’s colourful shores.
During the war, Fanning had been home to a British cable relay station and its dredged entrance was a popular safe harbour for visiting warships. Today, Fanning looks like a shell of its one-time splendour, the overgrown landscape littered with abandoned buildings and deteriorating infrastructure. The USA’s Passenger Services Act of 1886 prohibited foreign ships from travelling between United States ports unless they stopped in a foreign country in between, so any foreign-flagged cruise ship leaving Hawaii used to stop at Fanning Island – the closest foreign port – and Fanning became accustomed to more than 200,000 day-trippers a year. That Act has been relaxed and those ships no longer stop at Fanning, so the atoll has since receded into relative poverty.
The customs agents were not at the office so we arranged for them to visit Falcor later that evening. When the time came we ferried them out so they could collect payment and conduct their search of the yacht. Alcohol is banned on Fanning but we were warned of the agents’ interest in ‘confiscating’ it, so we hid as much as we could. They found a stash of beer in the fridge and insisted we share – so they enjoyed several each, before we strongly suggested their time aboard was over. We returned the favour by unknowingly breaking the law of the land with the 12 coconuts we collected the following day from the vacant north shore. The meat and water was sweeter than any coconut anyone had ever had, but we later learned it is forbidden to cut down coconuts on Fanning.
The following day, a young local boy swam out into the surf to join us – grabbing a slippery 1980s-era board from the tree where it had leaned, presumably for decades. After a few unsuccessful attempts at standing up, Ian brought him over to the dinghy to wax his board. The boy eventually surfed and stayed out with us almost all day. When it was time to go home, Ian gave him his leash and remaining wax, then Travis went ashore with a brand new surfboard to leave behind for the next generation of aspiring island surfers.
Jaws beckons
Our final passage was to be the longest, with 1,200 miles of open ocean between Fanning and Honolulu. It was hurricane season in the North Pacific and we would also transit the Inter Tropical Convergence Zone, where the trade winds of the northern and southern hemispheres collide. The region is characterised by volatile, unpredictable weather and energetic thunderstorms, as well as large expanses of little-to-no wind.
It was a welcome return to the open ocean after a few busy days at anchor. We settled back into our offshore routines and again revelled in the quiet solitude that can only really be found at sea. We practiced with our sextant, studied the night-time stars and anxiously counted down the dwindling mileage until we knew our adventure would be over.
It’s hard not to fall in love with 21st century catamaran cruising. In addition to making passagemaking fun and fast, cats like Falcor are very capable of covering long distances with a literal boatload of toys and amenities. I will always remember the awe of that first night, sitting behind the helm at 0200 in a perfectly flat director’s chair, a hot cup of proper coffee in one hand and a good book in the other, surfing across the Pacific at 23 knots.
LIFE ON THE OCEAN
One month after the trip, Ian Walsh went on to win the World Surf League’s Pe’ahi Challenge at Jaws with a ‘perfect 10’ wave.
He told me afterwards that after the voyage not only did he feel physically well enough to surf Jaws despite the break in training, but that he felt mentally refreshed. The 20 days away from digital distractions had given him a rare focus and, interestingly, the surfing press were onto it too. He was asked if the time at sea left his body more ‘in tune with the waves’, as people noted a perceptible change in his surfing.
Falcor has since changed hands and is now owned by two-time Surfing World Champion John John Florence.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
An on board reporter on three Volvo Ocean Races, AMORY ROSS has spent more than a decade in the world of grand prix sailing and worked with two America’s Cup teams, but his very first published was Yachting World in 2006.
We are looking for an energetic individual with a passion for boats and the marine community. Using our library of print content while also generating new ideas and executions, you will create an engaging, positive environment for readers and advertisers alike.
Focusing initially on Motorboat & Yachting, Yachting World and ybw.com, but with some additional responsibility for Yachting Monthly and Practical Boat Owner, the principal tasks will be to create a content plan, write or otherwise upload articles, and promote the brands and content via our social media channels.
To succeed in your application you’ll need some journalism or writing experience. Knowledge of working online and social media would be a definite advantage, as would a passion for sailing and motorboating.
This is a full-time position with at least two days per week in the TI Media office in Farnborough, Hampshire.
Role outline
Produce a content plan for our marine websites: mby.com, yachtingworld.com, pbo.co.uk, yachting-monthly.co.uk and ybw.com
Work with our existing editorial team, our magazine output and our extensive archive to repackage and optimise suitable content for web use
Create original content to grow and engage our audience
Manage our social media channels to communicate brand values and acquire readers
Work closely with our commercial team to create new opportunities and to execute partnerships with advertisers
Manage our team of moderators to ensure the smooth-running of the ybw.com forum
Requirements
Proven media/writing experience
Strong knowledge and understanding of sailing and marine culture
Ability to work quickly, flexibly and independently
Ability to work collaboratively with our print and commercial teams
Understanding of content needs for websites, social media and search
Good organisational skills
Willingness to learn new skills and tasks as our digital profile grows and changes
