A record entry of 388 yachts started in the Rolex Fastnet Race, with the Ultimes leading the charge - though Shingles Bank claimed some early groundings
Multihull Race Start
A total entry of 388 yachts – another record turnout – started in this year’s Rolex Fastnet Race today, Saturday 3 August from Cowes on the Isle of Wight.
The fleet set out in the forecast south-easterly, and although some boats struggled to sail deep enough to set a spinnaker off the line, for most of the fleet it was a pleasant start of reaching conditions and flat water heading into a warm evening. For those that were OCS, however, it was a particularly painful return against the strong ebbing tide.
First off were the multihull class at 1230 with the giant Ultimes – Sodebo, Macif, Maxi Edmond de Rotschild and Actual Leader powering out of the Solent at around 15-17 knots
The early leader was the Maxi Edmond De Rothschild, skippered by Volvo Ocean Race winners Franck Cammas and Charles Caudrelier, until they touched Shingles Bank. This allowed Thomas Coville’s brand new Sodebo Ultim 3 and Macif, where America’s Cup skipper Jimmy Spithill has joined the solo round-the-world record holder Francois Gabart, to take the lead. Going into the first evening it was Macif and Edmond de Rothschild in front, as the Ultimes approached The Lizard.
Rolex/Carlo Borlenghi
The second fleet to go was an enormous startline with over 40 IMOCA 60s, all sailing doublehanded, and Class 40s. While the pre-race attention may have been on Jeremie Beyou’s aggressive new Charal and the newest, and equally radical, IMOCA in the fleet Arkea Paprec, it was Kevin Escoffier and Nicolas Lunven on PRB who took an early lead on the Island side of the Solent.
Meanwhile Solitaire du Figaro champion Yoann Richomme, sailing with Damien Seguin on Groupe Apicil were among the front runners on the northern mainland shore until they too grounded on the Shingles Bank, allowing Banque Populaire, Sam Davies and Paul Meilhat on Initiatives Coeur and Bureau Vallee 2 past.
One of the most challenging and tactical Fastnet Races of recent years lies ahead for the 394 yachts and 3,000-plus…
Going into this evening, the tracker is showing the fleet leader to be Yachting World’s boat tester and writer Pip Hare, sailing with Paul Larsen, racing on one of the older IMOCAs in the fleet. Speaking from Christchurch Bay, Hare reported:
“It looks like we’ll see the transition at around 0200 Sunday morning. The game right now is whoever gets beyond the tidal gate at Start Point really has a chance of getting away. Our current routing shows we’ll be to the west of Start Point when the wind transition comes, so we’re just ahead of it at the moment.”
Pip and Paul on Pip Hare Ocean Racing have taken a more inshore route than many, so this first night at sea will be key to see whether the more inshore or southerly boats pass through the transition zone of light winds first.
A windless transition zone showing clearly on the race tracker going into the first night of the Rolex Fastnet Race
The IRC fleets 1-4 were next to go, each with between 60 and 90 boats in the fleet. In IRC 1 James Neville’s Ino XXX may be used to competing in the inshore Fast 40+ fleet, but with reaching conditions forecast could also be a big threat in IRC 1.
In IRC 2 the 2015 overall race winner Géry Trentesaux was off to a good start on board his JPK 11.80 Courrier Recommandé, while in IRC 3 Hannah Diamond and Henry Bomby, sailing their Jeanneau Sunfast 3300 Fastrak XII double-handed were leading the class, as well as leading the competitive double-handed division.
The final gun saw the start for the biggest yachts in the race, IRC Zero and the Volvo 65s. The largest yacht in the race, and currently the boat with the highest IRC rating in the world, is Scallywag, skippered by David Witt. Witt explained that while their main goal was line honours, for which they would be dueling with Rambler 88, there was a slim change they could be in contention for IRC overall.
“In nine out of 10 races we probably have zero chance of winning overall in a 100-footer, but with this forecast there’s probably about a 50:50, because there’s a high pressure ridge and our routing has us sort of getting through it… and sort of not. So if we get through the ridge of high pressure that will basically slow up the rest of the fleet behind and give us a seriously good change of being able to win the double.”
Witt says the deciding point will be about 150 miles south-east of the Fastnet Rock. “So basically if we’re on our way back from the Rock while the rest of the fleet are stuck the other side of the ridge doing 2 knots, then were in with a chance. If not, then we’ll probably be beaten by every single boat in the race – 393 boats will beat us!”
However, it was Rambler who got the fastest exit from the Solent. Also on the Super Zero startline was the Maxi 72 Sorcha, which won back to back Fastnet Races overall as Ràn, and several former Volvo 70s. The latest generation Volvo 65s set off in their own class at the same time.
Sorcha’s navigator Steve Hayles believes that with reaching conditions if a big boat wins the race, it could well be a beamy Volvo 70. “This reaching race will be very much more on the VO70s’ teams, if I was a betting man I’d look at a 70-footer.” Going into the first night, however, it was the TP52 Outsider that led the IRC Zero fleet overall.
A packed Solent as the IRC fleets start from the RYS line, photo Rolex/Carlo Borlenghi
The next challenge will be a transition zone overnight, when the breeze shifts to a more south-westerly direction, with up to 12 hours of very light conditions across the fleet.
You can follow the Rolex Fastnet Race online with the fleet tracker, as Yellowbrick trackers are fitted to every yacht so you can see each boat’s position along the course and search by fleet or by entry.
Franck Cammas and Charles Caudrelier take the Rolex Fastnet Race line honours and set a new race record on Maxi Edmond de Rothschild - with less than 60 seconds dividing the Ultimes on the finish line
Before the start of this year’s Rolex Fastnet Race it was far from clear that the race record for the 603-mile bluewater classic would be in any danger, with predominantly light winds forecast for the larger boats. However, the 100ft Ultime trimarans put on a spectacular finish in Plymouth this afternoon as Maxi Edmond de Rothschild pipped Macif by just 58 seconds on the finish line, both Ultimes also smashing the race record.
Volvo Ocean Race winners Charles Caudrelier and Franck Cammas took Multihull line honours in just 1d 4h 2m 26s, beating Loick Peyron and the crew of Banque Populaire’s 2011 time by 4h 45m.
Francois Gbart and Jimmy Spithill on Macif had led the race since rounding the Fastnet Rock earlier this morning, but were beaten in the final approach to the line by the Gitana team on Maxi Edmond de Rothschild.
It is so notorious among sailors that you could say the Fastnet Rock is the northern hemisphere’s Cape Horn. Legends…
Maxi Edmond de Rothschild‘s skipper Franck Cammas commented: “Just after they gybed onto the layline for the finish we crossed them and decided to overlay. It was our last chance to see if there was something still possible. But until five minutes before we finished we never thought it was possible!”
Macif skipper Francois Gabart, the reigning Vendée Globe winner and single-handed round the world record holder, added: “They gybed a little bit outside of us and I was thinking ‘it looks like they’re in a good position’. Plus they were going really fast downwind and even at the Lizard I was thinking ‘it’s going to be tough to keep them behind’.
“After the last gybe they were two miles away and we were between them and the finish so it looked good for us. But they were able to fly while we had a problem with our rake system and we couldn’t adjust it…”
The two giant Ultimes enjoyed some of the closest racing this embryonic development class has yet seen, never more than four miles apart throughout the race. The light winds transition zone which halted much of the fleet yesterday evening proved little handicap to the foiling trimarans, who covered each other to hold a northern route along the English coastline.
The two giant trimarans crossed the finish line just seconds apart
Cammas explained: “Before the start we wanted to go north, but after the start we got a new forecast which showed that the south was better. In fact Macif gybed north and we hesitated but then decided to stay with them, because we wanted to race them. In fact on the northern route the faster you were the better it was. We were faster than our routing in the first bit because there was more wind, and faster than the polars because it was flat water.”
Winning trimaran Maxi Edmond de Rothschild did not have an entirely smooth race: they went aground on the Shingles Bank at 25 knots while leading the Ultimes out of the Solent, destroying the tip of a daggerboard. They also hooked a large fish around their daggerboard shortly after passing the Fastnet Rock, which required them to back down to disentangle themselves, which allowed Macif past.
For double America’s Cup winner Jimmy Spithill on Macif, the race was his Fastnet debut, after standing in for the injured Pascal Bidegorry.
Spithill commented after finishing: “That was my first Fastnet. It was quick – I probably won’t ever do it quicker than that!
“The power of these boats is incredible because they are big machines. With other foiling boats your limit is waves but with these, because of their scale and the shape of the foils, you can push them hard.”
Sodebo Ultim 3, Sail no: FRA73, Class: Open Multihull, Owner: Thomas Coville, Sailed by: Thomas Coville, Type: Ultim 32/23
The race is now on for the monohull line honours, with the first boats expected into Plymouth early tomorrow morning. First around the Rock this afternoon was Rambler 88, with the monohull frontrunners rounded the Rock in 25-30 knots, the strongest south-westerly breeze seen so far in this race.
Skip Novak sets a measured pace as he helps guide the world’s largest ketch for a Christmas cruise around Cape Horn and Tierra Del Fuego
Photos: Skip Novak / Gerhard Veldsman
When asked to help guide the 86m/282ft ketch Aquijo for a cruise in Tierra del Fuego and a Cape Horn rounding I was very sceptical. Accustomed to sheltering in small coves with my expedition yachts Pelagic and Pelagic Australis, with four lines tied securely to trees and rocks to get ultimate protection against frequent ferocious wind conditions, I was trying to imagine how we could handle this with a vessel that was more ship than sailing yacht. Instead it would have to be a single anchor down, and with two anchors down a risk of a twist and a tangle if the wind changed suddenly.
Working for the superyacht consultancy EYOS (Expeditions/Yachts/Operations/Specialists), I was so convinced that this was not a good idea that I tried to convince the South African captain Gerhard Veldsman that, counterintuitively, it would be better and safer to do a dedicated cruise to South Georgia.
There most, if not all, anchorages are open to the sea along the lee north-east coast. Even in the strongest katabatic winds there is not a lot than can happen other than being blown out of your anchorage. In Tierra del Fuego you are for the most part boxed by in by land on most sides and while swinging on a hook the wind can come out of any direction unannounced.
Aquijo noses in towards the glacier at the head of the Seno Pio fjord. Photo: Skip Novak
In any event I was voted down on the South Georgia option for a variety of reasons, so Gerhard and I, as we say in South Africa, ‘made a plan’. We scheduled a 14-day cruise beginning on 23 December in Ushuaia and ending on 5 January in Puerto Natales, including transits of the Beagle Channel, Brecknock Channel, Cockburn Channel and the Straits of Magellan. Rounding Cape Horn at Christmas would be a priority.
Aquijo sailed down from Punta del Este in Uruguay and it was a tight turnaround when the guest party boarded on the commercial jetty. Things went smoothly in Ushuaia, but it is no secret that port costs there are always astronomical, leaving a bad aftertaste. We entered Chile at Puerto Williams late that same afternoon, having swapped the Argentine pilot for Marcello the Chilean counterpart.
South American Super Yacht Support (SASYS), with which EYOS collaborates for all things Chilean, delivered fresh provisions that evening and next morning we were off down the Beagle Channel east about and anchored in Porto Toro at the east end of Isla Navarino for a walk ashore.
Dwarfing not only any other yacht that happened to be on the River Eider, but even the buildings along the…
This most southern settlement (in the world!) is a fishing village but was then deserted as the king crab (centolla) commercial fishery had closed on 1 December. So no centolla to buy, but we were armed with a trap, which we put to good use that night in Bahia Orange north-west of Cape Horn. The crew hauled her up at daybreak and we had more than enough centolla for our Christmas lunch.
It was predicted to blow a steady 40 knots for the Cape Horn rounding, so, cautiously, we rolled out the staysail and that was enough to quickly slide underneath the scenic Isla Hermite at speed and round the Horn by midday. And it was a proper rounding; under sail, blowing a Force 8, with all 25 of us on the flybridge sipping champagne!
The idea was to try and land on Cape Horn Island but the westerly was bending around the land streaming long shore. We dropped an anchor well out, managed to get a Zodiac in to recce the landing on the rocky beach, but although the landing was tenable the side platform on Aquijo was awash and unsafe.
Boarding the tender was unsafe with Aquijo’s side platform awash. Photo: Skip Novak
Here was an example of the bigger the vessel, the more distance you need to be away from the land to be safe – but this renders you more vulnerable for safe tender ops in wind and chop. Unfortunately we had to scrub the landing and high-tailed it north back into the entrance of the Beagle Channel and passed by Puerto Williams.
Our next stop was a short 40 miles west to Bahia Yendegaia, which is a long fjord on the north side of the channel at the eastern end of the Darwin Mountain Range. We were hoping for a stroll around the abandoned estancia that was settled by a Croatian family at the turn of the 20th century.
The 40,000 hectares of glacial outwash plain, braided rivers and high mountains covered in beech forest has now reverted back to the government after a spell of protection from logging for wood chips being purchased by an environmental coalition.
In fairer weather and good shelter it was possible to get ashore in the Zodiacs. Photo: Skip Novak
It is now an extension of the Darwin National Park of Tierra del Fuego. Sadly, we were again thwarted from landing. Usually this corner of the fjord in front of the estancia where we always anchor is a calm spot (as I tried to convince Gerhard!) – well, not that day and again we had trouble using the side platform in strong winds and chop.
Fair weather
So, as expected, wind conditions were an issue for a vessel of this size, but luckily for us the remainder of the cruise was a benign spell of fine weather. We spent a full day, a night and part of the next day in Seno Pia exploring the eastern arm up to the head of the icefall and then anchoring in the west arm for the night.
It is a tight spot but the calm weather held, giving us time and space to have an asado (barbecue) on an island in the fjord with the whole mutton carcass that had been curing in the open air hung from a padeye on the foremast.
Asado, or barbecue, on an island in the fjord of Seno Pia. Mutton carcass had been cured in the open air, hung from a padeye on Aquijo’s foremast. Photo: Skip Novak
We had everyone barring an anchor watch ashore for the four hours of slow cooking over a few drinks sitting on the rocks while watching the ice calve off the glacier across the bay – magic! The next morning we had a long hike picking manzanita berries (little apples) along the way.
Through thick bush we walked to the snout of a retreating glacier and then back along a pristine beach with ice block sculptures stranded by the outgoing tide. We made a berry crumble for the desert that evening – we were not hunters but at least we were gatherers.
Dropping the hook
The next day we entered the famous Seno Garibaldi, the longest fjord that strikes north into the Darwin Range and put the bow close to a sea lion colony on the shore. There is no place to shelter in Garibaldi so we carried on west, anchoring for the night in an open bay called Puerto Engano.
Skip Novak in his element if not on his normal type of vessel. Photo: Gerhard Veldsman
From this point, going west and into the Brecknock Channel there is no shelter worth entertaining so we rounded Cape Brecknock, the western end of Tierra del Fuego, just on dark and doubled back to the north-east into the wide Cockburn Channel and put a hook down at first light in Bahia Escandalo in Seno Martinez – a good open anchorage for Aquijo with plenty of swinging room.
I took the younger members of the guest party on a typically wet hike through the woods and up to a glacial lake at 300m that gave a fine view down to the yacht. While marvelling at the scenery and pleased with our efforts we were visited by a drone, I suppose an easier, but less satisfying way to take a picture of the Aquijo far below us.
Marcello really came into his own next day piloting us through the narrow tidal link of Canal Gabriel that leads into Seno Almirantazgo, which is the wide reach that bounds the northern side of the Darwin Range.
Crystal clear ice from the mouth of a retreating glacier
Here the glaciers have receded far inland, leaving terminal moraines beyond which only shallow-draughted tenders can venture. We spent a day and night in Bahia Ainsworth for tender cruising, walks ashore and visiting an elephant seal colony on an islet.
Time was marching on and because we had spent more time in fewer places, we were obliged to take the Straits of Magellan in one hit, partly under full sail, only slowing down to observe the humpback whales feeding midway up the Straits in the Coloane Marine National Park.
Our last anchorage was in Bahia Welcome in Canal Smyth before Marcello and Gerhard threaded the needle through the narrow channel of Canal Kirke leading to the windy Puerto Natales.
Patagonian seas can be a challenge, even for an 86m superyacht. Photo: Skip Novak
In summary, we had several outstanding days, but these were achieved by concentrating on fewer stops and not trying to move every day. A proper landing, if it is worth landing at all with things to do on shore, deserves a full day, a night there to relax and reflect and a slow start the next day before moving on.
This rhythm is often not typical to superyacht cruising where the pace can be relentless, but I feel our schedule and what we achieved was well appreciated by both the guests and the crew.
Although we were blessed with good, settled weather for the latter part of the cruise this will not always be the case in this region. It must be made clear that to take these super/mega yachts into the channels of Patagonia will always remain a challenge.
About Aquijo
Aquijo is the largest Bermudan rigged ketch ever launched. Designed by Bill Tripp for distance bluewater cruising with good sailing performance, her twin carbon masts set 3,247m2 of upwind sail area. Her steel hull and aluminium superstructure was built at Oceanco and finished at Vitters. Range under engine at 13 knots is 3,200 nautical miles and she has accommodation for 30 in total.
George David’s Rambler 88 wins monohull line hours, and rounded the Fastnet in conditions reminiscent of her crew’s dramatic rescue in 2011
Rambler 88 set a new monohull course record to the Fastnet Rock. Photo: Kurt Arrigo / Rolex
Big seas, fast reaching, relentless sail changes and a fast run back from the Fastnet Rock: Rambler 88’s second monohull line honours win of the Rolex Fastnet Race this morning marked the finish of a fast by tough race – and, for American owner George David, a surprisingly emotional one.
Launched out of the Solent and borne through the tidal gates along the coast by south-easterlies, the fleet leaders met a narrower than forecast transition zone to south-westerlies, then had some fast reaching to the Fastnet Rock.
This weather pattern has favoured the larger yachts in the fleet this year. With conditions in her favour, George David’s Rambler 88, with a crack crew including Kiwi tactician Brad Butterworth, set a new monohull course record to the Fastnet Rock.
This is the third consecutive time that Rambler 88 has taken monohull line honours in the Rolex Fastnet Race.
Rambler crossed the line after 1d 19h of racing, just an hour and a quarter outside the race record, but enough to beat her main competition, the 100ft maxi Scallywag. This is Rambler 88’s 2nd monohull line honours win in this race – she was also first across the line in the last edition in 2017.
This was George David’s fifth Fastnet Race and he admitted he is disappointed not to have yet won this race. But he confessed that this race was a particularly difficult one. This was partly because, as they beat up to the Rock through heavy seas on Sunday evening, it brought back memories of being rescued from the water in 2011 when his previous yacht, Rambler 100, lost her keel and capsized.
Rambler 100‘s 2011 Fastnet challenge ended in disaster. Photo: Rolex / Carlo Borlenghi
Then, Rambler 100 was leading the monohull fleet. After a large rescue effort by Irish Coastguard helicopters and RNLI lifeboats, 16 of the crew who had managed to scale the upturned hull were rescued. But five others of the crew, including George David and his wife, Wendy, were swept away and drifted for two and a half hours before being spotted and picked up by a photo boat.
“We had extremely good conditions coming out of the Solent and we probably set a record to Portland Bill,” said David. “Then it was light and slow from The Lizard down to the Scillies, but it really picked up from there.
“There were tough conditions. It topped out at the Rock, probably 30 knots, with a really lumpy sea as can happen up there. We had some sail changes and a big shift and it was a dramatic moment.
“It was dramatic because when Rambler 100 [lost her keel] we were well on track to set a record. So this was a little bit sentimental for me to come back and go through that same experience, same time of day. Blowing 25-30. Big, lumpy sea. The conditions were almost dead-on the same.
“But we ended up VMG running down from Land’s End, which added 40-50 miles to our track, which is where the record went away this time. It would have been nice to get the record we should have had in 2011.”
“Will I bring Rambler 88 back next year? It’s too soon to be sure, but it’s certainly a possibilty.” The…
Elaborating on the moment of passing the capsize eight years ago, David said: “We had some good communication. Baltimore lifeboat was on station to say hello. We know those people well. We have been back to Baltimore four or five times since the accident.
“We had a radio telephone call with Valentia Island search and rescue, which were the ones who sent the helicopter that picked up Wendy David, my wife, and took her to safety.
“There is no doubt people might not have come back from that race but for the expertise and devotion of the rescue services. So we have strong feelings for those people.”
This was David’s fifth Fastnet Race. “This race, in my experience, is typically a small boat race. We came close to winning in 2007, the first time we did it, we were 2nd. In 2015 and 2017 we had slow races where the little boats came in with big breeze. But we’ll do better this year.
“It’s a wonderful race because the conditions are up and down and in my experience it’s half and half, with half the time getting 25 knots.”
SHK Scallywag finished just 27 minutes after Rambler 88. “It was a very close, exciting race,” said owner Seng Huang Lee. “We had a little bit of everything – fine weather, rough sea and a squall just before we rounded the Rock. But these were the conditions that Rambler was designed for, so congratulations to them.”
Correct trim will allow a yacht to make the most of calm conditions. Pip Hare gives her advice on how to ride out the doldrums
Photo: Daniel Sweeney / Alamy
Psychologically, I have always found sailing through calms to be far worse than battling any storm. Endlessly flogging sails and oppressive heat can fray tempers on any yacht. With no ability to go forward and no sign of any breeze it can be difficult to maintain a positive approach. But, if managed in the right way, whether cruising or racing, total calms can be productive, useful and even fun.
Review your watch system
Change to single person, short watches during the day and involve the remaining crew in other jobs. The on-watch crew will look out for both traffic and wind and try to keep the boat going in the right direction.
Overnight either return to original watch patterns or have a reduced watch with the remainder on standby in case of squalls. When racing, avoid filling the cockpit up with on watch crew. Only one person is necessary to hold the helm, the rest should sit where their weight will have the most impact, returning to the cockpit only when required.
Racing trim
Think hard about trim: how should the boat sit best in the water to encourage movement? And how can you achieve this within the rules of racing? As a rule of thumb most weight in ultra-light breeze should be to leeward and as low down in the boat as possible. Modern wide stern yachts have a large wetted surface area which creates drag in very light winds so benefit from weight forward. More traditional shapes prefer weight in the middle.
Most of these changes will need to be made by moving crew weight around. Be specific about where you want off-watch crew to sleep and don’t be afraid to ask them to move if conditions change. Ensure that all movements around the deck are gentle and slow to keep any momentum you may have gained.
If your racing class allows the movement of equipment as well as crew, then put the effort into stacking gear in the position where the weight will have most effect. This can be hard work in hot and sweaty conditions but will pay dividends.
Gybing a symmetric kite double-handed is a tough manoeuvre and there is no question that practice makes perfect. Setting up…
Lock and drop
Helming during calms can be impossible: if there is no flow over the rudder then turning the wheel will have no effect. Consider locking the helm into one position, using a wheel lock or the autopilot in ‘helm hold’ mode (this is a function most pilots have and simply locks the ram in one constant position).
Do not worry too much about which direction you end up pointing; if you are going nowhere then it does not really matter. Once the breeze kicks in and the boat starts to move don’t forget to unlock the wheel.
Even with the slightest of swells, relentless snapping as an empty mainsail flops from one side to the other can damage not only the sail but the sanity of your crew members. Dropping the main in total calms has a number of advantages: it makes for a calmer atmosphere on board; allows a total survey of both sail and halyard for damage; enables a makeshift canopy to be made up over the boom; and in 1-2 knot downwind conditions will allow uninterrupted wind to flow onto your headsails. Even if the mainsail is down, pin the boom into one position to minimise snatching movements.
Calms are a great opportunity to clean, maintain and take stock on longer ocean voyages. Make a job list, prioritising those that need to be done before the breeze fills in and allocate individual tasks. Try not to be overambitious and ensure that every job is finished and tools put away before each new one is started. Always be prepared for the wind to fill in at short notice.
Take the opportunity to do things that are not possible when under way. Perform a rig check, open all hatches and ventilate the boat, get downwind sails on deck and inspect for damage, tape up sharp fittings, clean and lubricate moving parts.
Make an inventory of remaining food, water and other consumables. Empty and clean the fridge, or any large lockers which get the better of you in a seaway. If becalmed for longer than expected, especially in hot weather, check your rations. Is it necessary to limit water consumption? Be aware of the impact this may have on morale.
Clean the hull
When the boat is stationary it is an excellent opportunity to clean the bottom. To do this from deck level you will need a ‘flossing rope’. This can be made using a long piece of cover from a 12-14mm rope with knots tied in it every half a metre or so.
Two crew members take one end of the rope each and drop it under the bow of the boat, then pull the rope backwards and forwards between them walking slowly backwards along the sidedecks until they reach the keel.
Swimming off the boat should only be attempted by strong swimmers and with appropriate kit for the water temperature. For every swimmer in the water, ensure there is one person on deck watching and always trail a recovery line astern. If diving under the boat to inspect keel, rudders or prop, ensure the diver is fitted with a safety line and there is no risk the engine could be turned on.
Send a crew member aloft to look for any wind, they should go with binoculars and a hand bearing compass to give precise information about any patches of breeze they may see. Finally, have some fun. Total calms are a great time for celebration so make a cake, have a special meal, play a game of cards, laugh, relax and believe that the wind will come.
When cruising guru Nigel Calder grounded in the entrance to a river in Portugal the rudder was damaged so badly he might have sunk
Nada anchored off the fort while checking depths using the dinghy. Photo: Nigel Calder
We hit the sandspit at something over five knots and went hard aground. A moment before, the bottom had risen suddenly from 10ft to now visible sand in the wave troughs just ahead of us.
The sandspit lay off the north-east corner of a small island. Modest Atlantic swells were working around the island and running into each other from opposing directions over the sandspit, creating 3ft breaking seas which were hitting us at bow and stern. It was too rough to launch the dinghy and set a kedge anchor.
I knew we had deeper water to port. I put the helm hard over and throttled up to bring our head around, watching the engine gauges intently as sand began to plug the cooling system and the temperature crept inexorably upwards. We were turning as each wave broke against our Malö 46, Nada, momentarily lifting us.
The entrance of the Rio Minho the morning Nada ran aground. Photo: Nigel Calder
We were clearly moving at least a little, plus we still had an hour or so of incoming tide with a favourable current coming across the sandspit, so I was reasonably confident that so long as the engine did not violently overheat we could eventually power off.
As with all Malös, Nada is exceptionally strongly built. I wasn’t worried about the hull, but I was not at all sure about the rudder – I could feel it taking a beating as it crunched into the hard sand in every wave trough. The rudder is designed such that the lower section is sacrificial and I was hoping this would tear away before irreparable harm was done.
Our head came around. This put us broadside to the competing wavetrains. We were rolled down to the gunwales alternately to port and starboard. The sandbank was to starboard.
The edge of it was steep enough for the turn of our bilge to be aground in the wave troughs (roughly two feet of water beneath us), with exposed sand visible immediately abeam of us.
Webb Chiles is a one-off, writes Tom Cunliffe. The first American to sail single-handed around Cape Horn, he has circumnavigated…
And then the next wave would come in from that direction, breaking over the sandspit, sweeping up onto the side deck and over the dodger, and around the cockpit coaming into the cockpit, dumping sand behind our bulwarks, and flipping us over so now the port side was down.
One of these waves dumped a flood of water through the cabin top ventilator in the aft heads compartment, driving the fan blade off its shaft. Things were getting a little out of hand and I began to wonder if we were going to be able to save Nada.
We had friends, Mike and Kate, with us, Kate in the cockpit, and Mike below making breakfast. Both remained remarkably calm. “Should I get lifejackets?” asked Kate. “Good idea.” She went to grab them. From below, Mike yelled: “Nigel, you’re really messing up my breakfast!”
Edge of the sandspit
We were slowly crashing and banging along and away from the face of the sandspit into deeper water. A passing fishing boat was headed towards us. With considerable skill, it rapidly manoeuvred close to our bow. Terrie, my wife, went forward to catch a line, hanging onto lifelines and rigging as Nada lurched from side to side.
The only rope the fishing boat had on board to throw to us was lightweight polypropylene, which was difficult to toss any distance. We had heavier line in a bow locker, but in the conditions it was not an easy task to get it out.
It took three tries to get their line across and secured; with an additional pull we were in deep water. The wheel was turning freely and we had steering. Another local boat led us offshore. We began to think we might have survived the pounding without any significant damage.
Reasonable calm at the entrance the night before Nada ran into trouble. Photo: Nigel Calder
The first task was to check the bilges. I found a disconcerting amount of water, with the bilge pump running continuously and not keeping up. I made a quick check of the pump’s overboard discharge. No flow – the strum box must be clogged!
We put the manual pump into service and the water rapidly receded until the bilge was dry. It appeared the water was no more than what had found its way below from the waves coming on board. I pulled up the suction hose and strum box for the bilge pump, cleaned the strum box and put the pump back in service.
The breakfast Mike had been getting himself consisted of a hard-boiled egg and buttered bread. We found the egg white in one sink, the egg yolk in another, the butter upside down on the cabin sole and his coffee cup down the back of the galley stove. Remarkably, none of the crockery in the galley cupboards appeared to be broken and the wine bottles in the bilges were OK.
The nearest protected anchorage, where I could safely snorkel down and inspect the rudder, was 20 miles away in Baiona. It also had a boatyard with a travelhoist, enabling us to haul out if necessary. The conditions offshore were reasonably calm with light winds, and not at all threatening. We had an easy three-hour motorsail into a calm anchorage.
Damage suspected
I checked the bilge repeatedly. We periodically had some additional small amounts of salt water. I pulled up sections of cabin sole from all the way forward aft to the engine room, and checked through-hulls, and found no leaks.
I suspected the seal on the rudder tube was damaged, but to access this we had to unload a large locker under the helm seat, and then remove the floor of the locker. Our bilge pumps (we have a small one, and a high-volume damage-control one) could keep up with any conceivable leak from this seal so I decided the inspection could wait until Baiona.
We anchored at Baiona and unloaded the helm seat locker. I pulled up the locker floor and was shocked at the sight: the entire reinforcing structure for the rudder tube was destroyed. The rudder and its tube were flexing in the hull.
Photo: Mahina Expeditions
The Malö 46 has a partial skeg with a rudder bearing at the base of the skeg. For the rudder to flex in this manner the lower bearing has to have failed, or the skeg has to be breaking loose from the hull.
One way or another, any significant steering loads would likely have ruptured the hull with a distinct likelihood of sinking the boat. I had in mind the only Malö I had ever heard of sinking, which went down in the Indian Ocean after precisely this kind of damage.
Rather than take time to dive on the rudder, I called my insurer, to approve an immediate haul-out, and the marina to arrange a lift. Both were terrific. We were shortly out of the water, at which point we could see the skeg was fractured entirely around its base, with substantial cracks in the hull at the base of the rudder tube.
Considering the extent of the damage, it was amazing how little water had been coming in. We were looking at a difficult, time-consuming and expensive repair job, with the loss of weeks of cruising time. How had I got us into this mess?
Our Cruising Guide to Atlantic Spain and Portugal (by Henry Buchanan, published by Adlard Coles) has this to say about the Rio Minho, which forms the border between Spain and Portugal: ‘The entrance is difficult and can be dangerous, and has claimed more than one yacht as well as innumerable local craft.
‘It is an option only in calm weather with little or no swell… There are many rocks, shoals and banks in the approaches and the river itself, the sands shift, and the currents run hard in the narrow entrance.’
A local fishing boat disappears from view, hull-down in the swell, on a previous visit. Photo: Nigel Calder
We first came here in 2017, in flat calm conditions at low tide. There is a small island at the mouth of the river with an ancient Portuguese fort. Relatively deep water can be found into its lee, after which there is an extensive bar which must be crossed at right angles to any swells rolling in from the Atlantic. This is where boats get rolled.
The entrance has a set of range markers, but the cruising guide had warned us not to rely on them. Coming out of the lee of the island, we proceeded slowly, more or less following the range markers, and touched bottom. We backed off and anchored behind the island.
Dinghy exploration
We launched the dinghy and explored the bar to find a suitable route into the river. This took us somewhat to the west of the range, close to the edge of a steeply sided sandspit at the north-east corner of the island, and then a little to the east of the range. The route coincided closely with the details on our Navionics electronic charts, which we had already found to be remarkably accurate on a couple of other infrequently used river entrances.
Two hours after low tide we entered without problems. I saved our track on the chartplotter. When we exited we used more or less the same track, deviating slightly to establish more soundings. We returned later in the summer of 2017 in moderate swell conditions, finding substantial turbulence off the tip of the sandspit caused by seas working around the island from both the north and south, but entered and left without incident using the same saved tracks, and adding a couple more.
On 2 June 2018 we returned to the Rio Minho with significantly more swell than on the previous two occasions. We entered cautiously using the tracks from 2017 and found the same turbulence off the tip of the sandspit, and depths as in the previous year. We exited on 4 June without incident.
Nada’s various tracks in and out of the Rio Minho
We returned again on 19 June in similar swell conditions, and entered a little after half tide, on a falling tide, without incident, although the turbulence off the sandspit was significantly more than on previous visits, and in fact for a few seconds quite wild.
This should have set off alarm bells, but instead I attributed it to the Atlantic swells coming from a slightly different direction and running into the four-knot outgoing stream. We left the following day, well after half tide on a rising tide, expecting to see several more feet of water on the bar.
I noted the turbulence ahead of us seemed to be even worse but I was on mental autopilot, simply following – and trusting – the seven tracks we had already established, and assuming we had more than enough water.
We crashed into the sandspit at a point that put us in the centre of the previous seven tracks, and almost exactly where we’d passed with 3m of water on 4 June – in a couple of weeks the sandspit had extended by around 30m.
Shifting sands caught out Nada: similar tracks on previous occasions had passed without incident
It was not until I put dates on the various tracks, a week or so later, that I realised we’d been marginally to the east of the earlier tracks on the way in and had just skimmed the end of the sandspit, which accounted for the chaotic seas we saw.
My chart tracking system keeps a log of every saved track. You can see clearly where we hit the sandspit and the 30m or so of pounding before we cleared the end of it. A day later, after Nada was safely ashore and we’d all had time to settle down, I asked the crew how long they thought we’d been on the sandspit.
The estimates varied from 10 to 20 minutes; in fact it was between four-and-a-half and six minutes. Time slows down when you are in mildly terrifying conditions!
Haul-out at Baiona showed the keel was fine but the rudder skeg and rudder were both badly damaged. Photo: Nigel Calder
We were lucky. A couple more hard bangs to the rudder and the skeg would likely have sheared off altogether, opening up large cracks, and potentially a large hole, in the hull. We could very easily have lost Nada, and in fact had this been a more lightly constructed boat I do not believe it could have survived.
Nada is repairable; what is going to be harder to repair is Terrie’s trust. We have been cruising together for 35 years, and over that time have, with caution, explored many poorly charted and otherwise navigationally dubious areas.
We have run aground numerous times, but have taken care to ensure this does not happen with any seas running or in conditions that threaten the boat. This is the first time we have grounded with waves. It is likely the last time I am permitted to explore a river the cruising guide recommends avoiding!
To effect a repair, the already cracked rudder had to be split open with an angle grinder. Photo: Nigel Calder
What I did wrong
I ignored my instincts, which told me the seas ahead were trouble and were likely breaking over shallow water. Instead, based on the previous tracks, I persuaded myself we had plenty of water and that this was just some effect of competing wave trains and tidal stream. I was slow to react when we first hit. I assumed we would be momentarily into deeper water and would just have a couple of bumps.
I completely forgot we have a powerful bow thruster (because I rarely use it). This would have pushed our head around and away from the sandspit considerably faster than I did it with the engine, maybe significantly reducing the damage.
I was totally focused on getting Nada off and not on crew safety (the two are closely correlated, but not completely). Terrie should not have gone forward without a lifejacket, and Kate had to remind me to get them out.
What we did right
Everyone remained calm in really difficult and sometimes frightening conditions. As soon as I realised there was no path forward, I rapidly figured out a means of getting Nada into deeper water and made a reasonable determination that we could do this without losing the boat. Terrie saw the passing fishing boat and without hesitation took action to secure a tow.
About the author
Nigel Calder is best known as the author of the indispensable Bible of boat maintenance, Boatowner’s Mechanical and Electrical Manual (Adlard Coles, £35). He has also recently published Shakedown Cruise (Adlard Coles, £15). In it, he says, he: ‘details our first long cruise 30 years ago with a one-year-old and Terrie pregnant, with all our screw-ups and hard-won lessons!’
Is the ebullIent David Witt just what the Volvo Ocean Race needs? Or is he a throwback to another era? Helen Fretter met the controversial Scallywag skipper to find out
"The last bloke who never made a mistake, he was nailed on a cross.” Photo: Pedro Martinez
“I am a dinosaur,” David Witt tells me. It’s a gift of a quote from a man who has been painted as out of touch, misogynistic, and a whole lot worse.
Actually, the Sun Hung Kai/Scallywag skipper is talking about the routeing and navigation software the Volvo 65s use, how they need the technical expertise of navigators Libby Greenhalgh and Antonio Fontes because Witt is not what he calls a ‘techno-yachtie’. He can work that stuff, he admits, but is not really into it.
How curious that the skipper of a yacht competing in the Volvo Ocean Race is more comfortable admitting he’s not an expert on the navigation technology than he is being labelled as old-fashioned in his attitudes. Do today’s Volvo Ocean Race teams really need to be so anodyne that they can reveal weaknesses on the water, but can’t show any character for fear of being found flawed?
Photo: Konrad Frost
Controversy has dogged David Witt and his Scallywag crew ever since they made their last minute entry into the race in the summer of 2017. Then CEO Mark Turner promised big characters and engaging stories. Witty, as he’s known on the boat, delivered from the outset.
The plain-speaking Australian first ruffled feathers when he commented on the different crew numbers allowed for women sailors. “We’re going with seven guys,” he was quoted as saying on the Volvo Ocean Race website. “I just don’t think the rule is a good fit, and I don’t think the dynamic will work. It’s hard enough to win the race, the last thing we need is to be part of a social experiment.”
The backlash was fierce: Witt was characterised first as sexist, then as a hypocrite when Scallywag quietly signed Annemieke Bes from rivals AkzoNobel. (Bes had actually sailed with Witt numerous times on Ragamuffin.)
Wendy Tuck did not set out with ambitions of breaking new ground for female sailing when she signed up for…
Witt has always vehemently maintained that he was misquoted. In Alicante he told me he’s always sailed with women, but didn’t support the imposition of a rule. He was clearly taken aback by the reaction, telling me that his daughters had been trolled on Twitter. It had, he said, put him off doing much on social media.
Before the race start Witt was bullish about his team’s chances of a podium finish, but on the long second leg down to Cape Town the Scallywags were off the pace. A dejected looking Witt commented to the onboard camera: “It’s getting a bit embarrassing. We’re not used to having our heads kicked in.”
In a bid to lighten the mood they made a video for Facebook, the ‘Breakfast Show’. It famously featured a sketch with Bes, the sole woman on board, as ‘Dr Cloggs’, being asked how the team could best deal with a scrotum rash the skipper was suffering from.
The hearing found that there was no offence, and no misconduct, but the impact on Witt and his team was huge, not least in tens of thousands of dollars spent on legal fees. Hayles, who was a big presence on the boat, stepped off. The whole episode got very close to ending the campaign.
In Cape Town Witt was fired up, keen to tell me his side of the story (and Bes’s, whose views weren’t sought until the final hearing), even if he couldn’t speak publicly. In their virtually empty team base – Scallywag was then running with a skeleton support crew, with little PR management – he talked passionately about the impact the hearing had made.
Photo: Pedro Martinez
On the next leg, Cape Town to Melbourne, Witt was much more circumspect. In the onboard footage Scallywag revealed little, including the fact that their Leg 3 navigator Antonio Fontes had broken his arm. It was, Witt says, a deliberate policy.
“The last thing I needed was to put the team in any more controversy, so I tried to take a bit of a step back. We get a lot of people follow us on Facebook, and they were all saying: ‘This is crap, this is boring. Where are you?’
“So, we decided we’ll be what we wanna be. From the outset, we always wanted to be 100 per cent open and transparent and honest. We decided in Melbourne, bugger it.” It was time to be themselves again.
Photo: Konrad Frost
So who is the real David Witt? Forty-six years of age, he started sailing aged eight with a typical Australian progression from Flying Ants to Cherubs, before moving into the 18ft skiffs. Witt was a huge force to be reckoned with in the 18s, and was still racing the class competitively last season. Contemporaries say he was unrivalled in his ability to keep the overpowered skiffs on their feet in big breezes downwind.
He was known as a big personality in the class, but says that although he has always spoken his mind, “I didn’t really get in too much trouble. But I think if half the 18ft skiff fleet were in the Volvo Race they’d all be in trouble too. It’s a completely different culture.”
He trialled for the 2000 Olympics in the 49er, but lost out in selection to Chris Nicholson, now watch leader on AzkoNobel. So Witt decided to focus on offshore sailing and rugby, his other big passion.
In 1997 he sailed a leg of the Whitbread Round the World Race on Innovation Kvaerner, skippered by Knut Frostad. That was his only experience of the Whitbread/Volvo until this edition, although he tried several times to put together an entry.
A learning experience
The experience influenced how he races today. “That taught me I either wanted to have my own team or a team with the right sort of vibe. I didn’t really like the set-up, so that bit turned me off – but the race excited me for sure.”
A stalwart of the Australian big boat scene, Witt raced around 20 Sydney Hobarts and ran Syd Fischer’s Ragamuffins for many years, including 100ft and 90ft maxis and a TP52. “I definitely took two things from Syd,” he quips: “Never pay full price for anything, and never give up.”
Sailing with people who are talented sailors, but mates, was another big part of the Ragamuffin ethos that has carried into the Volvo campaign. “You need to enjoy it. This [Volvo] race has massive highs and lows emotionally, and if you can’t enjoy the moment there’s no point.
“The team I sailed on with Knut, you almost weren’t allowed to enjoy it. This was back in the Nineties but the view back then was if you were laughing and joking, you weren’t being professional enough and I think that’s a massive misconception. I think a lot of teams are like that now. Part of the reason why we’ve stood out a bit from the crowd is because we are so different.”
As a sailor, Witt’s strengths include helming in big breezes downwind, and close-quarters racing. Photo: Konrad Frost
Some of the Scallywag difference is down to its backer, the man Witt calls ‘SH’. SH is Lee Seng Huang, executive chairman of Sun Hung Kai & Co, who bought up the Ragamuffin campaign – skipper, boat and crew – in 2016 despite having little experience of the maxi scene. Things escalated quickly, with the Volvo entry announced in May last year.
Sun Hung Kai & Co is a massive investment group that manages around $15 billion worth of funds. But the relationship is very much between Huang and Witt – this is not a campaign run through boardroom meetings. “He knows me well and he knows what the team ethos is,” says Witt, “They’re our friends, and he knows everything that goes on. Good and bad.”
Sun Hung Kai’s loyalty was rewarded handsomely when Witt and Scallywag delivered a fairytale victory into Hong Kong in Leg 4. With Libby Greenhalgh at the nav station for Leg 4, some race commentators had a field day – the skipper who refused to take female sailors sees his team’s fortunes reversed after recruiting a woman?
Team effort
Witt says there were other factors at play. “There were two massive changes in the team. One is we’re not running around worrying about what other people think, about our performance or anything. We used to sail around trying to make sure we didn’t come last. As soon as you do that, you come last. So, now we just do what we think is right.”
The second change was how they made strategy decisions, with Witt crediting old friend and now crewmate, Grant Wharington, as having a big input into Leg 4.
It would be understandable if Greenhalgh, a driving force behind the Magenta Project campaign to increase the number of women in professional sailing, had had second thoughts about joining the Scallywag crew. She says she and Witt had “a strong conversation” before she joined the boat. The last thing either of them wanted was for the dynamic between them to fail.
Photo: Konrad Frost
Instead they picked up the team’s first ever win, driven by a brave navigation decision at the Solomon Islands (although controversially it was later revealed race control warned the boat of a nearby reef).
Presumably she’d not be there if the she felt she wasn’t being listened to? “I think one of the most refreshing things about this boat,” she says, “is that it’s an open platform. You can share your experience or knowledge or thoughts on any aspect without it being ‘That’s not your area’. That, for me, is also a really good thing because with Team SCA I was really in a box; I was the navigator, didn’t get involved in sailing really.
“That’s something Witty is a good advocate for. He’s like: ‘Right, everyone on this boat is a good sailor in their own right, everyone should be engaging, pushing forward.’”
It’s no doubt the Leg 4 win has changed things for Witt and the Scallywag crew – fans accosted him every time he walked through the Hong Kong race village, and the team base was seething with supporters every day. But success brings a different type of stress, and Witt seemed almost more weary as the hero than the underdog.
Photo: Konrad Frost
He admits the team was underprepared for the shoreside element of the travelling circus that is the Volvo Ocean Race. But if he were offered a fully funded campaign, with months of optimisation and strict training regimes, would he take it – or would he still prefer to do it his way?
“If SH asked me, yes. If anyone else asked, probably not. But who says that’s what it takes [to win]? Having two years to prepare and proper data, that’s exactly what it takes. Having a personal physio every day when you get off the water, I don’t think you need that to win the race. I think that makes the sailors precious.”
Whether the Volvo Ocean Race needs skippers like Witt is another question. Ian Walker, winning skipper of the last race, thinks it does. “He’s good for the race, he’s a character.”
Libby Greenhalgh says: “Everyone talks about the Volvo needing to have more characters, and he’s almost being taken down for it. No offence to some of the others, but we can watch Mapfre and Dongfeng talk about 0.1 and 0.05 per cent differences, and for the people you are trying to engage in our sport it’s pretty dull.”
Photo: Konrad Frost
Witty says he’s just being himself. Certainly he’s pretty unedited and makes it easy for others to draw a picture of him as a controversial character.
He also says he doesn’t really care about what everyone else thinks – a claim that doesn’t always sound very convincing. But he’s raced around the world with some of his closest mates and won his home leg of the Volvo Ocean Race. Why should he care what anyone else thinks?
David on selecting his team
“Blokes I want to go war with, blokes I would stand in a trench with, blokes who would have my back in a bar fight, they’re the guys I want to sail around the world with.”
David on the ‘Breakfast Show’ video
“When I finally saw what went to air, I thought it’s a bit awkward, if you want to view it that way. But when you look at the raw footage, there’s a whole bit cut out where Bessie’s laughing her head off and giving it back to us.”
David on crew numbers
“I thought being lighter was better and having seven people [was better]. I was wrong. The last bloke who never made a mistake, he was nailed on a cross.”
David on Alex Gough’s MOB
“He got a bollocking. It was a fatherly bollocking. It’s a silly thing to do in a team environment and he’s a kid. I don’t yell and scream, and I don’t have that sort of leadership. So when I do get a bit angry at somebody they take it seriously.”
Is this the future of sailing? The Eagle Class 53 is a wingmasted cruising catamaran designed to fly on T-foils
Not everything that flies is destined to scorch around an America’s Cup course. The future for sailing hydrofoils is surely about more than just racing. At least, that was the view of one owner who, having witnessed the America’s Cup foiling catamarans, saw a big opportunity.
“I’ve worked as a skipper for yacht owner Donald Sussman for 16 years,” says Tommy Gonzalez. “When he saw the foiling Cup boats he knew that this was what he wanted to have a go at. He is not interested in racing himself, he wanted to go cruising, but cruising on foils. He saw what had been created and believed that this had practical potential. Put simply he said: ‘I want one and I want to be the first.’”
As well as being a professional skipper, Gonzalez is the president of Fast Forward Composites, a Rhode Island-based composite building facility where the Eagle Class 53 was constructed. Understandably, the road to creating such an ambitious cruiser was never going to be straightforward. So the plan was structured around several key elements and stages, starting with an efficient and easily managed wingmast.
The hybrid solid wing and soft sail configuration means the rotating rig can be reefed. The entire solid wing can be rotated through 360° ensuring the rig can always be fully depowered – important for docking and close quarters manoeuvring
Of those two criteria, efficiency is easy to satisfy – wingmasts are by definition more efficient. It is the practicalities of handling them that usually causes problems. Reducing sail in breezy conditions and leaving the wing up at the dock are two of the biggest issues.
The solution on the Eagle Class 53 was to create a composite wingmast where 50% of the area is a solid D-section and the trailing 50% a soft sail that can be raised, lowered and reefed. Interestingly, it is a similar concept to that of the next generation of 75ft foiling monohull Cup boats, currently under development. “The rig is a little lighter than a conventional mast and sail set up, and significantly easier to handle,” explains Gonzalez.
“Because the sail can be raised or lowered we can reef the main, or even just sail with the solid section. The mainsheet loads are around 40% less than a conventional rig and because the sail can turn 360° we can let the wingmast fully rotate, which makes life simple when you’re docking. You just let it feather.
“In addition, because we have a part soft sail, which we have developed with North Sails, we can create twist which allows us to de-power the top of the sail, so we have plenty of control over this wing and the advantages that go with it.”
The Baltic 142 may not be using the hydrofoils popularised by the America’s Cup, but her 29ft 6in long (9m)…
Stage two
The next stage was to work towards foiling. To do this the team decided to create a cat that had C-section daggerboards that would help reduce displacement at speed but not lift the boat entirely. Getting used to controlling the power and feeling the behaviour of the boat through various wind ranges and sea states would provide a solid understanding of the boat’s characteristics.
“Once we have got used to the way the boat handles, the next stage will be to fit T-foil rudders which will take us onto the next level,” continues Gonzalez. “With these we will be able to get used to the software system, the instrument displays and the feel and the control of that part of the programme without taking the boat to full flight.
“That will allow us to get her up on her toes like a ballerina and keep her there so we understand what she feels like before she flies. “After that, in the spring next year, we’ll remove the C-foils, put on the T-foil daggerboards with their elevators, and move on to full foiling.”
The wingmast has a solid D-section and trailing soft sail
The proposed T-foil daggerboards will be angled out which makes the overall platform slightly wider, which in turn makes for more stable and efficient foils. And while improving the efficiency of the lifting surfaces, the outward bend in the daggerboards will also help to generate more righting moment, and hence achieve greater stability.
The control system itself will be a form of fly-by-wire system that will allow autonomous flight to ensure that the boat sails within safe operating limits. “If you have some of the gods of sailing aboard you will be able to override the controls to some degree, but under normal circumstances the control system will automatically de-power and lower the boat back into the water when the speed gets to 35 knots,” he explains.
Early days
So far the project has gone well. After the boat was launched earlier this year she cruised in the Caribbean during the regatta season before heading north back to Bristol, Rhode Island. “We’ve been very pleased with how well the boat sails and how easy she is to handle,” said Gonzalez.
“When we’re on delivery trips we have just three aboard. Aside from myself, the other two crew are not highly qualified professional sailors and yet we are looking at boat speeds of around 15-18 knots upwind and then 22 knots off the wind.
“We have also been through a squall of 35 knots where we were sailing with just the D-section of the wing mast which was easy to control by feathering the wing. When we get to the foiling stage we anticipate that we will be able to fly in around 10 knots true.”
The Eagle Class 53’s roots lie firmly with the foiling America’s Cup catamarans. Even in displacement mode she’s an exhilarating ride. The goal is to achieve fully foiling performance
It is still early days for a project that Gonzalez describes as being “crawling before walking, before running and ultimately sprinting”, once the hydrofoils are fitted.
Yet during the development process it has become clear that there are others who are interested in the 53-footer, whether it foils or not. So, while the next big goal is to work towards building a 75-80ft long distance cruiser, currently called the 8X, interest in the Eagle Class 53 has been sufficient for the company to tool up for a limited production run.
“We have created carbon tooling for the 53 and are looking to build around seven of them,” said Gonzalez. “For the 8X, we are hoping to build three with the first being available during the winter of 2021-22.”
Gonzalez is a realist when it comes to the future. “As we all know, foiling has been around for a long time in military and public transportation, so we need to set an example to insurance companies and the likes that we are foiling safely and encourage others to follow. But the time has come. This is part of the evolution of our sport.”
These extraordinary photos show Greenland in all its beauty, shot during a unique voyage on Mark Rohr’s 90ft sloop, one which helped spark this owner’s investigations into climate change in the marine environment
Our thirst for adventure is as unquenchable as ever. In the marine world, that desire to escape the beaten path seems only to be increasing. There are more and more large exploration-style vessels launching, the commissions of owners wanting to see for themselves the incredible sights that cruising in high latitudes offers.
When we first set eyes on these pictures of Acadia voyaging in Greenland, part of an extensive collection from acclaimed marine photographer Onne van der Wal, we were hooked. And the more we found out about this cruise, the more interested we became.
It’s rare for an owner sailing a Truly Classic sloop to want to get acquainted with icebergs. But Mark Rohr had a further agenda: to better understand the science behind glaciers and icebergs, to speak to the locals and scientists and to see first-hand how global warming is affecting the ocean, its acidity and ecosystems.
Put into perspective: 90ft Acadia is dwarfed by icebergs while motoring though an ice field approaching Ilulissat
We caught up with Rohr, who, out of a desire to spread awareness about ocean conservation, was happy to share the details of his mission to western Greenland.
Rohr, the CEO of a Fortune 500 listed technology and materials company in Texas, explained that his three-week trip above the Arctic Circle was planned to visit the most productive glaciers in Greenland, if not the world, and gain a sense of the environment and people. And how, with the help of van der Wal, he wanted to capture images of coastal fjords, ice production and glacial melts, while studying animal and plant life in this transition zone.
“I am a closet oceanographer,” Rohr admitted when I asked about his desire to commit to this mission, “and I’ve always been very interested in oceanography and the sea and have always sailed.”
Specialist high latitude yachts invariably have metal hulls and are very solidly built with large fuel tanks and internal steering…
I had to ask about the choice of yacht. A 90ft aluminium Hoek-design with traditional overhangs is not the sort of craft usually associated with high latitudes sailing. “She’s very well built,” Rohr explained, “with thoughtful systems and safety in mind, able to sail well above the Arctic Circle and we’ll soon head to Panama, Galapagos and the South Pacific and I hope one day we’ll do Antarctica.”
The mission
After more than a year’s planning, Acadia departed Nuuk in late July and set sail for Disko Bay, 400 miles to the north. Why the particular interest in Greenland? I wondered. Rohr explained that it was all to do with increasing acidity in the oceans.
“Elevated levels of CO2 in the atmosphere promotes excess formation of carbonic acid in the ocean. This acid effectively lowers the pH and locks up the carbonate used by marine animals to make shells, or form coral skeletons. The lower the pH the more difficult it becomes for these animal and plankton to thrive. Big seasonal swings in ocean pH normally occur in the Arctic where you have dramatic changes in temperature, salinity, movement of ice into the ocean and all the nutrients that come with it.
Acadia’s route from Nuuk to and around Disko Bay
“So scientists up there are studying marine algae to see how different species handle different ocean acidification, with a view to what’s going to happen if you look forward 20 years, 50 years or hundreds of years…
“What interested me about Greenland and Disko Bay were these interactions and learning from them to help us when we visit places like the Galapagos, where we hope to look at the naturally high levels of acidification around ocean vents and how marine species are dealing with a more acidic environment.
“So we spent some time in and around the glaciers to really get a sense of global warming and what impacts people see, and also to try to tie this back to ocean acidification.”
Breaking down ‘bergs
Greenland, the world’s largest island, covers an area of roughly 2.2 million km2. The ice cap at its centre, second only to Antarctica’s, is over 3.2km thick, covers an area of 1.7 million km2 and is the only ice sheet in the Northern Hemisphere that remains from the ice age.
Ice flows gradually from the centre of the cap toward the sea. The area around Disko Bay and the Uummannaq Fjords represents the primary western route to the sea and some estimate that half of the total Greenland ice loss occurs from this area.
One of the fastest ice streams in the world is Sermeq Kujalleq, which terminates in the inner part of the Ilulissat ice fjord. This moves at an astonishing pace of roughly 40m per day, with an estimated 46 million km3 of ice calving into the fjord per year – the equivalent annual water consumption of the United States.
Acadia motors out of Kangersooq (Nordfjord in Danish) on the north-west side of Disko Island
The large calved icebergs move down the fjord eventually entering Disko Bay and its surrounds. The glacier face and ice fjord are a unique natural wonder and for this reason it was named a UNESCO world heritage site in 2004. Since then the glacier tongue has receded more than 20km toward the inland ice face and the velocity of the glacier has almost doubled.
The marine ecosystem is strongly influenced by the ice movement through the fjords and into the sea. Subglacial melting adds nutrients to the sea, supporting plankton blooms. Halibut, Northern shrimp, Greenlandic shark, ringed seals, fin, minke and humpback whales are common species found in and around the ice at the mouth of the fjord.
As the ice enters Disko Bay it is impacted by currents and winds that push the ice to the north, eventually finding its way across to Baffin Island where the Labrador current takes the icebergs south along the Labrador Coast to Newfoundland and eventually out into the Atlantic. It is believed among scientists that the Titanic was sunk from a Kanga Glacier iceberg following this route.
A whale among the icebergs that have calved off the Kangia Glacier
Ice types
There were three categories of ice or icebergs that Acadia routinely encountered: snow-based, melt water-based and basal-based. Coming in all shapes and sizes, the term ‘iceberg’ officially refers to chunks larger than 5m/16ft across.
Most icebergs are white in colour, the result of light reflection on the air contained within the frozen and compacted snow. The snow-based icebergs sometimes contain so much ancient compressed air that the water around them fizzes as if it were carbonated.
Within icebergs it’s also common to see turquoise or blue ice streaks. These streaks are caused by melt water (free of air) trickling through the glacier and refreezing. Melt water ice is very compacted and hard, and can be razor-sharp.
More ice breaks away from the Greenland ice cap, while nutrient-rich algae tints the water green
The sides and base of the glacier that rubs along the wall or floor pick up dirt and rocks, so icebergs can also contain these dark or dirty basal deposits.
On average about 17% of an iceberg is visible above sea level, hence the infamous term ‘tip of the iceberg’. Icebergs predominately made of basal material or melt water are denser and float lower in the water. Pure melt ice is almost translucent and seems to sit on the water with little protruding above the surface.
Melt water ice represents the greatest hazard to a vessel like Acadia. While on this expedition the crew encountered thousands of icebergs, products of the enormous Greenland icecap and thousands of years of snow and ice accumulation. It’s breathtakingly beautiful and at the same time concerning as rapid changes and melt rates seem to be accelerating.
Inspecting an iceberg that has entangled itself in the anchor chain
Reviewing the data collected over the last decade, it’s easy for those on Acadia to see evidence of the dramatic change under way. Scientists at the Arctic Station and from research institutions around the world studying Disko Bay and surrounding glaciers are providing tremendous insights into the impact of climate on this fragile ecosystem.
Acadia’s Disko cruise
Rohr describes Acadia’s Greenland voyage in detailed notes, from which we have taken extracts: ‘Acadia stopped at the mouth of the Evighed Fjord and journeyed 50km inland through the fjord’s winding passages and dominating ice-capped mountains, to meet our first and closest encounter with a calving glacier.
‘The next stop was Sissimut, the second largest town in Greenland, which has been inhabited for over 4,000 years. It’s a beautiful and successful fishing community with a collection of homes and buildings nestled in a valley and a spectacular natural harbour. Our Inuit guide, Nivi, shared her stories of life in the community and described how it has changed over the years.’
Acadia sailed on northwards towards the destination of Disko Bay and the settlement/harbour of Ilulissat. ‘Entering and exiting Ilulissat is a challenge for vessels like Acadia. The ice pack from the Kangia Glacier and ice fjord is very dense for 10-15km out into Disko Bay. Acadia, normally at home at sea, was out of her element in the pack ice. It took us six or seven hours to travel the 10km to the relative safety of Ilulissat harbour when first entering the area.
‘While crawling along and pushing ice out of way, we were regularly passed by Inuit fisherman in their small skiffs, greeting us with a friendly wave. Ilulissat, founded in 1741, is today is the eco-tourism mecca of Greenland and at its heart a fishing and hunting community.
Chart details of Disko Island with magnifier
‘We had tea with a local Inuit woman who told us stories of her life and family history, then visited a local hunter and fisherman while he fed his 18 dogs and shared fascinating insights. The area is peppered with ancient Inuit settlements, many dating back to 4,000BC, highlighting the impact of this incredible bay and the Arctic on the legacy of mankind.
‘Ilulissat’s major calling card is Kangia Glacier, a UNESCO World Heritage site and one of the fastest calving glaciers in the world, advancing at about 40m per day. Ice discharge from this glacier fills the fjord and much of Disko Bay with enormous icebergs, many the size of a city block.
It’s almost impossible to comprehend the grand scope of this glacier system and the enormity of its contribution on the environment.
Rachel Rohr and skipper Heinrich Mueller on watch passing icebergs
‘Disko Island across the bay is home to the Arctic Station and a number of beautiful fjords full of bird and animal life. A research arm of the University of Copenhagen, established in 1907, this centre sponsors and hosts researchers from around the world studying the glaciers, animal and plant life – a fantastic group of people conducting critical research to help build knowledge about climate change.
‘Claushavn is a small community of 90 people just south of the ice fjord, which became known by Acadia as whale central. Here fin, minke and humpback whales feed on the capelin, northern krill and plankton in these rich waters. Daily lunge feeding displays a co-ordinated behaviour that is a remarkable example of beauty and efficiency.
Acadia’s owner Mark Rohr with a local Greenlandic hunter and fisherman
‘We worked with Danish guide Mia Olesen to engage with the people of Greenland to learn more about their life and the Inuit culture.
‘Naturalist guide Jeppe Lang helped build our appreciation of the ice and animal dynamics of the region, while Professor Per Hansen of the Arctic Station helped expand our knowledge of the interaction between plant and animal life as scientists study the effects of climate change.’
What surprised Rohr about this area of Greenland were the people: “Everyone we met, the Inuit families, the men and women from the Copenhagen marine institute, the scientists and the fishermen. Everybody was stunningly wonderful – very welcoming, very engaging and so willing to invite us in and share their stories.”
The Acadia programme
Acadia launched two years ago and this voyage was the first of an extensive programme of cruises revolving around marine studies. The crew includes highly experienced skipper Heinrich Mueller, mate Brent Levenson and expedition coordinator Ali Hay.
“If you’re interested in oceanography you have to go to the transition zones to really get a sense of what’s going on,” Rohr explained when asked about the boat’s programme.
“So going to the Arctic and Antarctic, deep in the Pacific, areas like Panama, where you’ve got a combination of Humboldt current and deep ocean with mangrove swamps and heavy rain water – it’s those transition areas where you really see the most life and the most engagement of species. These are the areas where I think we can learn the most and gain the best understanding of what’s going on.”
Acadia was heading to Panama at the time of writing. “We’ll spend several weeks at the Institute for Tropical Ecology in Bocos Del Toro, studying coral and coral diseases to build expertise we hope to use when we get into the South Pacific,” Rohr explains.
Acadia‘s lovely Truly Classic lines looking more at home under full canvas
“Then we go through the canal to Galapagos where we’ll be working with scientists studying the impact of ocean acidification around natural carbon dioxide vents. These vents create elevated levels of acidity and can provide a glimpse of our future and the impact on flora and fauna.”
The plan after that for Acadia is to sail to Cuba, “where we’re supporting a scientist studying Elkhorn coral, coral ecology and the impact of pollution and ocean warming,” says Rohr. And in early 2020 Acadia will transit back through the Panama Canal to sail the South Pacific. It’s a busy but fascinating schedule.
The message
“We are very fortunate to have an opportunity to sail around the world, interact with so many fascinating people and learn from their experiences,” Rohr concluded.
“I hope Acadia can play a role in elevating awareness of the fragile nature of our marine environment and through that help get others involved to do what they can to protect the oceans and life on earth. We’re just trying to elevate awareness and to be honest we’re just getting started.”
Steinlager 2 was famously skippered by the late Sir Peter Blake to win the 1989/90 Whitbread Round the World Race, and is now owned by the New Zealand Sailing Trust. Nigel Sharp steps on board
Steinlager 2, now owned by the New Zealand Sailing Trust, won every leg of the 1989-1990 Whitbread Round the World Race. Photo: Jeff Brown / Breed Media
In 22 May 1990, Steinlager 2 – skippered by Peter Blake and crewed by 14 fellow New Zealanders – crossed the finish line off Southampton to win the fifth Whitbread Round the World Race, with an overall time almost a day and a half quicker than the next boat.
Having dominated the race from beginning to end, Steinlager was first to finish and the winner on corrected time of all six legs: an unprecedented and unsurpassed feat in Whitbread/Volvo history. Twenty-three boats took part in that race. Whereas in the early Whitbread years many competitors considered it more of an adventure than a race, by the fifth edition they were taking it very seriously indeed.
Steinlager 2 was designed by Bruce Farr with significant input from Blake, who was able to draw on his own experience having taken part in all four previous Whitbread races. Farr initially produced a ‘base’ design following tank testing at the Wolfson Unit, the costs of which were shared between four syndicates.
Steinlager 2 racing at the 2017 Millennium Cup. Photo: Jeff Brown / Breed Media
Four designs were then developed to suit the different needs of each syndicate to create Steinlager 2, Fisher & Paykel (another Kiwi entry, skippered by Grant Dalton), The Card and Merit.
It was initially intended that they would all be sloop rigged but, as this race would include more downwind sailing than the previous races, Blake asked Farr to investigate the relative speed potential of a ketch. Farr’s research revealed that a ketch had potential to get around more quickly – but Blake then discovered that Dalton also favoured a ketch.
Blake went one stage further by suggesting that a fractional ketch might have a rating advantage over a masthead ketch and he persuaded a reluctant Farr to alter Steinlager’s design again.
As it turned out, Steinlager 2 nearly never existed. After the pre-preg composite hull was completed in the autumn of 1988 it was found to have delamination problems that were so catastrophic it had to be rejected and disposed of.
But thanks to the unequivocal support of the sponsors a new hull was built (often referred to as Steinlager 2b), and just 17 weeks later Auckland’s Southern Pacific Boatyard launched the completed boat.
After five months of sea trials – sometimes with Fisher & Paykel as a sparring partner – Steinlager 2, which by now had acquired the nickname ‘the Big Red’, was shipped to Europe. She took part in the Fastnet Race, winning just two minutes ahead of Fisher & Paykel.
This year is the 40th anniversary of the round the world race, now the Volvo Ocean Race. Barry Pickthall remembers…
Steinlager’s winning ways continued with the Whitbread Race, though the first leg half-a-day victory over Merit into Punta del Este would turn out to be their biggest leg win. Fisher & Paykel finished barely half an hour behind them in three of the subsequent legs, and the margin on the Fremantle to Auckland leg – the one they both wanted to win more than any other – was a little over six minutes.
On the last leg Steinlager might have lost her hard-won advantage when, four days out of Fort Lauderdale, a chainplate for a mizzen shroud and mainmast backstay failed. It was only quick thinking helmsman Brad Butterworth’s immediate gybe that saved the rig.
After the race finished Steinlager 2 remained in the northern hemisphere for two decades, under three different owners. She was variously known as Safilo and Barracuda before Swiss sailor Stefan Detjen bought her in 2003.
The original coffee grinder pedestals are still in use and provide plenty of exercise for Steinlager’s crew. Photo: Nigel Sharp
He restored her original name and distinctive original livery, sailing her six Atlantic crossings (including a Huelva to La Gomera race record), three Middle Sea Races and various Mediterranean regattas. She also took part in some Whitbread reunion races, including the Volvo Legends regatta in Alicante in 2011.
The New Zealand Sailing Trust had been established in 2008 to purchase Lion New Zealand – the boat Peter Blake had skippered in the 1985/86 Whitbread – and use her to provide sail training experiences for young New Zealanders.
There was a growing feeling that it was time Steinlager also returned to New Zealand and the following year the opportunity to purchase her arose, so the Trust immediately did so. She was then sailed back to Auckland via the Panama Canal.
One of the five original Barient winches that have been retained, along with the coffee grinders that power them. Photo: Nigel Sharp
Steinlager needed a good deal of work to make her fit for her new role and this was entrusted to Yachting Developments at Hobsonville just outside Auckland. The original accommodation included a semi-enclosed nav station on the centreline beneath the cockpit and a single heads compartment abaft.
Otherwise she was almost completely open plan with pipe cots outboard and forward, and with a U-shaped galley (complete with an athwartships gimballing cooker) on the centreline forward of the main mast.
The number of pipe cots has now been doubled to 30, each named after one of the original crew or another prominent Kiwi yachtsman of the time, and the galley has been moved further abaft. While a single heads compartment might have been considered adequate for 15 all-male Whitbread sailors, it certainly wouldn’t be for the boat’s new role and so two more have been added.
Fifteen of the berths are named after Steinlager’s Whitbread crew, the rest after other prominent Kiwi sailors of that era. Photo: Nigel Sharp
Steinlager’s original engine was a 130hp Volvo Penta 4-cylinder diesel, fitted forward of the galley. This was replaced with a new engine of the same model in 2005. Yachting Developments later overhauled it and, to avoid the need for an excessively long shaft, moved it aft to a position under the cockpit.
Refit and retention
Other refit work included a new electronics package, new lights throughout the interior and the installation of a Maxwell VC3500 capstan. Almost all of the original deck gear has been retained, including the three coffee grinders, which drive the Barient winches.
When Steinlager was built, Blake had two sets of spars made for her. He used one set for the first three legs of the Whitbread race and then replaced them with the spare set in Auckland. The original set remained with the boat when she was sold, and in 2009 Detjen unstepped the second set and replaced all suspect components with those from the original spars.
During the Yachting Developments refit, the spars were overhauled with all fittings undergoing crack testing and being repaired or replaced as necessary.
During the refit the original U-shaped galley was moved from forward of the mast, with the gimballing cooker renewed. Photo: Nigel Sharp
New sails were produced by Doyles in Auckland using Stratis sail cloth and replicating the look of the originals – 110 of which had been made for the Whitbread campaign. With the work complete, Steinlager was relaunched in November 2013 to take up her new role. Since then, the focus has been on taking New Zealand schoolchildren on voyages all over the Hauraki Gulf.
Despite her years Steinlager is, on average, out sailing every other day of the year. Almost 1,000 children had the opportunity to sail on her last year. They’re all too young to remember the phenomenal achievements of Blake and his team almost 30 years ago, but sailing on this iconic boat is a chance to get inspired by a true Kiwi legend.
It's been a wet and wild ride for the first finishers in IRC fleets and multihulls in the Rolex Fastnet Race
Wizard, Sail no: USA70000, Class: IRC Zero, Owner: David and Peter Askew, Sailed by: Charlie Enright, Type: Volvo Open 70
The first finishers in the IRC fleets of the Rolex Fastnet Race arriving last night and today have all had a hard, fast race. As crews piled in tired, wet, and very hungry, the Rolex Fastnet Race village bar and burger vans have been doing brisk trade since the early hours of this morning.
Even the professional IMOCA 60 teams have had a punishing, if mercifully short, race. Sam Davies reveals that they were simply hanging on at times on Initiatives Couer:
We Sam Davies – she's such a pro, and so modest. Watch this for her good-humoured insight into what it's like racing with the 'foils on steroids' she's fitted to her IMOCA 60 Initiatives Cœur, life on board at speed (you have to stop eating or working at times), leaking a bow full of water (including fishes) during the Fastnet Race and more… Lovely stuff >>Full coverage of the Royal Ocean Racing Club Rolex Fastnet Race in association with #Musto #TheInsideEdge
The line honours winners may have been and gone, but David and Peter Askew’s Volvo 70 Wizard is looking unbeatable for the IRC overall prize, as well as taking 1st in IRC Zero. With a hugely experienced crew, including Charlie Enright, Mark Towill, Rob Greenhalgh and navigator Will Oxley, the American-flagged entry had a smooth race, finishing yesterday morning with an elapsed time of 1 day, 21 hours.
“We had a little bit of everything,” recalled Towill. “There was light airs at the beginning, upwind, reaching, and a fair bit of running then reaching down back from the Rock. We worked hard in the light stuff and managed to stay with the big boats in conditions where some of the other boats could really have pulled away.
“Around the Rock it was real lumpy, but the boat’s solid, so it was able to hold up well, and we didn’t have to take our foot of the throttle at any point.”
David and Peter Askew’s VO70 Wizard
Over yesterday evening and today more IRC Zero and IRC 1 boats have been arriving thick and fast into Plymouth. As well as designs that have been heavily optimised for offshore racing, there have been plenty of examples of fast classes that more usually race windward-leeward courses.
Volvo Ocean Race sailor Stu Bannatyne was on Outsider, 4th in IRC Zero behind Wizard. Outsider is a former Super Series 52 boat that had been swiftly adapted for the Fastnet with masthead locks and new reaching sails, plus a whisker pole for jib reaching.
“So it’s not really set up for offshore racing at all,” Bannatyne explained, “We were scrambling to get ready a bit, and we’re just happy that the boat made it round with no breakages. But the waterproofing as a long way to go!
“It still has a tiller, which was really hard work on all that pressed up sailing that we were doing. I think there was some enjoyment there… but there’s definitely a certain sense of satisfaction now it’s done!”
Rough seas for Richard Matthews’s Oystercatcher XXXIII as they start the return leg back from the Rock
IRC 1 saw Tonnerre de Glen and Ino XXX fighting hard for the top spot, before being displaced on the leaderboard by Jacques Pelletier on his prototype JPK10.10 L’Ange de Milon.
Ino XXX is an HH42 that normally races in the Fast 40+ inshore Solent races. Ben Cooper was trimming onboard: “It was very, very, very wet. There was a lot of bailing and bilge pumping, but we had enough pumps and arms and buckets so it wasn’t a problem at all. We didn’t hold back, that’s for sure.
Ino XXX at full speed on their return from Fastnet Rock
Going across the Irish Sea was quite straightforward, then we had about six hours of upwind before a very, very fast reach home. It was very entertaining – like being on a bucking bronco, you couldn’t cook, you couldn’t eat, sleep was quite hard. It wasn’t around the Scillies until we could relax at all, so everyone is rather broken.”
One of the most punishing rides was that experienced by Ross Hobson and his two crew on the diminutive blue Seacart 30 Buzz.
“It’s an extreme boat. Its physically and mentally abusive, because you’re sitting there getting beaten up, we’re all sore from getting hit by waves. You’re wet, you’re miserable.
The Seacart 30 Buzz leaving the Solent Photo: Rick Tomlinson
“We didn’t get passed by Charal until Portland Bill, we were sitting at 18-knots plus. That’s the performance level we’ve got. But then as soon as the wind swung and we got headed we get beaten to hell. The boat’s too light, so you slam-stop-slam-stop. You’re depowering all the time, we were on four reefs and a reef in the jib. And then when we came around the back of the Rock the sea state was too big for us to really open up because we were catching waves and nose diving.
“We played it a bit safe, because it was more important to get round safely. We knew that the organisers were taking a wee bit of a risk letting us out there.”
Buzz was taking so much water over the trampoline that the crew helmed in full survival suits and discovered two fish tucked next to the port beam. “It’s hard work, but it’s great fun.”
Together wtih Pelletier winning IRC 1, French teams are dominating the results overall in the IRC fleets. Didier Gaudoux is 2ndin IRC 1 on his JND 39 Lann Ael 2, having won the race overall two years ago. The hugely successful Gery Trentesaux is leading IRC 2 on the JPK 1080 Courrier Recommandé, while first to finish in IRC 3 was the impressive double-handed team of Jean Pierre Kelbert, designer of the successful JPKs, and Alexis Loison, overall winner of the 2013 race, in the JPK 1030 Léon.
The challenge for those boats which will be slowest to finish is a second weather cell approaching from the south-west which is expected to increase wind speeds to 30-35 knots, gusting higher, on Friday.
But one boat needed serious crowd control around it – Charal, the aggressively styled foiling design launched just a couple of months earlier. The scale of Charal’s foils alone would have drawn attention, but videos of Beyou test sailing his new boat literally leaping from the water made Charal a hot topic in St Malo. We talked to designer Vincent Lauriot-Prévost of VPLP about the concepts and technology behind it.
Charal is not just the newest IMOCA 60, she marks a ‘next generation’ step for the class because she is the first IMOCA 60 designed entirely around the foils.
Charal’s foils are longer and have a bigger overall surface area than any other IMOCA currently launched. Photo: Charal Sailing Team
Most of the IMOCA 60s carrying foils in the 2016 cycle were retrofitted with them. Even those that were built anew were designed to be competitive without the foils (Alex Thomson’s Vendée Globe 2nd place after shearing the starboard foil less than two weeks into the race proving the sense of this policy). In truth, nobody really knew if the foils would be reliable and effective across enough of the wind ranges experienced in a round the world solo race.
“In the last edition of the Vendée we proved foils on the conventional boats, which were on boats designed for power and righting moment,” explains Vincent Lauriot-Prévost.
The results of the last Vendée Globe: 1st Banque Populaire, 2nd Hugo Boss, Maitre Coq 3rd, all VPLP-Verdier foiling designs, proved conclusively that this was the future of the class. So for Charal, VPLP took a different approach.
Along a three-mile start line off St Malo, 123 boats set off on the 40th Route du Rhum singlehanded transatlantic race…
“We have decided to make the new boat as a pure foiler. Instead of looking for a powerful hull we are looking for a less draggy hull, taking into account that the foils are going to be the element that gives the power.”
This means a big shift from trying to balance weight reduction and power, to working towards a lightweight and minimum drag hull form. One of the challenges has been that the new generation foil packages – longer foils, and casings that are stronger and more complex – come with a weight increase.
“We know that all-in the package of the new foils, including the reinforcement of the hull and so on, are just about half a tonne extra weight [over the last generation foils],” explains Lauriot-Prévost. “So how can we make the boat half a tonne lighter to compensate for this?”
Charal can be up on her foils in just 15 knots of wind. Photo: Damien Meyer / AFP / Getty Images
Hull volume has been reduced wherever possible, retaining it forward and amidships but cutting away great angular sections of bow and topsides, then sloping down to a low transom to create what Lauriot-Prévost describes as ‘a very bumpy sheer’.
Overall, the changes are significant and achieving them while remaining within the IMOCA stability rule was a challenge. “The hull is completely different. It’s a narrower waterline – we don’t want to be a cigar, but we accept to lose 15-20% of righting moment to be within the stability rule,” explains Lauriot-Prévost.
During the design process they discussed with the Charal team whether they wanted the boat to remain competitive even if they lost a foil (as did Thomson). The decision was made that the boat would not be have enough power to be seriously competitive in non-foiling mode – although it would be stable enough to be safe.
Wide load
The scale of Charal’s foils is impressive – they are wider than any other boat’s so far, with a long shaft and tip and an angled elbow. They are also surprisingly thick. The trade-off for the increased foil size and power is that they cannot both be retracted simultaneously.
The size of Charal’s foils mean that they cannot both be raised at the same time
“We accept [we can’t] have them fully up at the same time, because we want them big. We want to create the righting moment as far out of the hull as possible, and we want a foil which creates vertical lift but which creates side force at the same time,” says Lauriot-Prévost. The shaft creates vertical force, while the oversized tip generates lateral and vertical forces.
The other key difference is that these latest generation foils have adjustable rake, using bearings fore and aft, which allow Beyou to alter the angle of attack by 5°.
How frequently the rake will be adjusted remains something to be explored but, says Lauriot-Prévost: “You can imagine maybe that instead of playing with sail sheets you play with the foil controls, and tune the boat to the reaction in the water more than the reaction of the sail forces.”
There is one significant limitation to the power even the latest generation IMOCA 60 can generate: the class-restricted rig. “There is one fuse on the boat, which is the mast,” explains Lauriot-Prévost. “The mast has been designed for [loads of] 32 tonne metres (Tm) and fully foiled, fully canted, fully raked and fully ballasted we are more 43-45Tm.”
Finding the limits
The pedestal grinder is placed right in the centre of the pit area for direct connection to winches
To monitor these loads, Charal is covered with fibreoptic sensors; five per foil with additional sensors in the foil rake adjustment bearings, as well as on the outriggers and backstay.
“During the trials it happened several times that we had alarms, because we were overloaded compared to the designed load,” says Lauriot-Prévost.
Given that potential, the adoption of the IMOCA 60 class by the Volvo Ocean Race will be a serious test of restraint. “That’s a really strong discussion that we had with the Volvo teams, because the Volvo teams have not got the same approach as a single-handed sailor, and when they push, they push!”
The other limiting factor is of course the human on board. As with any IMOCA 60, Charal has been customised around her skipper, the hugely experienced Jérémie Beyou, and his personal preferences.
“One thing which is evident on this boat is that Jérémie doesn’t want to stack the sails inside,” says Lauriot-Prévost. To make moving the sails on deck easier, there is a sloped scoop abaft the cockpit.
The cockpit is sheltered by a fixed cuddy made with Mylar film windows rather than a retractable coachroof – sliding components would be heavier. A pedestal grinder is placed under the cuddy, right in the middle of the pit.
To keep weight low all the lines coming from the bow or mast base are led through two tunnels to the pit area. The pit area has four in-line winches, directly connected to the pedestal for the easiest transmission system possible, with no gearbox or T-junctions necessary. This offers big savings in weight and complexity, but does make for a very compact working area.
The 2018 Route du Rhum was Beyou’s first racing test for Charal – he retired with steering issues. Photo: Charal Sailing Team
“You do end up with a cockpit that is not designed for crewed sailing, at all!” points out Lauriot-Prévost. Down below was out of bounds – the inner workings of Charal’s foil controls are too new to be shared.
Many of the IMOCA skippers have talked about wearing helmets or body armour on the new foiling 60s, so extreme is the motion. Was protecting the skipper a factor in the design?
“It’s going to be the priority before the start of the Vendée,” says Lauriot-Prévost, “But Jérémie needs to find out where it is important to protect. He needs to get a bit bruised first!”
American VO70 Wizard wins the Rolex Fastnet Race overall, while French JPK yachts dominate the IRC classes
The stars’n’stripes liveried American Volvo 70 Wizard has been confirmed as the overall IRC winner of this year’ Rolex Fastnet Race.
Brothers David and Peter Askew from Detroit finished in 1 day and 27 hours to score an unbeatable corrected time on their first attempt.
The victorious Wizard crew. Photo: Paul Wyeth/pwpictures
Wizard is the former Volvo Ocean Race-winning Groupama 4, and was sailed with a hugely experienced crew including Charlie Enright and Mark Towill, Rob Greenhalgh and navigator Will Oxley.
The Wizard crew were able to keep boatspeed up to stay with the bigger maxis during the light winds transition phase on the first night of the race, pushed the robust VO70 hard through the 25-knot plus conditions on the approach to the Rock, and finished within two hours of the line honours winners Rambler 88 to take the Fastnet Challenge Cup, the overall IRC prize.
The Fastnet trophy is the latest in an impressive winning streak for the Wizard programme, which has seen them take the RORC Caribbean 600 overall prize in February this year, and then win the Transatlantic Race last month.
David and Peter Askew’s Wizard has won the 2019 Rolex Fastnet Race overall
David said after the Fastnet finish: “[Our winning streak] can’t last forever – you just try to make it last as long as you can. That being said, we definitely have a formula. We decide what we want to do and then find the right machine and the right people to get it done.”
Navigator Will Oxley added: “The crew work was just excellent. Every manoeuvre was done really well. We used all the sails in the right order. We never had the wrong sail up. Charlie made an excellent call that we change directly from the masthead Code 0 to the J2, so we were under-wicked heading out to the Rock for the first hours, but then we didn’t have to do the change from the J1 to the J2.
“On these boats they are hanked sails and trying to get rid of the J1 and put the J2 up in those conditions is very difficult so that was another key moment.”
Apart from Wizard’s win in IRC Overall and Zero, and USA 25555 Rambler 88’s monohull line honours win, it has been a near clean sweep for French entries in this year’s race.
Jacques Pelletier took IRC 1 in his Milon 41 L’Ange de Milon, which he describes as a ‘prototype’ of the JPK 1010, also designed by Jacques Vader, who draws the successful JPK line.
Géry Trentesaux’s JPK 11.80 Courrier Recommandé took 1st place in IRC 1
Their win was the first of a near total command of the smaller IRC classes by the Valer-Jean Pierre Kelbert partnership. In IRC 2 Géry Trentesaux’s well-sailed JPK 11.80 Courrier Recommandé took 1st place, with three of the top four boats being 11.80s.
In IRC 3 their domination was even more complete. Jean Pierre Kelbert himself was sailing with Alexis Loison, overall race winner in 2013. The double-handed pair sailed the JPK 10.80 Léon to class win, with no fewer than six of the top seven boats in class in being 10.80s.
Léon fishing into Plymouth
The only exception was 2nd placed Henry Bomby and Hannah Diamond on their brand new Sunfast 3300 Fastrak XII. Léon and Fastrak XII were also 1st and 2nd respectively in the exceptionally competitive double-handed division.
The pattern repeated yet again in IRC 4, with JPK 10.10s taking the top two places and filling half of the top 10 in the 87-boat fleet. Noel Racine’s Foggy Dew added another trophy to the cabinet to take the class win.
Alexis Loison and Jean-Pierre Kelbert won IRC 3 and the double-handed division on the JPK 10.30 Léon. Photo: Paul Wyeth/pwpictures.com
But as crews await tonight’s Rolex Fastnet Race prizegiving, the stories of the race have been much more about the winners – the teenage crew of Scaramouche from Greig City Academy who pushed on despite shredding two spinnakers, Susan Glenny’s team on Team Tigress who had to sail almost the entire race with two reefs in after ripping the mainsail in the early stages of the race, and the beautiful classic yachts who have sedately arrived into Plymouth over the final days.
The Greig City Academy school team Scaramouche crossing the line. Photo: Paul Wyeth/pwpictures
Among the classics, Lulotte was awarded this year’s Sparkman and Stephens Trophy. Owner Ben Morris bought the S&S yawl a decade ago in the Caribbean, before sailing it across the Atlantic with no engine and battling 10 days of gales that blew out most of Lulotte’s sails before arriving in Dartmouth where she was lovingly restored.
“Going around the Fastnet Rock we have a little tradition – we have a family house on Heir Island overlooking the rock. As we rounded the Fastnet Lighthouse all of the wonderful crew enjoyed roast lamb,” said Ben, a veteran of eight Fastnets.
“Lulotte goes to windward well, but off the breeze with a mizzen staysail up you are having to work the wheel quite hard, but she looks after us and you never feel in danger. We hit 15 knots surfing down a wave coming home – she’s a Devon girl!”
Around 11 yachts are still racing, including the Rogers family on the Contessa 32 Assent, who have around 70 miles still to go on Thursday evening.
For all our Fastnet videos from Cowes and the finish in Plymouth, visit our You Tube channel.
See further, see more and sail faster... Will Bruton investigates the navigation benefits that augmented reality is bringing
High definition cameras can provide the live image for the plotter, stabilised by a separate sensor to counter pitch and roll
Google’s mission statement is ‘to organise the world’s information.’ This almost impossibly ambitious declaration of intent underpins the technology giant’s ventures into everything up to and including Space. The message is clear: in a world where information is abundant, how we organise and access it is fundamental to it being useful.
Step on board a yacht equipped with an early electronic plotter and you can quickly find yourself the slave to a complex and far from intuitive menu system. It can take forever to get to what you need to know, making it quicker to pick up the almanac, and do things the old fashioned way.
Fortunately, things have improved since those first electronic plotters. We are now entering an age of innovative and user-orientated design where the influence of mainstream consumer technology has finally reached marine electronic products. But what does it all mean for the sailing we stepped on board a boat for in the first place?
Knut Frostad carefully considered where sailing information was positioned on his Outremer 5X
Make it relevant
Former Volvo Ocean Race CEO and Olympian sailor Knut Frostad bears rather more brutal scars of marine electronics than mere frustration, once nearly losing his eye to an errant antenna while racing offshore. Since leaving the shore-based role of CEO at the Volvo Ocean Race he has taken the helm at Navico as head of digital products. Navico is the parent company to three marine electronics brands, including B&G.
On a particularly revealing video on the company’s YouTube channel we see how the ex-Olympian uses technology on his family’s yacht, an Outremer 5X. Screens are positioned precisely at eye line height, electronic plotters are visible from all (four) helming positions and everything is carefully refined to show only the information that is useful.
It’s an attention to detail more likely associated with a German luxury car, where everything sits just right. The take-away is one we can all learn from; by filtering out what’s not necessary, the sailing experience is optimised. Retaining a firm grasp on the technology is what empowers successful sailing, not an abundance of raw data.
The challenge faced by designers is not simply to provide data, but to make information useful. Raymarine currently employs around 100 people in its development team. Improvements in how software is developed have changed things. Marine brands now design plotter interfaces on the same platforms as mobile phone software; making the process of development faster.
The result is interfaces that are inherently more intuitive to use, making the much thumbed paper manuals of the past redundant. The less obvious and more exciting prospect is the scope for increased capability of a single piece of hardware as time goes on, adding capability as new external components are released.
Apart from telling the time, one of the most useful functions on the ground-breaking Garmin Quatix watch is the tidal…
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All of this has made the marine electronics market more competitive, with each manufacturer driving hard to capture the market at the point of purchase. After all, once purchased, you often commit to that brand of electronics throughout your yacht.
Augmented reality, something achieved by linking cameras, GPS, image stabilisation and software technology, is perhaps the most exciting realisation of how the humble electronic plotter has become much more than an interactive chart. It’s changed my sceptical view of how much more can be done to make things better. By presenting data overlaid on a live camera view, we see much more, without having to connect the dots.
Military precision
For many years Raymarine’s parent company FLIR has been building military and aviation technology. Unsurprisingly, this knowledge has percolated through to consumer marine electronics. In the sky, the possibilities of augmented reality became mainstream years ago, giving pilots what they call ‘increased situational awareness’ or information about the stationary and moving objects they must negotiate their way around.
The Raymarine FLIR system’s ability to track targets with thermal imaging has many potential uses
What is striking about how this has manifested itself in Raymarine’s yacht systems is how chart and traffic information appears in a three-dimensional format that is genuinely intuitive. Unlike relating the chart to what’s seen with the naked eye as we have always done, with augmented reality, the relation of a buoy or vessel is done for you; bridging the gap in a way that seems entirely natural. No brain power necessary.
Everything appears automatically, in the place you would expect it, supplemented with data that’s directly relevant to that specific point up ahead. How much information you see is easily controlled by choosing what data you wish to see. Furthermore, on the screen, buoys are visible before you see them with the naked eye.
The view on the screen in a busy Southampton water, even with all data points (AIS, buoyage and waypoints) switched on, is clear rather than crowded. A high definition camera fuels the system with a live image, while AIS data, buoyage and waypoints are overlaid on top.
Augmented reality places information about a vessel or mark in the same place as you see it with the naked eye, removing the need to interpret from a standard plotter view
“What you see on the screen is a feed from a fixed camera, however the image is digitally stabilised,” explains Richard Marsden from Raymarine. “Our independent sensor is taking into consideration the pitch, roll and yaw of the vessel, so when the seas get rough the image remains stable. There’s a lot of vessel data being processed to achieve such clarity.”
Sure enough, as we encounter wake from a passing tanker, the image is noticeably smoothed out whilst the boat continues to pitch and roll. Coupled with Raymarine’s Axiom plotter, which is available up to a whopping 24in screen, it’s a far cry from the greyscale interrogation exercise many of us were familiar with from using older plotters.
Coming into a channel is where the augmented reality system really comes into its own. It would be easy to discount a technology that quite literally alters what we can see as something likely to produce the tunnel vision so many experienced instructors warn us against.
Valuable nav data is displayed in an easy to understand format
But because drawing information from augmented reality is so instantaneous, I found myself using it to confirm my own visual navigation rather than the other way round. I had to squint at a channel marker in the distance, yet I could confirm what it was on the screen with a half-second glance, while keeping my eyes up rather than down. Being able to see further than the naked eye makes navigation a more predictable exercise, because everything is seen earlier.
A step forward for safety?
The US Coast Guard cites the most common contributing factor to sailing yacht accidents as operator inattention, followed by improper lookout and operator inexperience.
When it comes to active navigation, doubt about our position leads our attention away from the immediate indicators surrounding us – like buoyage – and onto other sources of information that might take longer to process. Augmented reality, though, is an instant reference tool.
Augmented reality software can identify and label the high definition view from a boat’s onboard camera
Raymarine has also added other complementary technologies that work fluidly as part of the system. In a MOB situation at night a rotating camera with thermal imaging technology can track a target automatically in the water, based upon the temperature difference it can detect. The Axiom plotter then tells the helmsman which way to steer towards it. Unlike many bits of kit related to that worst of worst-case scenarios, this potentially lifesaving tool takes no time to set up. It just works.
What next?
With a change of pace of development for marine electronics comes a market that is working harder than ever to be first to the next big thing.
Garmin, a company whose products cover many sports, is paying an increasing amount of attention to body-worn technologies. Though not strictly speaking augmented reality, their latest Nautix kit places key sailing data directly in front of one eye. Mounting to your existing sunglasses frame, this eyepiece is similar to those worn by combat helicopter pilots. It is also wireless, perhaps making it the next big thing for racing crews, including those usually left in the dark at the bow.
Garmin’s Nautix system monitor links wirelessly with the yacht’s instruments, making data accessible to anyone wearing the headset
Will such a Star Trek like device draw ridicule amongst a crew of old hands? Perhaps to begin with, but if it delivers results, that will quickly fade. For Raymarine, linking cameras to onboard systems is something being explored even further, using them to develop automatic berthing in marinas – a prospect that, once refined, will certainly be embraced by the motor yacht market.
For sailing yacht owners, blindly adopting the latest electronics innovations has sometimes been a fast track to running hard aground. But what augmented reality does is bring aboard essential information and present it in a more concise and effective way than ever before. Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it!
Racing traditional Tanzanian fishing boats in tropical waters may sound idyllic, but the Kraken Cup is anything but
Bailing, balance and trim – essentials to keep the Ngalawa moving at best speed
“This is probably the most extreme and uncomfortable sailing I’ve ever done,” says Simon Walker. “And I have sailed twice the wrong way around the world, 17 times across the Atlantic. I’ve sailed to the Arctic, the Antarctic – so that’s quite something when you’re in an absolute tropical paradise of clear blue skies and seas.”
Walker is describing the Kraken Cup, formerly known as the Ngalawa Cup, a unique adventure sailing race held off east Africa in the traditional Tanzanian fishing boats called Ngalawa.
The premise of the race is simple, but punishing. Teams of three charter a Ngalawa and race it over seven days and multiple stopovers for about 180 miles across the Zanzibar archipelago, pitching camp at each stop. Crews are banned from sailing past nightfall, but the days are long. At the end of each day’s racing the crews drag their boats up the beach and sleep on the sand or in a hammock slung wherever they can find.
Teams are expected to raise £1,000 for charity as part of their entry
There is very limited support, and the organisers’ website points out: ‘These are not holidays. These are adventures and so by their very nature extremely risky. That’s the whole point.’
Professional sailor Walker skippered Toshiba in the 1996 Global Challenge, before becoming managing director and chief executive of the next two editions of the round the world race. When two former Challenge colleagues set up an extreme travel company, The Adventurists, he joined as a non-executive director.
The Adventurists run a number of what Walker calls “challenging journeys on very unsuitable vehicles”, including a vintage motorbike race across frozen Siberia and a rally across India in a rickshaw.
The Balmain Bug is a 1.83m (6ft) Australian skiff class dinghy, of which just two remain in existence. First raced…
The Adventurists then decided to add a sailing based event to their portfolio, so Walker used his yacht racing event experience to help build the Kraken Cup, which is now in its sixth year and in 2019 had grown to an impressive 23 entries. It is billed as: ‘Possibly the most ridiculous ocean race in the world.’
Central to the race are the Ngalawas, which are quite unlike any boat that any participants will ever have sailed before.
“The hull is a hollowed out mango tree – so, literally, a dugout canoe. Beams are lashed on to the hull that support the outriggers. A short, stubby mast with a lateen sail is stepped on a small thwart in the mango tree,” explains Walker.
“If there are any fastenings they are literally crude iron nails. It wouldn’t look out of place a thousand years ago in terms of the materials used. There’s a very short, stubby rudder with forged rudder pins, that you make in a blacksmith’s. The sail is canvas, for want of a better word, which is lashed to a bamboo spar.
When everything’s held together with rope or string, running repairs can be fairly straightforward
“I guess the only nod to modernity is we were using braid on braid line as opposed to manila. But the locals are just using polypropylene and any line they could get their hands on. There are lots of lashings – all beautifully done. And basically, that’s it. It’s a pretty simple thing.”
The Ngalawas raced are near-identical to the ones still used by the East African fishermen. The only modifications are the safety equipment that the Kraken Cup crews take – individual satellite trackers for each crew member, additional buoyancy with blow-up flotation bags, and items like danbuoys.
Otherwise the main difference is that race entrants’ boats are fully loaded with basic camping equipment, clothing, spares, food and water – and sailed with three crew. “And sailing with three was pretty full on, particularly a gybe,” recalls Walker.
“Meanwhile the Ngalawa fishermen were doing it with just two of them, on the littler boats on their own, and they are sailing them beautifully, elegantly balanced with a fishing line out. They usually have a cigarette in the other hand and they’re just making it look effortless.”
Despite their primitive construction, the Ngalawas require both finesse and seamanship skills.
“The bit that really got me excited was actually the seamanship aspect,” explains Walker. “So, in a boat which isn’t particularly close-winded and you can’t tack – you can only wear ship, or go around in a gybe – being aware of the lee shore becomes so important.
The boats appear primitive – and drybags are essential – but are surprisingly subtle to sail
“There are countless other examples: bailing, balance, trim – especially trim fore and aft so the rudders are in the water. For a western sailor, it’s very unforgiving and it’s very unfamiliar.
“You can get away with murder sailing amazing modern plastic boats that actually hide a multitude of sins. But suddenly when you sail these boats that don’t hide those mistakes, even the most experienced of us look positively amateurish.
“But then, when you’ve got the balance right, you realise that actually these boats were in many ways very sophisticated. For example, the Ngalawas have outriggers. When you first get on the boat, everyone treats it as if it’s a trimaran but the floats are only very thin planks, they have very little buoyancy. So, they’re not for buoyancy, they’re effectively foils.
“As you power up, you realise that the boards are angled and they’re very subtlety toed in so you get lift to weather. The people of the Arab world where the boats came from had learnt all these hydrodynamics lessons and applied them to something that was built with an axe, which is just one of the elements that I found so fascinating.”
The race appeals to both sailors and adventurers. Some are experienced yachtsmen and women who have sailed around the world, but want to experience something completely different. “Another group are the adventure junkies, who have learnt various other sports and literally just learn to sail for this event,” explains Walker.
Both will be challenged. “The yachtsman often isn’t used to being in the water all the time and dinghy sailing from first principles and that sort of very physical roughing it. Whereas someone who has come from a dinghy background or just learnt to sail would be less comfortable with the passagemaking.”
Teamwork and a willingness to learn are critical to picking up the skills to handle a Ngalawa. “In something that is so unfamiliar, that cycle of continuous improvement is really critical,” says Walker.
In waves, the boats will surf along at near double figures although swamping and capsize are ever-present risks. Crew must use their body weight to hike out, and the mainsheet is wrapped around a crossbeam – there are no winches or fittings – so easing the sheet rapidly can be a challenge.
Everything needs to be tied on: getting swamped or capsizing is an ever-present risk
Floats frequently break off or lashings work loose, requiring the teams to make pit-stop repairs and get help from the locals. This forces the paying western crews to engage with the communities they sail through, which Walker describes as sail-based economies, where boatwork is a part of life.
“Bits on the boat break all the time and you can’t fix them yourselves. Because of the nature of the society you’re in, every village will have a fundi, which means expert in Swahili.
“These guys are the boatbuilders and they’ll come with some really basic tools: an axe, a saw and a drill bit to make holes, and string. And they’ll expertly fix your boat and put caulking in it. And you pay them a really modest fee to do that.
Boats are built and often repaired by experienced local boatbuilders
“The whole spirit of all the events The Adventurists do is that you do get lost and you do get stuck and you do break, because that forces you to have conversations with the people who live in those countries.
“You get invited into their homes and you get helped, and it’s a really unusual and sort of spirit-lifting experience to have. The people there are not wealthy but they’ll share half of what they don’t have with you.”
Navigation is by charts and GPS, but largely line of sight, with stages usually ranging from 10-30 miles. “As much as anything, it’s about keeping your wits about you and realising what you’re going to get blown onto or drifted onto,” explains Walker.
Slight toe-in on the outriggers promotes lift to weather. Photo: Dave Le Roux
“One thing I was worried about are these proper, proper reefs: you just see walls of white water. Remember, in the Indian Ocean you’ve got a fetch of literally thousands and thousands of miles so when the rollers kick in, they’re really big.”
The other challenges are those of survival and discomfort – spending hours out in the tropical heat with no shelter or respite during the day, then limited rest in the evenings.
At each stopover the crews must drag their Ngalawa up the beach, buy fish from the local villagers, cook over a primitive fire, then make camp, usually with just a mosquito net and mat. Occasionally they might be treated to a bed in a villager’s home.
End of the day’s racing usually means cooking on an open fire and camping on the beach
In return, the crews get to visit areas of Zanzibar and Tanzania that are untouched by tourism – lush green islands surrounded by white sand beaches and coral reefs, sailing through warm turquoise waters alongside dolphin and manta rays.
For many crews the racing element is important (there are time penalties and demotion to a non-racing division for any boat that accepts a tow). “You know the old adage that any two boats going in the same direction are racing?” says Walker. “It’s very competitive.
“The starts are sort of semi-Le Mans, so we have someone holding the boat out by their nose, waist deep in water and then another two crew on the beach. At the start everyone is running through the waves to get onto their boats to make sail and get off.
All hands to a launch off the beach
“In the 2019 edition there were very light airs on the first couple of days. But that’s a problem the fishermen have, so every boat comes with a couple of paddles. Some crews rigorously paddled their Ngalawa for hours and hours because there was no breeze, and they had some very competitive paddle racing as well.
“I can’t say it’s a physically easy experience. People are shattered. But then anything worth doing on the water is like that. I think like any challenge, it puts things into perspective. All the crews realise how little they actually need. They all start off at the beginning with all this kit and actually realise you don’t use half of it and the other half broke, and they didn’t need very much other than each other.”
A father-son adventure
In 2016 I signed up to race the Ngalawa Cup, recalls Dieter Rihs. But who would do this crazy thing with me? My son David and his childhood best friend Achim Scheck both agreed immediately. We called our team ‘The Old Man and his Fellas’.
We started working out possible routes with the help of charts and Google Earth and tried to work out where would be the best places to land. For navigation we had a simple compass, handheld GPS and binoculars. Personal equipment was limited to sleeping mats, a light sleeping bag, one tarp to sleep on and some T-shirts and shorts. For provisions we decided on Chinese instant noodle soups, some crackers, energy bars and bottles of water.
On the first day we had a try at sailing the Ngalawa on the lagoon close to Kilwa. The lateen rig was simple but difficult to handle when you tried to gybe; someone had to bring the pole to the other side of the mast. The halyard also served as the running backstay and there was only one shroud, which also had to be brought to the windward side.
Downwind and with wind abeam the Ngalawa was really fast, but to tack was nearly impossible – only when the wind was not too strong and waves not to high could we gain some metres to windward.
On the way to the start from Rukyira we had to cross our first reef: the breaking waves were impressive and we didn’t know how the Ngalawa would behave, but everything went well and we began to trust the boat more and more.
The next day we planned to reach Songo Songo in the afternoon and camp there. We rounded the most western part of the island early afternoon and tried to reach a beach just around the corner, but due to rising winds we couldn’t get to windward so decided to go on to another remote island. This was a bad decision.
About two miles north of Songo Songo, the wind and waves increased, we lost one outrigger and capsized. We weren’t able to right the boat ourselves and decided to ask for help. After about two and a half hours the race committee boat found us and we were towed back to Songo Songo. The sail was ripped, the hull leaking like a sieve, and we lost all our tools, water, charts, GPS and binoculars.
Some other teams were on the beach and helped us out with dry clothes and a lot of hot tea with a little shot of rum.
When early daylight came we walked to a small fishing village on the other side of the island to find some locals who could help repair our boat. Although we didn’t speak Swahili and no one could speak English we managed to find the right people – one repaired the outrigger, one the sail and another did the caulking.
With little confidence we started early the next morning to reach Bwejuu. Without our navigational equipment and without sight of land it was one hell of a trip: lots of wind, 6-9ft high waves we sometimes surfed. David had to balance the boat on the outrigger beam for seven hours, and we had to bail constantly. But we made it.
The Kraken Cup is as competitive as any other yacht race
Just after we passed Cape Ras Kanzi, the most eastern point of mainland Tanzania, the leeward beams broke and again we lost an outrigger. Achim and David reacted unbelievably fast, jumping overboard and holding the boat upright. We lowered the sail and drifted to a sandy beach. They later found the lost beams and outrigger a couple of miles away.
At sunrise we started repairs then sailed out into the Indian Ocean on a course to bring us west of Zanzibar. Over the remaining days we had a close race with a British boat and for the final miles it was a head-to-head race – which ended in a draw.
The next race is in January 2020. Find out more at: theadventurists.com. Teams should aim to raise a minimum of £1,000 for charity, £500 of which is designated for the Official Kraken Cup charity, Cool Earth, the other £500 to be donated to a charity of the team’s choice.
Heritage clothing brand teams up with RNLI to spread safety messaging for boaters and kit out lifeboat crews with breathable clothing tailored differently for men and women
Over 1,200 yachts crewed by world-class sailors, families and first-time racers, battled it out on the water in last month’s Round-the-Island race. While the largest monohull, Jethou took the line honours in its class, the much sought-after Golden Roman Bowl was won by the smallest competing yacht – an Alacrity 18 Bilge Keel Eeyore, skippered by Jo Richards.
Also competing, was ocean racer Pip Hare, in her 60ft IMOCA, Superbigou. Clothing partner, Helly Hansen, who are sponsoring Pip’s Vendée Globe campaign, developed a new line of branded race clothing especially for the event. Over the weekend they also held free lifejacket checks in conjunction with the RNLI.
Educating boaters about drowning is just one of the goals of the Norwegian company, who’ve signed a five-year partnership to promote the RNLI’s safety messaging and clothe the charity’s all-weather lifeboat crews.
Last month, Pip Hare visited the RNLI College in Poole to test the kit in the charity’s sea survival pool, complete with wave and storm effects. “The clothing that they developed together for the lifeboat crews is top notch,’ she said. “It’s great to work with a brand that takes safety and performance so seriously.”
The new gear – which is now on service at lifeboat stations across the UK and Ireland – uses waterproof and breathable Helly Tech® fabric, designed to increase comfort compared to the previous non-breathable fabric. It’s reinforced for exposed areas, and the technical layering system (base, midlayer and top layer) ensures crewmembers will keep warm and dry while out at sea.
The challenge, as many yachtsmen will know, is staying comfortable in different temperatures, as Andy Sargent, Coxswain at Weymouth Lifeboat, explains: “It can get hot inside an all-weather lifeboat – and freezing outside. Having different breathable layers lets us control our body temperature by deciding what we put on or take off – even mid-shout.”
Given that lifeboat crews in Shetland are actually closer to Norway than London it makes sense that they can layer-up more than their fellow volunteers in the milder south coast of England.
The crew themselves tested the kit over a rigorous six-month period. Crucially the new kit is tailored differently for women, who make up over 500 of the volunteer crew.
RNLI crew kit has come a long way since fisherman’s ganseys and woollen trousers, but it still needed to move forward, explains RNLI Senior Engineer, Allen Stevens.
“The outgoing kit was quite high-tech for its day. It did the job, but when it was introduced, material technologies were in their infancy. It got to the point where the people we rescued were wearing better gear than we did!”
It was time to lead by example. Twenty clothing suppliers were identified and eight invited to tender. Of these, two made it through to anonymous trials. Six lifeboat stations took part in the test, which involved everything from helicopter lifts to slipway launches, crew recovery and boat-to-boat manoeuvres. “You name it, we did it,” adds Stevens.
Manufacturers took onboard feedback and sent modified versions back to the RNLI. In the end it was Helly Hansen that won the contract, an achievement Chief Executive Paul Stoneham described as “humbling”.
“As a brand that defines itself through its work with professionals for over 140 years, Helly Hansen has a tremendous amount of respect for the RNLI’s mission,” he said.
So, with the Round-the-Island race having taken place on the hottest day of the year, rest assured that the RNLI crew – who were standing by at the Needles – were at least comfortable in their new high-tech kit.
The F50 is the new one-design foiling 50ft catamaran used for the SailGP circuit, and is adapted from the AC50 used in the 2017 America’s Cup. Mark Chisnell steps aboard
The boats are expected to be 10-15% faster than when they were sailing as AC50s, reaching 53 knots
“I think 99% of people believe that we received these boats from Bermuda, repainted them and sent them on their way again. I don’t think we’re ever going to be able to explain quite what we’ve done, but the amount of work that has happened here in New Zealand has been simply phenomenal,” explains Brad Marsh, technical team operations manager for SailGP. “The only thing that resembles the previous boats is the length and width; they have been modified in every respect.”
Marsh is talking about the F50, the boat developed for the SailGP circuit. The basic plan was simple enough: to take the AC50s that raced in the America’s Cup in Bermuda in 2017 and use them to jump-start a one-design fleet for the new professional circuit. The AC50 would transform into a strict one-design F50 with standardised components.
The fundamentals of the boat didn’t change: it is still a 50ft foiling catamaran with a hard wingsail. The F50 foils using rudders with elevators, and two L-shaped daggerboards. The crew control the angle of attack of both to achieve flat, fast and stable flight.
Australia won the inaugural Sail GP race in Sydney. Photo: Sam Greenfield / Australia SailGP Team
But almost everything was built new, from the daggerboards and rudder through the control systems and hydraulics to the headsails, as well as two new hull platforms. “We have been going since November 2017, when they started laminating the daggerboards,” recalls Marsh, who has been overseeing the work at Core Builders Composites at Warkworth, north of Auckland.
“In April 2018 we received our first containers with the boats from Bermuda. In October 2018 we sailed the first boat, and in February 2019 we sail our first regatta. I think it’s been about 135,000 man hours.” It’s an immense amount of work, a lot of which is not immediately visible – like the adaptations that mean the boats can now disassemble for shipping.
“It’s the closest thing that sailing has to Formula 1 now. We are a travelling circus going to international venues. We’ve had to take boats that weren’t intended to be dismantled at all, and turn them into something that could go on this travelling roadshow. Every component has to be stored in a container and assembled and disassembled quickly so we can get as much time on the water as possible.
There had been many rumours and speculative stories, but last night at a glitzy ceremony in London the highly anticipated…
“We know when we go to an event the intention is to have two days of practice and two days of racing, so there’s no point in having two weeks of assembly for four days of sailing. So we’ve had to be very clever about how the systems and boat work so that it can be assembled quickly, sailed reliably, packed up quickly and transported safely around the world in containers.
“We have 66 40ft containers that have all been custom built. The wing goes in one container, the hull or platform breaks down and goes into two containers, plus the boards and rudders. It’s about having a system and set-up so you don’t lose all the pieces and you’re not running around looking for bits.”
Battery power
There have been philosophical changes as well as practical ones – one of which is very visible. There is just one grinding pedestal, compared to the two on which the America’s Cup crews laboured so much blood, sweat and tears. The foil rake, rudder pitch, cant, wing twist and jib sheet is now driven by lithium ion batteries, leaving just the wing sheet adjustment needing the manpower of two grinders.
The lithium ion batteries which have replaced the manual grinder-produced power are housed in a central pod. Photo: Mark Chisnell
“The boats have moved away from the physical, grinding aspect, to focus more on the technical side of the sailing challenge,” said Marsh. “Using the batteries means we don’t need a sixth sailor as grinder, but we have changed the roles around.
“So we have one person, the flight controller, whose job is specifically to fly the boat. In the past that was done by the helmsman: now we’ve split that role off so it can be focussed on.”
During the last America’s Cup, the crews were restricted by the power available from the grinders. “They had to limit their tacks and gybes, but it also meant they had to limit how much they moved the daggerboards and rudders. Now we have unlimited battery power, the teams are able to move all the components as much as they like.
Adding batteries resulted in a redesign and rebuild of the entire hydraulic system. The system now demands over five times as much oil as when the hydraulics were grinder-powered. Photo: Mark Chisnell
“The introduction of the flight controller means that one person is there with his or her joystick and they are constantly moving the daggerboard in an effort to keep the boat level and in constant flight.” The extra workload on the hydraulic system meant that it needed a complete redesign and rebuild.
SailGP took delivery of four of the six boats that competed in Bermuda, and the F50’s development team – led by technical director Mike Drummond – was able to go over all of them and select the best ideas from each for the new fleet. The details of the different control systems and hydraulics used on each AC50 had been tightly guarded secrets during the Cup.
“It was extremely interesting for us. We had the opportunity to take four different boats from the America’s Cup and bring them back into one shed, pull everything out and see what the different teams did. Then we had to go through and standardise these things, so that each boat is identical,” said Marsh.
The boats have been redesigned for quick assembly and disassembly at each venue. Photo: Mark Chisnell
The one thing that didn’t change significantly was the wingsails, at least not yet. “The wings are still about 85% as they were in Bermuda. By the time we had rebuilt all the boats, built 28 daggerboards and 28 rudders, stripped, reconfigured, rebuilt and repainted the boats, we didn’t have time to do the wings as well.
“We have now started a project to build eight new wings for the 2020 season. They are going to be a modular wing, which will allow us to assess the conditions and set up for each regatta. They could be set to be 4m taller than the current wing, the same size, or 4m shorter than the current wing,” explained Marsh.
“The idea is to be able to have the boats foil in very light winds, and still sail in very heavy winds. This opens up different venues to us.” The boats will constantly develop to keep them at the bleeding edge of what’s possible, while remaining one-design.
Nothing like this has ever been done before – the nearest is probably the developments the VO65 went through between the last two Volvo Ocean Races. Those boats generated some of the most exciting offshore racing ever seen.
It will be interesting to see if the same philosophy can deliver that result for high-speed, short-course inshore racing long-term. The America’s Cup community will be watching with interest.
Pip Hare shares advice from sailors who have experienced a lightning strike on how to avoid getting hit by an electrical storm
The 2015 Volvo Ocean Race encountered electrical storms. Credit: Brian Carlin / Team Vestas Wind
Lightning is the thing that scares me the most at sea. Having never experienced a lightning strike I think this is mostly a fear of the unknown, coupled with a sense of helplessness.
My lightning strategy has always been to sail in the opposite direction and hope for the best. The following is a combination of my own practice and observations from sailors who’ve experienced a lightning strike first-hand.
Avoiding lightning
Thunderstorms are created in conditions where there is great instability between the upper and the lower layers of the atmosphere. Typically, thunderstorms follow an extended period of warm, still weather, but lightning can also form along very active frontal systems – this tends to follow a sustained period of average pressure, with little gradient breeze when the new front moves in quickly.
Forecasters can predict where there will be increased potential for lightning to form, but not its actual occurrence or exact location.
Specialist forecast models such as the CAPE (convective available potential energy) and the LI (lifted index) show storm potential by highlighting areas of atmospheric instability.
CAPE and LI forecasts are available via specialist weather sites and CAPE GRIBs can be obtained through some providers. Satellite images can also be useful for spotting intense areas of cumulonimbus clouds.
If planning a sailing voyage in areas where lightning could be expected, include a CAPE forecast in your daily GRIB run.
Psychologically, I have always found sailing through calms to be far worse than battling any storm. Endlessly flogging sails and…
Flashes on the horizon
If you get caught out or have to sail through an area where electrical storms are expected, it’s important to prepare for all the weather a thunderstorm can dish out, not just lightning.
Thunder claps can be heard for around 25 miles, so if the sky on the other side of the horizon is alive with light but you can hear no noise then stay vigilant but don’t panic – the storm is still a way off. Keep moving.
Keep a 360° look-out: due to the immense height of thunderclouds they are pushed along by upper atmosphere wind, not the sea-level breeze. This makes it difficult to predict which way a cloud is moving, they can sneak up behind you while you are sailing upwind. The best way to track thunderclouds is using the radar or a hand-bearing compass.
Prepare for a squall: wind associated with thunderclouds can reach in excess of 40-90 knots in a matter of seconds, this will often be combined with torrential rain and drastically reduced visibility. If there’s lightning around it’s best to keep on-watch crew in the cockpit so make sure you reef early.
Preparing for a strike
Lightning can strike up to ten miles away from the cloud that generated it. Just because you are in the midst of a thunderstorm doesn’t mean you will get hit – I’ve spoken to two sailors who reported lightning striking the water next to their boat but not touching them.
Others that were struck reported varying damage to electrical equipment and none experienced structural damage or fire. Here are some of their recommendations:
Unplug all masthead units, including wind instruments and VHF antennas and ensure ends of leads are kept apart to avoid arcing.
As the storm gets closer turn off all electronics – modern kit has increasingly efficient internal protection, but manufacturers still advise turning it off.
Take a fix and plot it on a paper chart. Update your log using dead reckoning.
Avoid touching metal around the boat, such as shrouds and guardrails.
A nearby strike will be blindingly bright. Sit in the cockpit until your night vision returns.
Expect masthead units, VHF antennas and lights to be destroyed, so make sure you carry a good quality spare VHF antenna.
Fluxgate compasses can lose calibration following a strike. Check all electronic compass readings with a handheld compass.
Maximising protection
By providing a direct route ‘to ground’ down which the lightning may conduct you may be able to minimise damage.
Among my small sample of interviewees, only one had a lightning protection system: this was a sloop with a deck-stepped mast on which the chainplates were bonded to the keel bolts. The masthead unit on this boat was still totally destroyed by the strike but the remaining electronics suffered no ill effects. The same sailor had experienced a strike two years earlier with no extra protection installed – in that instance all electronics were destroyed.
The remaining sailors were all in boats of less than ten years old and reported varying degrees of damage to electronics and 100% destruction of masthead units.
The simplest protection system is bonding an aluminium mast to the keel bolts. On a keel-stepped mast this is easily done as the mast heel and keel bolts are close to each other. For deck-stepped masts this can be achieved by running an adequately sized cable through the deck head and down a bulkhead or supporting pillar.
Most modern boats have the mast bonded to the keel by manufacturers – if you’re not sure lift the soleboards to check. Masts made of less conductive materials such as carbon would require a conductor cable as well.
Air terminals at least six inches higher than any antennas at the top of your mast may save your masthead units. There is also considerable debate over the need for dedicated grounding plates – this appears to be more relevant to older boats as none of my interviewees suffered ill effects through grounding to the keel bolts.
Faraday cage
There is a theory that the oven on a yacht can act as a Faraday cage, protecting anything inside it from the effects of electrostatic discharge (ESD). Handheld or portable electronics can be temporarily placed inside a metal oven to protect them during a storm.
I have no conclusive evidence this works, but I’ve always done it, reckoning it can’t do any harm – just remember to take them out before dinner!
New yacht designs are showing easier ways to set up for double-handed cruising as well as racing
Photo: Paul Wyeth
Sailing double-handed as a couple is becoming more popular as partners elect to enjoy the experience of cruising and ocean voyaging without the complications of extra crew. It can be tiring, sometimes tricky, but you can make it so much easier if your yacht is set up carefully in advance.
Here, short-handed and solo sailor Pip Hare offers expert advice on offshore sailing two-up, and explains the ideas, deck layout, set-up and handling that two-handed racers are using that can be adopted by any crew.
Keeping near to hand
When sailing double-handed you’re on standby even when off watch. You may be lurking by the companionway, kitted up and ready for action, or fully asleep in your bunk.
But while the co-skipper is on deck, required to make calls on navigation, other vessels and weather updates, you’ll want a means of maintaining good communication and interaction with each other, and a way for the off-watch partner to rest but still be able to get out and up quickly in the event of an emergency. A good below-decks layout should offer a couple of comfortable sea berths close to the action.
A large bean bag can offer a good off-watch solution for rest
Leecloths on saloon berths can often provide a solution, though trying to jump over one to make an emergency exit can be a challenge in itself. Personally, I prefer to sleep in the sitting position when off watch, usually opting for a beanbag on the floor, which can be moved with each tack and moulded into a seat with a headrest.
Take a look at the the JPK 1030 and the Jeanneau Sun Fast 3300 – these two new designs offer twin U-shaped seats at the base of the companionway, shaped so a person will not slide out if sitting on the high side, yet can recline in the seat to a comfortable position. For me these represent a perfect standby location, close to the action yet warm and dry.
The forward-facing windows in the Sun Fast 3300 give a great view of jib trim and of the horizon on the leeward side, which improves situational awareness for the off watch skipper.
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£100,750.00
Get the cockpit clear
You don’t need to be an octopus to carry out manoeuvres double-handed, you just need to be methodical and organised. Break each hoist or drop down into component actions then carry them out in order.
For this, a cockpit needs to be spacious and well laid out. Ropes should be easy to identify, with clear leads to pull them from different positions around the cockpit. And the ability to cross-winch is a must.
Ideally, a helmsman when left alone on the deck will have access to all the important lines from the helming position. This includes the ability to release spinnaker sheets – ideally cross-winched to the windward side – and release the kicker, which so often is an impossible distance away on the coachroof yet so often is your ‘get out of jail rope’ when powered up and reaching.
Lines should be well organised and easily accessible to the helmsman when double-handing
In both the Sun Fast 3300 and the JPK 1030, the primary winches are set aft in the cockpit, just forward of the helming position, and both spinnaker and jib sheets can be lead to the windward side without worrying about damage to cockpit covings or trims. Cross-sheeting can be a problem in conventionally shaped cockpits but it is worth playing around to see if you can route spinnaker sheets in particular to the high side.
Try setting blocks on Dyneema strops so that when under load they will sit high off the deck to clear any coamings. These can be held in place with elastic when not in use.
The kicker should be long enough to reach the helm and use a clutch that can be released from a seated position aft. Remember that to flick a rope out of a cam cleat requires a bit of height so if the cleat is on a coachroof this will be hard.
The use of purchase systems means there’s less reliance on winches
Making it easier to trim and sheet
Anything that can be addressed with a straight pull instead of winding in with a winch is going to help the short-handed sailor; even better if it can be pulled with one hand. These new boats make use of purchase systems to obviate the need for winches, speeding up manoeuvres and making it possible to adjust trim with one hand while steering with the other.
There is also a safety element to these purchase systems as less load is carried through the ropes, so they are easier and safer to control on the release. Both the JPK and the Jeanneau make use of purchases for adjusting the mainsheet, backstays and jib trim.
If you are struggling to pull the main in tight with one hand then consider putting a fine tune into the system – it can be easily added to the end of your existing mainsheet. If you are struggling to move the backstay, a good solution is to put another cascade into the existing purchase.
This will require more travel from the system so may need the wire part of the backstay to be shortened by a rigger, but it will turn this part of the boat into a trimming tool that can be used to great effect.
Jib trim is controlled via a clew ring and transverse track. With the right purchase this system allows leech tension to be adjusted and the sail inhauled or outhauled even when under load, and without the need for a winch.
Most cruising boats have longitudinal tracks which can hardly be moved when the sail is under load and which require a separate sheet to be rigged for outboard lead fetching or reaching. It would be relatively simple to retrofit the system we can see on these shorthanded designs.
Pip sailing two-up on the Jeanneau Sun Fast 3300
Being on deck together
Although double-handed sailors are required to manage for large periods of time on deck on our own, it’s not really solo sailing in shifts. Part of the benefit of sailing with another is the ability to share thoughts, to talk through scenarios, to feed each other information and generally make the boat go faster.
When on deck together it’s important that co-skippers can sit at a distance where talking in normal voices is possible yet in positions where they will not be in each other’s way or in the way of the instruments.
The JPK 1030 does this particularly well by providing a foot chock behind the helmsman so a crew can sit, play the mainsail or simply shoot the breeze without being in the line of vision.
Good stern locker access to the pilot ram and other systems on the JPK 1030
Access all areas
On any offshore passage double-handed, your autopilot is essential. So it’s very important to have good access to the ram and computer for troubleshooting.
Crawling into tight, dark spaces trying to diagnose and fix faults is never a fun job but when you are sailing short-handed this aspect of installation is something that should be considered.
My first autopilot was fitted in a locker I could barely get into. I had to climb down through the back of another locker, slide under the cockpit drains and then work with my hands and head thrust through a hole, while the rest of my body contorted in agony.
Position all the elements where you can access them easily. What you lose in stowage you’ll more than gain in stress-free problem solving. This has been thought through on the JPK 1030, which provides open, clear access to the pilot ram and rudder reference units.
It's not just a fisherman's tool - forward-facing sonar has many benefits for sailors, explains pro navigator Mike Broughton
Mike skippers a Swan 78 fitted with forward-facing sonar. Photo: Nautor's Swan
Yachting is usually pretty fast to embrace useful new technology, particularly if it helps win a race or if it helps with safety. Just look at how rapidly AIS (Automatic Identification System) has been adopted in the last few years. But one area of technology that has been slow to permeate is forward-facing echo sounders, or sonars. Many commercial fishing vessels do now use it, in particular to help locate and drive towards shoals of fish, making it a very powerful aid.
Brixham trawler skipper Dave Hurford has been using sonars for 30 years and explains its accuracy: “We were able to pick up just one ‘mark’ on the screen at 800m and find a shoal of anchovies – that would pay for the equipment several times over.”
He also recalls a container ship losing a group of containers 13 miles east of Berry Head, which he was able to find on the sonar and weave around to prevent his nets from snagging. There has also been some uptake of the technology in larger motoryachts, although it’s not widespread.
This season one of the yachts I’m racing on is a brand new, first-of-type Swan 78. I asked the yacht captain to specify a B&G Forward Scan in the spec. During the commissioning I talked to the head of marine electronics at Nautor, who told me it’s the first time it has ever been asked for, even though Forward Scan has been on the market for more than three years.
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Active and passive
Sonar technology is certainly not new: submarines have been using it since the 1940s, and it has been available commercially now for more than 30 years. Sonar is short for ‘Sound Navigation and Ranging’, and there are two types: active and passive. Passive sonar only listens and doesn’t transmit (so doesn’t give away your position). Passive sonar has a much longer range than active sonar and is utilised by the military to track submarines.
Active sonar, the type used on yachts, emits an acoustic signal into the water. If an object is in its path the acoustic signal bounces back off the object and returns an ‘echo’ to the sonar transducer. By working out the time between the transmission and the echo the transducer can determine the range of an object. Active sonar range is shorter and its accuracy depends on a mix of variables such as the water temperature and the power of the transmitter.
So how can sonar help on a yacht when we have already have GPS, echo sounders and chart plotters? Despite all that, yachts do still run aground: as recently as June 2018, two superyachts hit the bricks when racing off Porto Cervo in Sardinia, ruining their event and costing tens of thousands of euros.
A forward-looking sonar maps the seabed ahead, usually over a cone of transmission of about 15° either side of the bow. When integrated with other navigation devices such as a chart plotter, they become a very useful aid to navigation, though the range is still very short. The transducer on the Swan 78 is a through-hull fitting 2m forward of the keel and extends 30mm below the hull, so there is a tiny bit of extra drag – but it can be manually raised if required.
The range depends on the type of object ahead. A vertical sea wall reflects ‘pings’ better than shelving mud, so the range may only be 25m to 90m but, in my view, any information about what lies ahead is worth having.
Integrated with a chart plotter, Forward Scan gives an invaluable view of what lies beneath
I have used Forward Scan to great effect short tacking against a strong tidal stream in the Solent, gaining the confidence to tack back to the shore before our competitors helped make significant gains. Confidence that you are clear for just another boat length as you approach the shore can be gold dust information and allow your boat to achieve a clear lane of clean wind and make gains.
Using sonars takes some interpretation – similar to using radar, you have to play with the gain control and it takes time to learn how to use it most effectively. For racing at close quarters, it can be quite tricky to use while using other navigation equipment. The Forward Scan is integrated with the chart plotter and that helps a great deal, though it’s still worth remembering that the most important part of pilotage is the ‘mark one eyeball’.
Sonar is only an additional aid but should work well where there are isolated boulders off a shoreline, so in areas like Porto Cervo it is valuable and to respond to it you need to be ready to tack out again at short notice. Would you be able pick out a semi-submerged container or iceberg? Theoretically yes, although you are not going to get much notice if racing at 20 knots.
There is also the risk of the through-hull transducer coming out of the water as you surf a wave. A bluewater cruiser moving at a slower speed would have more time to react, so setting it up with an alarm may help. When cruising I have used Forward Scan to clear an area of seabed to allow me to get closer to the beach when anchoring in a bay with sparse depth soundings.
Looking ahead of your yacht in clear water you can often see rocks and avoid them, but one of the great things about sonar is it can ‘see through’ muddy water as well.
About the author
Mike Broughton has been a pro navigator for 25 years and currently races on yachts such as the 107ft superyacht WinWin. He also races and cruises on his own Swan 48, Assuage, and carries out race tuition and navigation masterclasses.
Nigel Calder is best known as the author of the indispensable Bible of boat maintenance, Boatowner’s Mechanical and Electrical Manual (Adlard Coles, £35). He has also recently published Shakedown Cruise (Adlard Coles, £15). In it, he says, he: ‘details our first long cruise 30 years ago with a one-year-old and Terrie pregnant, with all our screw-ups and hard-won lessons!’
Sam Davies – she's such a pro, and so modest. Watch this for her good-humoured insight into what it's like racing with the 'foils on steroids' she's fitted to her IMOCA 60 Initiatives Cœur, life on board at speed (you have to stop eating or working at times), leaking a bow full of water (including fishes) during the Fastnet Race and more… Lovely stuff >>Full coverage of the Royal Ocean Racing Club Rolex Fastnet Race in association with #Musto #TheInsideEdge
