As the IMOCA Open 60s head west to Boston in the Artemis Transat Race, patiently awaiting enough wind to really open the throttle, they leave behind unresolved a great debate about how to choke off the power of these designs. The class is facing some of the most radical proposals since its inception.
The solo skippers who form the IMOCA class association have become so concerned about the increase in power and loads, and the spiralling build costs, that they are talking about making some major restrictions to what has been quite an open rule.
To take just one of the more conservative examples, Mike Golding's Ecover 3, I was told last week by designer Merfyn Owen that she is 20% cent more powerful than the previous Ecover, despite being the same weight and having an extra 400kg in the keel bulb.
The solutions being proposed are to cap mast height at a certain size, to reduce ballast or to limit keel bulb weight, so that the current generation of boats are fixed as 'highest potential' boats. But which option(s) the class chooses will have a huge bearing on the future development of the class, and skippers and designers are wary about about creating limitations that might activate the law of unintended consequences.
Everything about the new Open 60s boats has become hard work. Each tack or gybe can involve 16-20 different tasks, not including transferring to windward and stacking up to 800kg of sails, spares and gear. The gearing up has made these solo boats quite intimidating. When I spoke to Mike Golding a few weeks ago he told me that he felt the boats are "already moving outside the range".
The debate has been precipitated by the emergence of two ultra-powerful new designs, Pindar and the new Artemis. Neither of these boats, tellingly perhaps, made it to the start of the Artemis Transat.
Skippers I talked to last week expressed concern that the two most extreme boats to date had been designed to be sailed by least experienced solo skippers (the Juan Kouyoumdjian-designed Pindar was created originally in collaboration with Mike Sanderson, who had no intention of sailing her round the world, and the Simon Rogers-designed Artemis will be sailed by Jonny Malbon, who has yet to do a solo race).
Thus they are viewed as 'designer's boats', conceived without a moderating basis of solo experience.
Former Vendée skipper Seb Josse holds this view. He is racing a new Farr design, BT (pictured above by Thierry Martinez). The boat sailed in the Barcelona World Race as Estrella Dam and Josse has since replaced the mast with one which is shorter and stronger for the same weight.
Josse told me: "The bad side of such an open class is that people go too far, especially people who are not experienced. Maybe we are already going too far."
The class could, of course, do nothing and that, too, is up for debate. Michel Desjoyeaux sees the power equation as self-levelling. "My opinion is the open rule should be kept open," he told me. "It these boats [Pindar and Artemis] don't start or finish a race that's their problem."
Underlying these design debates is another fear: that budgets will grow beyond the reach of regional French sponsors and that an arms race of power and speed will shorten the competitive life and dent the residual value of the current breed.
So a lot is at stake including, in some cases, personal fortunes. Right now, there are short odds on a few new clauses being added to the rules.
Secrecy, and the machinations that go with it, is to be an official part of the race strategy of the Artemis Transat. The race organisers of the solo race from Plymouth to Boston are going to impose a 36-hour blackout on position reports from the fleet when they see a tactical crossroads ahead.
This "interesting idea", as race favourite Michel Desjoyeax calls it, will turn back the clock on tracking technology that has allowed the public and racing rivals alike to see competitors' moves every few hours. The blackout will cloak tactics in mystery and encourage the skippers to use the period of invisibility for some covert moves.
These sorts of secrecy tactics already go on. In race fleets that are tracked it is commonplace to delay a gybe, say, until just after a position report. Nav lights may be turned off temporarily to black out a tack or gybe if another boat is in sight, and the active echo transponder switched off. Solo skippers are all adamant that they would not compromise safety, but if they think the risks are low, they will sometimes choose to make themselves invisible.
Misinformation plays its part in an ocean race as well. Skippers fail to mention damage that may be holding them back, or they reveal it days after the event. They may send back exaggerated reports about grappling with a spinnaker in 35 knots to psych out others.
Sam Davies (pictured above), very familiar with these strategies from the hothouse world of Figaro racing, says: "You might report losing a spinnaker when you're hanging in with the others, or not report losing one. Reporting breakages is really tactical and it depends on the situation or because you don't want your family or sponsor to be worried."
Some skippers talk to, or email each other. Sam will be talking to Dee Caffari and some of the French skippers, but only about general things. "It's all censored," she admits.
The power of branding is shown in this great photo by Thierry Martinez of the three boats in BT Team Ellen. The three, from smallest to largest, is the Formula 18 Ellen will be racing in the Archipelago Raid in Sweden in June, the Extreme 40 skippered in the iShares Cup by Nick Moloney and the Open 60 being raced in the Artemis Transat and the Vendée Globe by French sailor Seb Josse.
The link between them all is that Ellen has plans to race on each during various events - and her company runs the sailing team.
Last year I wrote a pean of praise to Ellen MacArthur's and Mark Turner's OC Events for their organisation and the facilities that had been set up for the Barcelona World Race. As an appendix to that, however, I added that I thought that the Artemis Transat start in Plymouth this weekend would be a harder proposition altogether.
Could anyone possibly give Cap'n Jaspers, chip wrappers and billowing, damp sou'westerlies a rosy and exotic Mediterreanean lustre? Nah.
So forthwith I retract this with apologies and heartfelt, if faintly sychophantic-sounding, congratulations. OC has done it again.
What would once have been a draughty marquee in the middle of a car park strung with Cat 5 cables is now a two-storey marquee in the centre of the Barbican with a champagne bar, café and balcony looking out across at the yachts in Sutton Harbour. Again, a perfect Formula 1 style venue for bluechip sponsors and city worthies.
So, yes, very impressive but not quite as much as the curious absence of those predicted billowing, damp sou'westerlies. After a bone-chilling spring, OC have suddenly flicked the switch over to Mediterranean style weather, and are bringing in balmy easterlies for the start of what may turn out to be lightest and most benign Transat for many years. Mark Turner's powers are becoming spookily omnipotent.
You hear a lot about the power of the current generation of IMOCA Open 60s, and even more about their frailties - the keels that fail, rudders that disintegrate. To read of all these challenges, you'd be forgiven for thinking that racing them is a masochistic game Russian roulette.
What is rarely mentioned is what an absolute dream these boats can be to sail. I've sailed on every generation of these boats and, beasts that they undoubtedly are, the experience seems to get better with every one. Wind these boats up to full power in the right sea conditions and wind angle and you are treated to a quite unforgettable sail. Feather light and smooth on the helm, balanced, forgiving of trim and blisteringly fast, they are magic, like a hard-riding but sure-footed sports car.
This short video shows me steering Dee Caffari's new Owen Clarke-designed Aviva from Plymouth to the Eddystone and back last Saturday. We stormed out at 18-21 knots and back at 16-17 knots in 25 knots TWS from the SE. The boat is a dream to helm, smooth as silk and responds like a dinghy; the chief sensation of speed and power is the spray that whips up from the bow and fires across the cockpit. To steer one these boats is pure pleasure.
The test sail (Dee was making one last check of her generator, watermaker and comms before locking into Sutton Harbour for the week before the Transat start) also hammered home to me how much canvas these new boats carry. The mainsail seems enormous, especially after sailing on Sam Davies's older Roxy the previous day - in fact it's about 10% bigger.
Talking to designer Merfyn Owen, who's also here at Artemis Transat in Plymouth, he reveals a few more interesting facts. Dee's boat, a sistership to Mike Golding's Ecover 3, is 20% more powerful than his previous Ecover despite being the same weight. And the same weight includes 400kg more on the keel bulb.
What those figures mean, and I could imagine when I was aboard, is that while these boats sing and everything feels just silky when everything's going right, you'd have an almost superhuman solo job on your hands when a chain of events begins to go wrong.
To the Royal Geographical Society for a Champagne G. H. Mumm wingding: the inauguration of their Cordon Rouge Club. Some of the best-known British adventurers and pioneers have been invited to be a part of the club, which meets every year to bring everyone together and…well, drink champagne.
Gratifyingly, five sailors who had established world 'firsts' were included: Sir Robin Knox-Johnston, Ellen MacArthur, Mike Golding, Dee Caffari and Brian Thompson, together with explorers and adventurers such as Bear Grylls, David Hempleman-Adams, Ben Fogle, Ewan McGregor and Ben Saunders.
The RGS showed off some of their collection, including a Burberry hood worn by Shackleton and an oxygen bottle that Sir Edmund Hillary used during his ascent of Everest. In those days, Fortnum & Mason had an expedition department where you could buy oxygen bottles, mosquito nets and the like, and explorers really did take cases of wine, champagne, port and other fine dining luxuries. The men leading those expeditions were used to upper class luxuries.
There was a slight feeling at the Champagne Mumm launch that this has not changed, only modified. Many of the explorers (Bear, Ben, Olly et al) had an air of public school diffidence and a background in the Army, the family business or accountancy. Bear Grylls had a dandyish air and wore a rumpled pink linen waistcoat and trousers.
In contrast the sailors (Mike, Brian, Denise, etc) have come from the merchant Navy, teaching, fire service, although they are the ones usually portrayed in the media as an elite.
I wonder if we will be able to look at Irvine Laidlaw's (now Lord Laidlaw - he's a big Conservative Party donor) yacht Highland Fling in future without thinking of his self-confessed 'incurable sex addiction' and penchant for orgies and high-rolling parties with prostitutes. What on earth can have been going on down below, so to speak?
The name Highland Fling will never sound quite the same again. But I suppose he can be thankful he never gave his boats any of the more luridly suggestive names spotted by readers of this blog last year.
Aaaanyway….Lord Laidlaw's unusual atonement has been to offer £1 million to help other people who are obsessed with sex. Names on a postcard, please.
Incidentally, should you be interested in such things, you can see how Lord Laidlaw has voted in the House of Lords, what he has spoken on (in favour of user taxes, for example) and his attendance record on www.theyworkforyou.com.
First of all from John Welsford, the designer of the Gimli (pictured), who corrected me by pointing out that neither he or fellow 10-footer designer Paul Fisher are involved in any way with the organisers of the round the world race.
He adds: 'I pretty much agree with your anaysis of the Around in 10 challenge in most respects, however it's not as loony as it looks. When you look really hard the legs are very short which both keeps the fleet together and reduces the time on board for any one part of the trip to a relatively short time.
'It is in warmer rather than colder climates, there is at least one mothership doing the voyage and it's nowhere near as odd as the current attempts to break the record for the shortest boat to cross the Atlantic. I've designed Mini 6.5ms, have had some success at that, and have sailed those and other very fast mini ocean racers so appreciate the discomforts and the crew requirements from first hand experience.
'These boats will be workable - only just - and not my choice, but workable and if someone wants to do it, that's their perogative.'
Agreed, certainly. Still think a round the world race in a 10ft boat is more than slightly barmy. Oh, and I forgot to point out last time that the proposed race is supposed to be two-handed. Cripes.
I know: I've been a bit remiss with the blog recently. It's been nagging at my conscience, like someone I'd promised to call but didn't.
The thing is, as well as that Siberian coalmine of a day job, I'm working on a new magazine that's due out this summer (of which much more later), and I'm sticking to that excuse.
The worst of it is there's actually a backlog of quite juicy stuff and I'll get on to that tomorrow.
For now, though, I just couldn't resist this image by Thierry Martinez of OC's Open 60 BT getting the corporate treatment in London. I've no idea what the link is between girl bands and solo sailing, but what the heck. The photo op was with the Sugababes.
Is life just too damn comfortable for you? Do you crave lashings of discomfort, hardship and risk to make you feel more alive?
You do? Well, then, here's an adventure with your name on it: racing round the world in boat not much bigger than an Optimist.
The Around in Ten race is proposed by two designers who have come up with rival 10ft yachts. Paul Fisher from Britain has designed the Micro 10, which has water ballast and either a single sail Delta rig or a junk rig, while New Zealander John Welsford has a more high-tech sloop, the Gimli (lines shown right), with a long bowsprit, loads of sail area and a canting keel.
Both boats are designed to be self-built (includes free application for the Darwin Awards for improving the gene pool by enterprising demise).
The proposed race begins next January in the Bahamas and goes through the Panama Canal, across the Pacific and Indian Oceans, past the Cape of Good Hope and past to the Bahamas.
I can't think of any more masochistic way of going racing than this. The motion, the confined space, the length of the race… aargh! If you weren't crazy to start with, you'd surely be a dribbling, pop-eyed bedlamite by the end.
I wonder if it really is possible to find enough madmen to make up a fleet. And before you think: "Hey, but what about the Minis?" they're a stretch-out-and-luxuriate 21ft - and you want to see what some of those guys look like after three weeks crossing the Atlantic.
What's a picture of Alnwick Castle doing on a sailing blog?
Because this summer you can take part in a race in which it's a mark of the course.
The race is the Coquet Yacht Club's '5 Islands and 5 Castles 24 hour Challenge'. It starts at 1830 on 20 June from Alnwick Castle. Two of your crew do the running: 10 miles round Warkworth Castle, on to Amble Marina and a sailing leg Holy Island. It's sponsored by the Alnwick Rum Company (I've never heard of Alnwick Rum, but I bet it works) and is to raise funds for Cystic Fibrosis.
If sailing follows the trend in other sports for endurance and multi-discipline triathlon-type challenges, I predict a big growth in these running and racing events. This one sounds like a lot of fun.
Yesterday the dark horse of the next Vendée Globe was launched in Southampton. It happens to be an all-British yacht with a British sponsor and skipper, a project with plenty of good pedigrees but no sure clue as to how their combination will do in solo racing.
The boat is Artemis Ocean Racing 2, designed and project managed by Lymington-based Simon Rogers. She is Rogers's first Open 60, and the project is unusual on a number of fronts.
Normally, a skipper's team selects the designer and runs the project. In this case it's the other way round. Simon Rogers, together with the team's manager Howard Gibbons, set up a company called Blue Planet to find sponsorship, design and project manage the build of the a boat, and they employ the skipper and sailing team. Rogers cheerfully admits: "If it all goes wrong you can blame me."
The campaign does have a lot of catching up to do. With only 33 days to go to the start of the Transat race, the last solo qualifier for the Vendée Globe (officially, but that's another story), Artemis is an unknown quantity and one of the latest new boats to 'go live'. Unlike most other designs, there are no sisterships or close cousins to learn from. If Artemis is like all the new Open 60s, there are bound to be a deal of costly teething problems. With another keel and a spare wingmast in build, the team is clearly anticipating some changes. It's also a big step up for the skipper, 32-year-old Jonny Malbon, despite a long and thorough apprenticeship. The former Global Challenge training skipper has been boat captain of Ellen MacArthur's Kingfisher and prepped the maxi catamaran Maiden 2 for the Oryx Quest.
Malbon knows plenty about Open 60s and how they work and has consistently done well in crewed races. In this respect, his background is not so far removed from Vendée Globe winner Vincent Riou's. He comes across as mature with just the right amount of confident gravitas (he's the son of a Vice-Admiral who is the Lieutenant Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Jersey).
Malbon, however, has yet to do a solo race. He concedes he has a lot to prove and comments: "It's the start of a massive learning curve, but I'm not worried about that. We are fully aware that we are not as race ready as we'd like, but the key for the Transat is to make the boat safe and get from A to B. If we go fast, that's great."
Don't miss the first detailed look on board the new Artemis in our next (June) issue.
If it isn't caravans holding everyone up in the New Forest over half-term, it's Open 60s.
This is the new Simon Rogers-designed Artemis Ocean Racing 2 being towed to Southampton for her launch yesterday. Apart from the tailback, it shows how wide these boats have become - in AOR2's case, a whopping 6m beam.
Aren't these boats getting stranger and uglier with every refit?
This is the new shape of Vincent Riou's Open 60 PRB, which emerged this week from an overhaul prior to The Transat next month. The most startling difference is the addition of this motorboat style strake from the bow running a third of the way aft.
Riou comments that the strakes were laminated on to the hull sides on the advice of designer Bruce Farr. I guess the intention is that when the boat is hard reaching they will work in the same way as the lifting strakes of a motorboat, which keep the bow up, reduce planing resistance and act like spray rails to divert water away from the deck (check out the incredible Hugo Boss video to see just how many tons of water these beasts can ship).
JP Dick's Paprec-Virbac, another Farr design, already has trim tabs on the rudders - maybe PRB's will, too?
A new carbon wingmast has been stepped as well, though all Riou will say of the difference between this and the one that broke during the Barcelona World Race is that it's stronger. Hope so.
All this week, the images of the multihull Foncia capsizing during sailing trials with the Alinghi team have been similarly turning over in my head and have come to seem quite ominous.
In case you'd forgotten, or didn't know, Alinghi took on the outspoken and often daredevil French sailor Alain Gautier to help them catch up with Oracle, which has for a long time been working with top multihull designers VPLP and rival skipper Franck Cammas.
While out training last weekend, Gautier's 60ft trimaran Foncia capsized, as shown in this picture by Thierry Martinez. One crewmember suffered a fractured collarbone, elbow and broken rib, while another had a broken nose. The Alinghi team, you might say, has had another bloodied nose.
Alinghi's Ed Baird was at the helm at the time, and what interests me is the speed at which these monohull sailors assume they can absorb the intricacies of multihull sailing, which is more delicately balanced and considerably riskier. If the two teams opt for a boat for the next America's Cup that meets the maximum dimensions of 90 x 90ft, then that will especially be so.
The ORMA 60 trimarans proved time and again that, among other peculiarities, these hugely powerful 'square' multihulls can have serious steering problems, being tricky to manoeuvre and difficult to control longitudinally - a result, if you like, of the wheelbase not being long enough. A 90 x 90ft multihull (or anywhere close) will be even more extreme.
And what of the crews that are going to sail them, after they have finished an all-too-short apprenticeship with the experts? Well, I was very interested in a comment by Franck Cammas, recently returned from his own disastrous capsize off New Zealand, which has the heft of logic behind it. "They are not going to catch up in a few months what we have learned in a decade," he says.
The early decision of the Alinghi guys to take control of a possibly over-canvassed Foncia in 35 knots of wind bodes ill. As for Foncia, it will be a month or two before she sails again.
Plenty more comment on the Barbary Duck story. This, from Paul Kelly (a former skipper on the Global Challenge, BTW), reflects the majority view.
I should just point out that Barbary Duck was not doing the ARC, having set off just ahead of the fleet, though the Wellers had crossed the Atlantic with the ARC a few years previously in the same yacht.
Paul writes: 'I have read Sam Brooke's commentary on this subject and whilst some of it makes sense I have to question some of the points.
'I agree that we do set off on voyages, often fired up by the romance of crossing an ocean without a care in the world, etc, and sometimes it does not go according to plan. What I do struggle to come to terms with is abandoning a yacht that is floating and with an upright mast.
'The phrase "step up into a life raft" is not meant to be taken literally but it is meant to hammer home the point that a floating boat is your best liferaft. Amongst other things, from Fastnet in '79 we learnt that abandoning a floating boat may be a fatal option.
'My question is: what would have happened if they (Barbary Duck) were mid atlantic in January without 235 other boats within rescue distance? Would it have still made sense to abandon ship and float around in a liferaft waiting rescue?
'My major concern is the decision-making process that led to the boat not being scuttled. This action surely put the rest of the ARC fleet in danger. I remember barelling along at 14 knots, in pitch darkness with the kite up on the ARC and no way would we have been able to avoid an unlit abandoned boat.
'I think that it is wrong to use Donald Crowhurst as an analogy. I am assuming, rightly or wrongly, that the crew of Barbary Duck set off with what they thought was a well prepared boat, a working VHF and the knowledge that there are 235 yachts to talk to on the radio should they have a problem. Crowhurst set off with a poorly prepared boat and a troubled mind.
'I think in a situation like this it is very easy to point fingers and apportion blame but none of us are privy to what the thought process was that day. They may have been scared witless and just wanted to run or they really may have thought that their lives were in grave or imminent danger. Either way, the boat should, in my opinion, have been jury rigged in case a chainplate failed or else abandoned and scuttled.'
Two years after her launch, Tom Perkins's groundbreaking 289ft superyacht Maltese Falcon is up for sale, and is yours for only €115 million.
The revolutionary clipper yacht, which sets 15 furling square sails on three complex unstayed masts, was built by Perini Navi and completed her sail trials in June 2006. She went on to impress observers at the Superyacht Cup in Palma last year by reaching to the finish of the final race at almost 20 knots while shouldering aside an impressive bow wave.
Should you fancy a taste of the high life, complete with buffalo skin walls, goat skin tiles, carbon fibre toilet roll holders, a $14,000 cappucino maker, various works of art (and your 18 permanent crew), you can view her on the Yachtworld brokerage.
Today is the day for April Fool's Day jokes - stories that might just be true but aren't, yet often turn out to become reality at a later date.
Truth being stranger than fiction, I thought I'd add this disclaimer from a recent press release which although 100% true is every bit as absurd as a spoof. It goes:
'Statements have been made in this release which constitute "forward-looking statements". These statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements.
'In some cases you can identify forward-looking statements by terminology such as "will", "expects", "intends", "plans", "believes" or "potential", or the negative of these terms or comparable terminology. We undertake no obligation to revise or update any forward-looking statements in order to reflect events or circumstances that may arise after the date of this press release.'
Here is another thoughtful and salutary comment about the abandoned boat Barbary Duck from Sam Brooke, and it is something to reflect on.
His point about how we often find things out about ourselves, or others, when far out on the ocean is something any long-distance sailor can probably empathise with.
'I have been following the Barbary Duck story and, while I have no knowledge of the boat or crew involved or indeed of having to even think of abandoning ship, I am sensitive to the vastness of the oceans and the fragility of the human condition. I have also been disturbed by the underlying tone of criticism in some of the reports and messages.
'We go to sea for a lot of different reasons and oftentimes I think we see things in ourselves that we do not recognise or did not think were a part of us. I would not believe a sailor, a mountaineer or any adventurer who has not at times found themselves in a difficult situation and been surprised that they perhaps lacked the inner strength and capability to deal with that situation.
'Crowhurst did not go to sea thinking that his personal resources would not match those of the sea and the Golden Globe Race as I am sure the crew that abandoned Barbary Duck did not think that the Atlantic crossing they embarked on would overwhelm them.
'Travelling at sea is the universal metaphor for travelling in life. Circumstances can sometimes conspire to get the better of you no matter how well prepared you think you are and none of us truly know what is around the corner or behind the next depression.
'It's easy for your readers to talk glibly of 'stepping up into a life raft' as if in a training exercise. Facing perceived mortal danger is not a game that is played lightly or usually with intent. Our human spirit is strengthened by witnessing the survival of others and is weakened by the lessening of those endeavours.'
The photo above was sent to me by a cruiser in Antigua and shows the state of Barbary Duck after salvage.
There have been a number of comments about the abandoned yacht that drifted for three months to be salvaged off Antigua. This is from US reader Ginny Jones:
'Thanks for bringing this egregious situation to the yachting public's attention. Why did the couple leave the boat at all? Couldn't they have attempted some repairs?
'They should have taken some preventative measures, and then, if dismasted, they could have jury rigged a rig and kept sailing. Why is the headsail set and flying? If you are abandoning your vessel wouldn't you put everything away and furl the sails? Were they just tired of sailing, or rethinking their passage?
'And we all wonder why we have trouble getting insurance, or if we do have insurance why we have to sign away our first born to get permission for a transoceanic passage, and/or pay an enormous premium.
'Folks have forgotten the age old advice about stepping up into the liferaft rather than abandoning ship at the first hint (only a hint, mind you) of a problem.'
