Last August Alex Thomson was joined onboard his IMOCA Open 60 HUGO BOSS by former Olympic skier Graham Bell for the 2009 Rolex Fastnet Race. To watch their journey and get an exclusive view into life onboard the premier racing yacht HUGO BOSS tune into Channel Fiver on Sunday 10th January at 12 noon.

The 2009 Fastnet Race saw a hugely competitive line-up come together for this classic 600-mile offshore race. The 300 strong fleet included Olympic medalists, America’s Cup and round the world sailors. Lining up for his first race was former Olympic skier Graham Bell, a complete novice sailor onboard the IMOCA Open 60 HUGO BOSS one of the fastest racing machines on the planet. 2009 saw the 30th anniversary of the 1979 edition of the race, the race was brought to national attention after an extreme storm swept through the Irish Sea, 15 crew as well as 4 from the trimaran shadowing the race and two from a cruising yacht, tragically died. Only 85 boats finished, 194 retired, and 24 boats were abandoned. Graham speaks to sailors both past and present on their memories of this tragic event, and how technology has changed at sea over the last 30 years.

Date: Sunday 10th January

Channel: Fiver

Time: 12:00

FREEVIEW: Channel 30
SKY: Channel 176
VIRGIN MEDIA: Channel 152
TISCALI TV: Channel 31

Following the Fastnet Race, HUGO BOSS then took part in a challenging two handed Transat Jacques Vabre. The 14 strong IMOCA fleet were battered by storm force conditions in the North Atlantic, causing multiple breakages and one boat to be abandoned. On day nine the race was cut short for HUGO BOSS after a collision on the bow, although the damage was small it wasn’t possible to stop the ingress of water until the area was free from water. Sadly HUGO BOSS was force to retire and after a affecting a temporary repair headed back to the UK.

HUGO BOSS has been surveyed after the collision, and the results showed the damage is minimal. Skipper Alex Thomson commented, “The team are currently working on the repair. The potential was there during the Jacques Vabre, it was so frustrating to have to retire when she had performed so well

Share on Facebook

  

 
  On a race which has a recent history of dealing close, tight finishes, the final miles of the Transat Jacques Vabre can be the most nerve racking. The finish line is all but in sight, the miles counting down with a pleasing whirr, but for Safran’s Marc Guillemot and Charles Caudrelier - who are seeking to convert the lead they have held for nine days - they still have no shortage of pressure, and it is likely to stay heaped upon them until the end.
 
      And with less than 450 miles to go in this ninth edition of the Transat Jacques Vabre, the gap back from Safran to Kito de Pavant and François Gabart on Groupe Bel is just over 70 miles. In 2007 the Safran duo missed out, taking second just 54 minutes behind Michel Desjoyeaux and Manu Le Borgnan on the course from Le Havre to Salvador de Bahia, Brazil. In 2005 the winning margin of Jean-Pierre Dick and Loick Peyron was just 35 minutes over Roland Jourdain and Ellen MacArthur. This new coffee route course to Costa Rica may yet brew up an equally close finish. 

      Groupe Bel are an ever present threat, as they have been to Safran since they eased past Mike Golding Yacht Racing a week ago, Saturday night 14th, to install themselves in second place. A relatively stationary little low pressure trough has installed itself over the Gulf of Panama. That has contributed to some spicy squall activity for the two leaders today but so there is the distinct threat that the final miles in to the finish line off Costa Rica’s Puerto Limon will not be easy. This morning, in a blustery 30 knots, Safran’s co-skipper Guillemot sounded slightly slightly harassed and was certainly too busy to speak for more than a few snatched seconds.

Groupe Bel are but one gybe behind, but how much compression there will be in the variable, fluky winds which are predicted for the finish tomorrow (Tues) late afternoon or evening, no one is prepared to guess.
Safran crossed the longitude of Cartagena (Colombia) which was the finish for the Transat Jacques Vabre from 1993 to 1999, with a time of 13 days and 22 hours of sailing.
Underlining the evolution of the class ten years ago, the winner of the IMOCA Open 60 division took 19 days and 17 hours over the same course.
By comparison with the course record to Salvador de Bahia, JP Dick and Loick Peyron’s 13.51 knots in 2005 compares with the course average so far of Safran at 13.26 knots.
Safran had done 375 miles over the 24 hours to 1100hrs today.
 
      While Mike Golding Yacht Racing and Foncia seem assured of third and fourth, the race for sixth to eighth remains the closest group of the IMOCA Open 60. While Pepe Ribes and Alex Pella now hold sixth place on W-Hotels, Dee Caffari and Brian Thompson were breaking away from eighth and the heat of battle to effect a rapid pit stop to collect a replacement generator control panel at a rendezvous off St Lucia. The British duo were just two miles short of Veolia Environnment’s seventh when they diverged north.
 Golding confirmed to this morning’s radio vacs with Puerto Limon, Costa Rica that he feels sure that the leaders will squeeze up in the lighter, variable airs expected, but – he said – it would be unlikely to be enough for he and his Spanish co-skipper Javier Sanso to make any impact on the two leaders who are head by more than half of the remaining race track. Plagued by electrical problems, he is still on target for his fourth Transat Jacques Vabre podium finish in the six times he has raced in this Autumn classic.
 
Quotes:
 
Charles Caudrelier, (FRA) Safran:
“It has calmed a little since last night. It is calmer but no holidays. It is very demanding just now. We have so much to do, there is just one thing after another. I helm in shorts which is quite pleasant but you are soaked most of the time with water coming over the deck. We take turns doing things, I don’t mind from time to time being at the chart table.
It feels like we are getting near the end. You sleep little and make lost of moves..
Stealth mode? I don’t know if that is supposed to be funny, but for you it would not be funny now not to know who was leading now….!!”
 
Dee Caffari, (GBR), Aviva:
“It is all set up and we are now just trying to sail to St Lucia as fast as possible, these are great conditions to be sailing in and so we can’t complain too much and it should not cost us too much time, which is good because our competition is tough.
It was an incredible night to drive in, I kind of struggled. I kind of thought we would have lost a lot, and when we got our position reports it was one of our better nights….
It is full of surprises, but it just goes to show how hard we are all working. It is closer and closer.
We are trying to organize so it will be as swift as possible and not let us lose too much, especially in terms of our focus. We are so just trying to concentrate on boat speed all the time and the generator is just background.”
 
 
Mike Golding, (GBR) Mike Golding Yacht Racing:
“The gybes are quite interesting with a short sea, and quite a lot of wind. We are making good progress. We are still having to do quite a lot of hand steering which is quite tiring. At the one time we are massively overpowered and at the other we are hardly moving at all, so that is the only way to do it with no wind on the pilots.
We run trust watch system with no fixed timings, so we work as long as we feel we are alert and try and give the other person as much respect as possible, sometimes one guy is pretty tired then the other will know that and be feeling up for it and so give the other a bit more time lying down, and then when conditions get tough like just now then we are hand steering a lot then we maybe try and do three hour stints, but we have no precise watch system.
There will be a close up towards the end, as inevitably it will get lighter towards the finish, and that may well make for an exciting finish, certainly for the first two boats, and we might see some significant compression, right now with the conditions but with a large gap ahead of us and a similarly large gap behind us, then we are straight lining and trying not to break anything unecessarily.”

Share on Facebook

 

In between the simple routine of just keeping their boats at maximum speed in the right direction, and picking their way as best they can, there is a certain quiet satisfaction underpinning the efforts of the top three duos in the IMOCA Open 60 fleet as these Transat Jacques Vabre leaders set themselves up to break into the Caribbean.
 
That is not to say that any of them have already accepted their position now will be the same when they cross the finish line off Costa Rica’s Puerto Limon, but with the gap between leader Safran and second placed Groupe Bel grown by 20 miles to 81 miles early this morning, and the margin between Bel and Mike Golding Yacht Racing, in turn 82 miles, then each feels they have breathing space which they perhaps did not expect this morning.

Instead of the expected initial compression, in fact Marc Guillemot and Charles Caudrelier slipped away another 20 miles overnight on Safran, a gain which surprised Guillemot’s co-skipper enough to wonder this morning if their pursuers had a technical problem.

But in fact Safran has just had more a little more wind.

Satisfaction, such as it is, aboard Mike Golding Yacht Racing comes from being back in something closer to full racing shape after British skipper Golding spent much of yesterday night dealing with an electrical charging issue which firstly meant they could not start the engine, which then developed so they had a complete power failure.

But for his hard day’s night and recuperation yesterday Golding has remedied their problems and was pleased to be back in a more competitive mode early this morning.

Winds for the leaders are still very up and down, variable in direction. The leading trio have anything between seven and 12 knots this morning and winds will drop more at times as they approach the arc of West Indies islands

But the gap back to Michel Desjoyeaux and Jérémie Beyou has also opened another 20 miles to 290 miles between Mike Golding Yacht Racing and Desjoyeaux’s Foncia. Golding said his preference this morning would be to have been a little more south, but given his problems yesterday that has not been possible.

Dee Caffari and Brian Thompson creep closer to fifth all the time, this morning getting to less than 17 miles of Veolia Environnement their slightly more southerly position has been beneficial to the British Aviva duo, but both were slowed to less than ten knots this morning.

Battle continues in the middle order of the Transat Jacques Vabre

After successfully regaining sixth place yesterday and battling hard to maintain their position overnight, Dee Caffari and Brian Thompson onboard Aviva have narrowly lost out to 1876 in this morning’s polling.

The three boats currently in the middle of the fleet – 1876, Veolia Environnement and Aviva – are all positioned within 15 miles of each other and with over 2000 miles of the route to Costa Rica remaining, the battle for fifth to seventh place is set to continue.

The 10h00 race ranking positioned Dee Caffari and Brian Thompson, onboard Aviva, in seventh place, 575 miles behind race leader Safran.

“We have just spent darkness coasting along in a dying breeze under a canopy of bright stars. Flat water and warm temperatures have made it an uneventful but also a wonderful night’s sailing.

  As predicted we will be fighting light airs with those around us. If we can keep working hard and keep at the front of this little group then we will reach the stronger breeze about 36 hours quicker. It is amazing getting a grib file now for weather information and realising how far we have come because we are also getting the Caribbean weather too.

 To play tribute to this particularly tropical theme we also celebrated shower day onboard Aviva. So now she and her dynamic duo smell of roses as you would expect.”

Franco-Spanish duo Yves Parlier and Pachi Rivero are on good form this morning, making west at good speed in good breeze. On the quickest boat in the fleet just now, 1876 Rivero remarked that they will make their move south later today, but just 40 miles of DTF (distance to finish) separates fifth from eighth.
 
Quotes:

Mike Golding (GBR) Mike Golding Yacht Racing: “We had a problem, a big problem. As the batteries got low the engine would not start, and so the engine start batteries had not been getting trickle charge and so the engine would not start. That created an earthing problem on the engine as well, and so with no engine…no lights, nothing at all. It was pretty dodgy for a while. The switchboard 12v charger has blown, we had a spare but it has blown as well, so what I had to do was lift one of the main batteries out of the bank and use it to start the engine, so that took up most of yesterday night and the boat was a complete tip after that. So yesterday was spent getting tidied and getting the boat moving again, so so far tonight has been relatively quiet. We had no electronics, no navigation, no electronics, and it was pitch dark and so trying to see the wheel compass is hopeless. So we have ended up where we are. I am not especially pleased…we are where we are, we should be further forwards, we should be further south, but we are where we are.

I think there may still be some options and opportunities, but meantime we do need to make sure we get out of this light stuff. We probably haven’t done the job we wanted to to get out of it, we are doing 10 knots just now and probably have eight knots of breeze.”

  Charles Caudrelier Bénac (FRA) Safran:  “ It is going very well. We are trying in a way to understand what is going on because we expected less wind but that is not so. There must be a reason why we have gained so many miles on Groupe Bel during the night, maybe they have some technical problems?

We had a good night, between 10 and 15 knots, rolling along, and it makes good speed. We did two or three watches of three hours each and made no sail changes so it did not go too badly, and there are no clouds or squalls. But on the other hand the trade winds are broken down, and if there are no clouds during the day it will be hard because there will be no wind.

We are 1500 miles from the finish and it is just great. We can still break things if there are stronger trade winds, and there will be many manoeuvres before we get there.”

“The passage through the West Indies arc? Well it can make a big difference and we have already chosen, but we are not telling anything……”

Share on Facebook

 When lying in fourth place in the Transat Jacques Vabre race from Le Havre to Porto Limon, Costa Rica, the British IMOCA Open 60 Hugo Boss last night reported hitting an unidentified object in the water, damaging the starboard bow of the boat and causing them to take in water. They have slowed the boat right down, have a pump working, are managing the ingress of water.
 
Alex Thomson, the skipper, has reported that conditions are stable and they are not in any imminent danger. The British pair are in regular contact with TJV Race Director Jean Maurel. They have been in discussion with their shore team, and with a structural engineer from SP before they make any decisions as to what their options are.
Hugo Boss was approximately 400 miles south of the Azores.
Thomson said:
“I am gutted, we have done the hard bit, been through the storms and the way ahead was looking very easy. We will monitor the situation overnight and assess in the morning what our options are,”

Further down the race course, abreast of the Canary Islands the three way battle at the front of the fleet continues with Safran still holding the upper hand as the trio negotiate the more tricky downwind conditions at the lower edge of a high pressure before breaking into a more stable SE’ly wind flow.

“ Things are wonderful, the sun is shining, it is warm and I am not being hosed constantly in the face by water. I am about to shed some layers and so I am a very happy bunny.”
“ Since we left the Azores we had a big lightning squall, loads of wind and then it shifted and now the wind has just gone behind us, so similar to the rest of the pack really, so we are hanging in there as we all converge in this kind of meeting zone, and going round the edge
of a high pressure rather than dealing with depressions, so we have blue skies, fluffy white clouds and the boat is going like a dream. So it is time to get these niggly jobs which were a problem in the bad weather sorted out one by one.”
“ We have some chafe on some lines to deal with, the wind instruments are not the best at the moment, but I think that is a common occurrence with the bumping around these boats have taken. I am having to charge with the engine rather than the generator which is a bit slow and laborious, especially as the temperatures are rising, but really nothing which is
going to stop us getting to Costa Rica if we have a say.”
“ We are all on a bit of a conveyor belt at the moment, it is quite funny the way we have all converged again, no matter which way we came. And now the weather is quite obvious so it is going to be very obvious where everyone will go and so we have to hang in there on boat-speed and claw back some miles. We started so well, lost a lot of miles in the bad weather and now we have to get some back.”
“ We can be competitive now, we did some jobs this morning which meant we were kind of slow changing up the gears, but now we are full main, big Code sails and the boatspeed is pretty good.”Alex Thomson, GBR (Hugo Boss):

 

“We were sailing along with jib-top, full main TWA about 130 degrees, wind speed about 22 knots surfing at over 20 knots, probably averaging 18 knots, about three o’clock in the afternoon we hit something…. a pretty good thump….i did not see it, it did not hit the rudder, but for sure we can tell we hit something. We had a good look around the boat, and by the time Ross got forwards, the boat was getting very, very hard to steer, and by the time he got up forward one of the watertight compartments had about 4 tonnes of water in it, which is why the boat was not steering. We took some pictures and sent them back to our shore crew. This morning we have reassessed the damage, decided it is impossible to repair it, not because it is very big, but because there is water coming in and we can’t stop it from coming in. And so we will retire from the race and head for the Azores. The damage is on the starboard side of the bow, about three or four metres back, not on the centreline off to the starboard side but about half a metre out. What we can see on the inside is a depression, so
something has clobbered the outside and made a big indent and there is water coming through, not very big about 300mm or so. We had told ourselves we had done the worst part of it. We had been through the storm and probably had had the worst of it. We had been knocked down by a breaking waves, and this boat is strong as hell. I am totally confident in with its strength in any  way, in fact I am amazed that you can put a boat through that. So I am quite pissed off that we are having to retire from the race because someone has
discarded some rubbish in the sea which has caused a hole in the hull.”
“ I was thinking to myself yesterday lunch time, about one o’clock that it was fantastic sailing, Ross was steering, we were in good position, we had been through the worst of the storm, and we had done the riskiest bit, so to get damaged by someone else’s rubbish is just
gutting. Really gutting.”
“ We have shored up the area to make sure it does not get any worse and we will slowly limp towards Horta. We are leaning over just now with the keel on the other side, but I am sure that more water will come when we get under way, but I am not worried at all that we will not be able to keep up with the amount of water coming in.”

Marc Guillemot, FRA (Safran):

“During the night we carried out a few gybes to get into the position we had planned to be able to make our way through the Antilles. This was our strategy and we had to stick with it.  In relation to the finishing line, which is the ultimate goal, our rivals have narrowed the gap. In relation to us, it is still the same situation as yesterday.”
 “It’s more relaxing when you are the hunter, but we’re quite pleased about being the hunted. At the moment, we are certainly not feeling any stress, and our goal is to continue along our own route.  Charles has spent a lot of time working on the navigation, and has laid the
foundations, which we then take decisions about together.  We’re just where we want to be for what lies ahead and we shall see whether we were right or not.” 

 

Safran hold a lead of just less than 34 miles, as the chasing pair squeeze up a little .
Now in third, after erring closer to the centre of the high and having less wind perhaps, Mike Golding Yacht Racing are less than five miles behind Kito de Pavant and Francois Gabart on Groupe Bel.
Golding said this morning that conditions for them remain tricky, quite unstable under spinnaker with a difficult seaway. Trying to keep the boat settled in course with their autopilots remains testing and so they continue to maximize their time spent hand steering.

Due to the Hugo Boss problems Spanish entry 1876 is now up to fourth whilst steady progress up the fleet continues for Michel Desjoyeaux and Jérémie Beyou who are up to seventh now on Foncia, overtaking Dee Caffari and Brian Thompson on Aviva during yesterday evening.

Foncia’s next target is Desjoyeaux’s long time friend and rival Roland Jourdain on Veolia Environnement, just 40 miles ahead, but Veolia Environnement still have some lighter airs to cross while Foncia who were quickest in the fleet this morning, making two knots faster than the leaders.
Quotes:

Francois Gabart (FRA) Groupe Bel: “It’s going great. Since yesterday morning it’s been tops. We are sliding along under gennaker and it’s really pleasant to steer. Even when you get wet it’s good, so we are happy sliding along in the Atlantic. The trade winds are what we have been looking forward to since leaving France.
But the wind is not so stable, in strength or direction, so we have to steer quit a lot. We are not even that far off gybing. And of course having made it into second we have a smile on our faces this morning.
But you have to fight for the small gains, every mile, always trying to go as fast as possible. Safran is the same boat as ours, so we can’t count on being a better design. And so if we want to catch them we need to use the small wind shifts. In the next few hours we will do the gybe and then after that it is roughly a straight line to the West Indies. But all the time I think the winds will be quite unstable, there are always going to be options and ploys to follow, right into the Caribbean.”

Mike Golding (GBR) Mike Golding Yacht Racing: “We are just under kite and just trying to steer the boat with the pilot. We gybed and so that turned out be a bit of a mission. It is good, we are passing through the ridge of the high pressure and trying to choose how to proceed next, conditions are good but there is a bit of a sea running which makes it a bit tricky with the kite and obviously we are having to be a little attentive because we don’t have any wind gear, we had a little problem through the gybe with a squeezer, so have had to change kites, but otherwise all quite normal and cracking along quite nicely.”

Share on Facebook

     
The breakaway trio, Safran, Mike Golding Yacht Racing and Groupe Bel continue to profit from the excellent conditions through Sunday, all seeing the speed readouts peaking over 20 knots for periods as the they relish wind, sun and high speeds.
 
      Their Sunday has been a time to re-group, catch up on repairs but most of all simply making sure the pace does not drop off.
As the distance remaining of the 4730 miles course from Le Havre to Costa Rica counted down under 3000 today, Marc Guillemot and Charles Caudrelier’s Safran has continued to be a little faster than her pursuers, opening up a lead of 53.7 miles on the British-Spanish duo on Mike Golding Yacht Racing, whilst Kito de Pavant and Francois Gabart is just a little more than 12 miles behind.

      The threesome are sprinting south with a cushion of 134 miles back to the British crew on Hugo Boss, Alex Thomson and Ross Daniel, and the best part of 300 miles ahead of the best of the southern group, Foncia. Michel Desjoyeaux and Jeremie Beyou lie eighth.
Golding, pointing out that Safran was still no more than three hours ahead of him, remarked that he felt the three runaways have themselves a ‘glamour hand’, but that there are no guarantees. The current routings today sees a more northerly course still paying off, with a much more southerly option still bringing that southerly groups in 200 miles behind the leading trio as they enter the Caribbean Sea, but the weather predictions further down the track are changing all the time.

     For all that IMOCA Open 60 skippers usually have just about everything paced by or matched to their powerfully computed data collection and analysis, such have been the effects of the recent storms that several are reduced to first principles, setting sail area by what they see with their eyes, judging wind speed and sea state, rather than being able to take the real and predicted windspeeds off the computer and match them to their known sail cross-over charts. Golding today said that his speedo was simply how they are doing against their rivals: “We are doing our best to hold on to Safran,” said Golding, “But we are struggling a bit in terms of just knowing where we are, particularly going downhill. We kind of forget how reliant we are on our systems to give us advice on our sail plans and all that, and now here we are just trying to judge whether we have enough or not. Sometimes we are right and sometimes we are wrong. It is quite hard to gauge it, and to some extent we are using them to measure it, if they are faster we push harder…and if they are lower…..well we push even harder!”

      For Sam Davies and Sidney Gavignet on 11th placed Artemis, they have been getting towards the end of their long jobs list, one which has left them exhausted and which Gavignet said this morning has cost them many miles, not least 20 hours or so trying to sort out their mainsail problems.

Quotes:

Mike Golding, GBR, (Mike Golding Yacht Racing):
“ We always sort of had a game plan for this race, where we wanted to be at a certain time and place in the racecourse, and so we are very happy with where we are. We don’t like that Safran has pulled away a little bit overnight, but that is just one of those things, but in real terms she is just three hours in front of us and really that is not so bad.”
“What we want to do is make sure we are in a good, attacking position going to the Caribbean Sea which will present some different options to make an attack on Safran. I certainly think we can, and I certainly think there may even be some conditions down the race course which could favour our boat, and maybe have a little bit of an edge.
I think there is some opportunities for compression in the future, but the reality is that we have been dealt a glamour hand, us three boats, Bel, Safran and Mike Golding Yacht Racing, it does look like if the gate does not exactly close behind us, it does make it quite hard for them to keep up, because of the way that the weather is closing the door behind us, but as near as dammit.”

Marc Guillemot (FRA) Safran:
“I would like it to be a bit calmer for the last part of the race: we must meantime build a bigger distance from Kito de Pavant and Mike Golding. We have to remain on guard because they are two excellent competitors! We haven’t find a solution for the mainsail but we have decided to continue the race with this little problem and maybe find a solution near the Antilles. The weather conditions are pretty good but we are still wet : we are almost all the time under the cuddy : on the boat it’s like being next to a big geyser…Actually we’re going faster : I think that we could arrive to Puerto Limon at the end of next week.”

Charles Caudrelier Bénac (FRA), Safran:
“It is not yet the trade winds, but they’re not far off. Tomorrow, we should be in them. I must admit that Marc and I are both looking forward to getting some fresh air outside on the deck without getting completely soaked.” 
“We had one particularly tricky moment on Thursday night, which really stood out. The leeward rudder kicked up and the boat swung around into the direction of the wind, with the mainsail flapping.  It was torn about 50 centimetres along the leech. It was not easy fixing the rudder back with tons of water crashing over the deck, but we managed to get the repair done quickly.” “As we’re sailing downwind, the tear isn’t really having any effect. What counts for the moment is extending our lead if possible. We’re not even halfway through the race yet and everyone knows that the end of the voyage in the Gulf of Mexico can be very difficult to predict”.
“We knew our route was going to be tough. We never did anything silly and when the emergency beacon was triggered on BT, that was a particularly difficult time for us. But this route was clearly the fastest, and it was the only way to go. We made a strategic choice remaining fully confident in our boat,”
“We’re already looking at where to go between all the islands. We’ve got an idea in the back of our mind, but I can’t tell you anything more.  I can just say that we’re going to have to gybe and then after that, it should almost be a straight run.”

 
       The lightweight, radical chined Safran is clearly in her stride,  an IMOCA Open 60 widely admired by the peers and rivals of skipper Marc Guillemot since her launch, making a further 10 miles on Golding and Javier Sanso since yesterday morning, but it is pleasing to see three skippers who no one would deny a measure of good fortune to any of them, spearheading the vanguard as they streak south towards the Caribbean.

      Guillemot was the peoples’ humanitarian hero of the Vendée Globe, struggling home to a great third making the final 1000 miles with no keel, after having bravely stood by during the rescue of his badly injured friend Yann Elies.
Golding was cruelly robbed of the Vendée race lead when his mast tumbled in the South Indian Ocean in a 65 knot squall and few will forget the emotional images of Bel’s tough guy Kito de Pavant in pieces after his race ended so suddenly, less than 48 hours in.

      All three leading crews have shown the guts, experience and seamanship to get the balance right on the northerly routing and today can enjoy the fruits of their endeavours, even if they go on to prove transient.

      Safran, peaking at 22 knots on this morning’s early Sunday schedule, now has 51 miles over Mike Golding and Javier Sanso and has been consistently a knot or so quicker. The British boat in turn had stretched on Groupe Bel but by a smaller margin.

      Safran’s Charles Caudrelier Bénac reported excellent conditions this morning, anticipating getting a gennaker up later in the day, racing in around 20 knots of breeze.

 Alex Thomson (GBR) Hugo Boss:
“We were near as dammit beam reaching, about 12 knots, and the sea was getting pretty enormous, I was sat at the nav station, Ross was sat in the cuddy, I can only describe it as if you can imagine being, doing 12 knots if you imagine the boat suddenly being hit by a bulldozer. We basically got knocked down by a breaking wave. I got thrown across the boat, I did not know what the hell was going on, bashed my head, it was pretty sacry, I have never experienced anything like it to be honest, and unfortunately because of that episode, with the boat basically being picked up and pushed sideways it broke our daggerboard.”

   Alex Thomson and Ross Daniel have lost some miles on Hugo Boss, some of which Thomson attributed this morning to the after effects of something close to a knock down when their IMOCA Open 60 was bodily picked up and thrown by a huge wave. The British skipper was flung across the cabin from the nav station and a daggerboard was smashed. Since they have swapped boards and the duo are in good shape, he confirmed racing at 100% to regain the distance lost to the leading trio.

      In fifth Yves Parlier and Pachi Rivero have made steady progress in the north, whilst Roland Jourdain and Jean-Luc Nelias on Veolia Environnement remain ahead of Aviva despite their pit-stop in the Azores yesterday afternoon which cost them about 150 miles.

      Of the easterly group Michel Desjoyeaux and Jeremie Beyou on Foncia have recovered 40 miles on the leaders since yesterday as they sail a converging course across the high pressure ridge to break into same weather pattern as the leading trio.
 

Quotes
Charles Caudrelier Bénac (FRA),  Safran:
“It’s going fast and the sea is flat. It is very pleasant. The wind is not too strong, about 20 knots, and we hop to be under spinnaker before the end of the day. We need to get things dry. Everything is wet. We spent much of yesterday going over the boat.
In my opinion the guys in the south will be able to get into the same system as us but they should not succeed in getting past us, except if we break something of course.
In the north it is similar, and so we do think the battle should be between us, Mike Golding and the Laughing Cow. But, that’s OK just now, we are a long way from the finish, we have not even done half the course. It was certainly tough the way we went. Half of the boats had problems, and it would not surprise me.”

Share on Facebook

A time for reflection and rest in France, home of the Transat Jacques Vabre, Armistice Day was certainly not observed by the malicious Atlantic weather systems into which the IMOCA Open 60’s and Multi 50 fleets were pounding over the course of the fourth day of this race from Le Havre to Puerto Limon, Costa Rica.
 
Relief should come by the weekend, and forecasters promise some occasional respite. Ominously, perhaps, the worst effect of the systems is now due during Friday, the 13th, but as the IMOCA Open 60 fleet work their way SW towards the Azores some skippers were counting down the hours to escape from the miserable conditions, and to see how their strategies play out.

The divide between the boats in the north and the south has become even more pronounced during the middle part of today, with Michel Desjoyeaux and Jérémie Beyou on Foncia now more than 400 miles south and east of their rivals in the north.

British duo Alex Thomson and Ross Daniel on Hugo Boss may have been feeling slightly exposed – lonely even – on their more extreme northerly course. No sooner had a slightly rueful Thomson admitted, early this morning, that his preference, in hindsight, would have been to be in closer touch to the group of boats just to his south, than up popped 1876 only 22 miles astern.

The Spanish IMOCA Open 60, with French co-skipper Yves Parlier – double winner of this biennial race – had taken the option to go for 24 hours in ‘stealth’ mode during which their position and progress is not published – as they hiked north on to a routing which has gained
considerable credence over the last 24 hours.

The equation under scrutiny now is whether to endure much tougher, windier conditions for a short period in the north to get to the preferred wind shift first, or to stay – more prudently – south and profit that way.

Lying seventh and eighth respectively with deficits of 61 and 86 miles, on this afternoon’s schedule Hugo Boss and 1876 were the quickest boats in the fleet this afternoon, by margin of between two and four knots.

After taking the lead on the pre-dawn schedule yesterday, Seb Josse and Jeff Curzon on BT continue to hold on in the IMOCA Open 60 class, with a margin of just under 15 miles to maintain a controlling grip on the northerly group, perhaps with the exception of Hugo Boss.  During the late afternoon BT, Mike Golding Yacht Racing and Groupe Bel were the first to tack SW.

Britain’s Mike Golding, along with Spanish co-skipper Javier Sanso, retains fourth place with sistership Aviva of Dee Caffari and Brian Thompson just less than five miles behind, but still making NW this afternoon.

After arriving in Concearneau just after lunch time this afternoon Armel Le Cléac’h and Nicolas Troussel spent the afternoon assessing the repair options to their mainsail mast-track and the forecasted weather conditions, looking their options for a possible return to the race course.
Due to the combination of predicted storms in the Bay of Biscay, their deficit on the front of the fleet, and their desire not to compromise their IMOCA Open 60 in any way, the BritAir duo, in agreement with their team, decided the prudent option was to retire from the race.

Alex Thomson (GBR), skipper Hugo Boss:
“I had a phone call half an hour ago to say that Estrella have popped up out of her stealth mission and she is 20 miles behind us here in the north.  I haven’t had a chance to plot the position yet, but if Yves Parlier - one of the great legends of solo sailing -  has decided
to come this way then it obviously means we’re going the right way! Or we hope it does anyway…..”

Javier Sanso (ESP), co-skipper Mike Golding Yacht Racing:
““It is going well, we are making some progress down south. We have 3 reefs and a staysail, bouncing up and down, like in a washing machine. It is incredibly wet on deck and a very bumpy. It is miserable, cold and wet. But finally we think that in the next 40 hours we should be out of it….I hope.”
“The pilots and the electronics are still giving us some problems. We are back like the old days with a piece of wool! But in some ways we are getting used to it, but it is very tiring and we have done a lot of hand steering. It is not good in this weather to have to suddenly get on deck to hand steer because the pilot has crashed. And that eats up the energy to suddenly run from inside to hand steer. So we are always ready to jump outside, it has been very, very, very tiring for Mike and I.”
“ It is a good place. We are happy with that just now and will see what happens as we work to get down to the high pressure in the south.”

Vincent Riou (FRA), co-skipper Akena Veranda:
“The first days have been wet, but the conditions are not so difficult for the moment. We have taken the comfortable option, towards the south, and so we don’t have any concerns for the boat. We chose the middle, intermediate road. The conditions so far remain OK, and with
Arnaud we have no worries, we have had good rest, and he is a guy who
is very easy to get along with.”

Marc Guillemot (FRA), Safran:
“It’s pretty brutal. It is crash, crash, crash. Since the end of the night the seas have got worse and the winds have got right up with some big gusts. But it is good to have a sailor like Charles on board. In conditions like these it is hard in the manoeuvres but together we manage. As for our options, well this is what we chose and we’d still rather be here.”

Michel Desjoyeaux (FRA) Foncia:
 “All is well. This beating in the Atlantic was expected, and it was known that the strategies would develop. We will see what happens. Perhaps with Jérémie we have been too cautious. I did think that those closer to the depression would have had more difficulties today.”
“As for Yves Parlier I did not really consider that he would have chosen such an extreme option. So now, we will need to be patient. It is in the long run that we will all be able to make the assessment.”

Share on Facebook

 Having already tried his hand at foiling, last week round the world sailor Alex Thomson went keel walking on his IMOCA Open 60 HUGO BOSS in the Solent.

 Alex said;

 “I’ve wanted to stand on the keel while sailing for a couple of years, and last week in 17-20 knots of breeze I stood on the keel whilst sailing wearing a HUGO BOSS suit. It was pretty dangerous but a real buzz.”

 In 2005 Alex became the first skipper to sign up for the 3 in 3 – 3 round the world races in 3 years starting with the Velux 5 Oceans in 2006, followed by the Barcelona World Race (BWR) in November 2007, and culminating in the 2008 Vendee Globe

 Alex was forced to retire from the Velux 5 Oceans due to severe structural problems. He overcame the Southern Ocean by achieving a second place podium finish in the Barcelona World Race. Whilst on this race Alex smashed the 60ft monohull world distance record and was in excellent shape for the Vendée Globe.

However, only 3 weeks before the Vendée was due to commence, Alex was dramatically struck by a French fishing vessel. His team fought against the clock to finish the repairs in record time to achieve the impossible - and get Alex to the start line. Alex’s dreams to become the first Briton to win the much coveted title were shattered after only 3 days racing; when he discovered HUGO BOSS was letting in water from structural failure to the hull. Devastated, Alex announced his retirement from the Vendée. He is determined to return and compete in the 2012

 

Share on Facebook

First away, punching into the last of the flood tide, were the IMOCA 60s. With their ‘big gear’ unfurled seconds before the start, it was Dee Caffari’s Aviva that made the most positive start towards the pin end. However she was soon overhauled by Seb Josse on BT IMOCA 60 sailing in slightly better breeze on the island side of the course. By the 1430GMT position report, the leading IMOCA 60s were already halfway across Christchurch Bay with Mike Sanderson’s Pindar leading, narrowly ahead of Aviva, BT and Arnaud Boissieres’ Akena Verandas.

With the tide having turned favourable to flush the remaining classes west, it was the small IRC classes that were next up. By the 1430 update they too were out through the Needles, with David Lees’ High Tension 36 Hephzibah leading from the 2005 Rolex Fastnet Race winner Iromiguy, Jean-Yves Chateau’s Nicholson 33 in IRC 3B, just ahead of David Collins’ Swan 43 Cisne, leader in IRC 3A.

For the boats heading west down the Solent, the transition to the south westerly breeze occurred for most off Yarmouth resulting in a short lull before they were put hard on the wind. Fortunately the boats were driven west towards the new breeze by the tide.

With the largest boats catching up the smaller ones, Christchurch Bay was becoming grid-locked mid-afternoon, with the IRC 2 leaders David McLeman’s J/109 Offbeat and David Walter’s J/39 Jackdaw having cruised most of the way through the Class 3 fleet, as had Jacques Pelletier’s X-43 L’Ange de Milon and Andrew Jackson’s First 40.7 Genie, leading their respective halves of IRC 1.

Despite having started an hour later than the IRC 3 boats, even the IRC Zero fleet had caught up, with John Shepherd’s Ker 46 Fair Do’s VII leading on the water from Jack Pringle’s Farr 45 Fraxious.  

In their planning of the starts, the Royal Ocean Racing Club had left the best to last. On schedule at 1440 BST, it was the turn of the Class 40s to take their start with the breeze still from the east. Here it was the two Verdier designs, Giovanni Soldini’s Telecom Italia and the Felippe Cubillos’ Chilean yacht Desafio Cabo de Hornos which made the best starts. By the time they exited the Solent Soldini was tied for the lead with Andrew Dawson’s Spliff and Mike West’s Kerlaria.

Five to six miles short of St Alban’s Head, at 1600GMT Tanguy de LaMotte reported from the Class 40 Initiatives Saveurs - Novedia Group that they were upwind, albeit port tack favoured, and that having put in a few tacks to get offshore they were making 5-6 knots, but the wind was slowly dying on them.

Finally there came the biggest boats in the fleet, led off the line by Mike Slade’s towering Rolex Fastnet Race record holder, the 100ft super-maxi, ICAP Leopard. Luna Rossa, with Flavio Flavini helming and Volvo Ocean Race winner Torben Grael on tactics, followed in their wake with Niklas Zennstrom’s Ran 2 leading Karl Kwok’s Farr 80, Beau Geste up the mainland side.

By the 1500 update, ICAP Leopard had already pulled ahead of all the IRC boats with only the IMOCA 60s ahead of her on the water. Among the Mini Maxis Beau Geste, thanks to her longer waterline length, had pulled ahead of Ran 2 and the STP65s Luna Rossa and Rosebud/Team DYT, although probably not enough to lead on corrected time.

Prior to the start America’s Cup helmsman and Beau Geste skipper Gavin Brady, for whom this is his third Rolex Fastnet Race, said that they were still on a “steep learning curve phase” with their newly launched boat. “We have had the opportunity to do three races this week which was good for us to learn the boat, but it is never fun, when you have a brand new boat, to look at the scoreboard at the end of it. So we know from on board the boat that we have a lot more speed to get out of it, but like any new boat at the moment there is a long list of things to do to get there. If the Rolex Fastnet Race was in one month’s time we’d be a lot better off.”

Like the other Mini Maxis, Beau Geste has a very strong crew including former Luna Rossa helmsman Francesco de Angelis and from Volvo Ocean Race winner Ericsson 4, New Zealanders David Endean and Phil  Jameson.

In the Rolex Fastnet Race, Beau Geste has the second highest IRC rating, to ICAP Leopard, but given the newness of the boat Brady felt it unlikely they would be nipping at heels of ‘the big cat’.  “We are very respectful of the fact that they are 100-foot long with a canting keel. ICAP Leopard would have to have a pretty bad race and we’d have to have an extraordinary good race to beat them; but this race has seen strange things before and you have to navigate the Celtic Sea and the currents. I think we have an outside shot, but the rating tells the story: they owe us seven minutes an hour.”

The 2009 Rolex Fastnet Race could well be decided this evening as the wind drops and the majority of the fleet struggle to make it around Portland Bill without having to kedge.

Two handed Division

One of the strongest sub-divisions of the Rolex Fastnet Race fleet are the two handed, twenty eight boats sailing just two up. The 2007 winners in the class, Simon Curwen and Paul Peggs, both former Mini Transat competitors, aboard Curwen’s J/105, Voador, made a strong start in Class 2, alone in gybing early towards the island side.

Many will be following up-and-coming British solo sailing star Katie Miller, freshly returned from the singlehanded transatlantic race in her Beneteau Figaro 2, Hot Socks, which she is racing two handed in Class 1 with fellow solo sailor Hannah Jenner. Miller very nearly didn’t make the Rolex Fastnet Race start when some delamination was discovered in Hot Socks’ keel structure. Her boat was only relaunched yesterday thanks to some 11^th hour assistance by Endeavour Quay in Gosport.

Despite the last minute panic, Miller was looking forward to a light wind race. “Last year the only IRC race I won my class in was when we had a really light crossing going to Cherbourg. So a bit of light upwind conditions to the Fastnet and some stronger downwind conditions back to Plymouth – that should work well for us.”

 

Share on Facebook