The Wetass Interview–Jules Verne Derby Approaches : This winter, at least three (and maybe more) of the biggest, fastest multihulls ever built will be sprinting around the world, trying to claim the Jules Verne Trophy for the fastest non-stop circumnavigation. The boats—which will start and finish in the English Channel and sail eastward–are all monsters: upwards of 100-feet long, with huge spreads of sail, and capable of top speeds close to 50 miles per hour. To succeed, they will have to sneak their way through the unpredictable headwinds and calms of the Atlantic, survive the weather bombs and huge seas of the Southern Ocean as they race downwind around Antarctica, and then limp north through the Atlantic again, hoping to keep their boats in one piece so they can finish. The current world record stands at 64 days, 8 hours and 37 minutes, and all the boats should be capable of getting around in under 60 days if they are lucky with the weather. The starting grid right now consists of “Cheyenne” (a 125-foot catamaran owned by Chicago adventurer Steve Fossett), “Geronimo”, a 120-foot trimaran skippered by French veteran and enfant terrible Olivier De Kersauson, and “Qatar 2006,” (a 110-foot catamaran owned by Englishwoman Tracy Edwards, which will sail with a mixed crew of both men and women). Frenchman Bruno Peyron, the current world record holder and the first man to sail around the world in under 80 days, may also get into the action with a 120-foot catarmaran he is close to launching. The Wetass Chronicles checked in with “Cheyenne” boat captain David Scully, to see how this epic world record chase is shaping up. Scully is a major wetass, who has done everything from racing cars, to setting sailing records with Fossett, to racing his own sailboat solo around the world. “Cheyenne,” which used to be known as “PlayStation,” is currently the world’s most prolific record-breaking sailboat. She owns 12 of the 15 fastest sailing records on the books, including both the eastgoing and westgoing transatlantic records.

Scully: His idea of a good date is to sail his girlfriend from France to Corsica for dinner….on a 20-foot beach cat

Wetass Chronicles: You’ve been in Norfolk, Virginia for a few months, hoping to take a whack at reclaiming your 24-hour record by becoming the first boat ever to sail 700 miles in a day. Any luck?

Scully: We’ve actually been out twice on the 24-hour record attempt, but the weather just didn’t pan out. Now we’re more focused on preparing to cross the Atlantic in November to get into position for the Jules Verne.

Wetass Chronicles: Have you made any special modifications to the boat?

Scully: My philosophy has been “don’t change much because we know what’s here works.” So we’ve just tweaked here and there, making things stronger. We’ve also got new headsails and some new downwind sails. And we’re investing in a polyester running chute (spinnaker) for the Southern Ocean.

Wetass Chronicles: An “Oh Shit!” sail for the big winds?

Scully: (Laughs). I don’t call it that. I call it the “How to proceed comfortably in the direction you want to go” sail. It’ll be good once the wind is at 30-40 knots.

Wetass Chronicles: How will you handle weather forecasting and routing?

Scully: We’ll have Stan Honey navigating, and he’s no slouch when it comes to predicting weather. And Commanders Weather routing service will be working with us every day.

Wetass Chronicles: What possible breakages do you worry most about?

Scully: Well, you’ve got the chassis (the hull), the motor (the mast and sails), and the electrics. And to be honest, I’m not terribly concerned about any of them. You can never rule out catastrophic failure or hitting something hard at speed. But we know what we’ve got is pretty tough.

Wetass Chronicles: How many crew will you take?

Scully: We’ve decided on 12 of the crew and could take as many as 14. Being able to drive the boat is a critical skill, and we’re doing our best to make sure we’ve got a very, very good group. In addition to some of our regular crew we’ve lined up Jack Vincent, who’s one of best maxi-multihull sailors in world, Guillermo Altadill, who’s been around about 5 times and knows these maxi-multihulls, and Thomas Coville, who is also an experienced circumnavigator and a top driver and technician. Out of 12 to 13 crew, we’ve probably got 9 who have strong driving credentials.

Wetass Chronicles: Will you try to line up against anyone, or will everyone just take off on their own schedule when they think the weather is right?

Scully: I don’t know that lining up with somebody will be to anyone’s advantage. Qatar 2006 is relatively late and will have to hustle to be ready for a start in January. De Kersauson is behaving in his usual strange way. I guess he’s ready to try the west-east transatlantic record, and then will have to do the west to east run from New York pretty quickly to arrive back in France in time to line up in the English Channel in January. And that’s a lot of sailing. We’d like to get off in December, if possible.

Wetass Chronicles: What do you hear about Bruno Peyron’s new boat?

Scully: I’ve heard plenty of rumors. I would imagine that he is trying to find a sponsor for a Jules Verne too. I don’t think that there will be that much performance difference between his boat and ours. I hear his boat is heavy. And multihull design doesn’t change that much. Short of putting foils on a boat there’s not that much you can do to make it faster other than shedding weight. And the 60-foot trimarans have shown what happens when you go to an extreme in trying to get light. They are built like matchsticks now, and blow apart when they hit big seas. You could go bigger, but no one has really been willing to take that step yet.

Wetass Chronicles: If you nail the Jules Verne record, you will pretty much have run the table in the speed sailing game. What will you do next?

Scully: (only slightly tongue in cheek) Well, as you know my ongoing ambition is to become a classical guitarist. But at the same time I have to go out and make a living, so I’d definitely like to keep sailing.

Scully’s Ride: “Man, this beast really moves now that we’ve installed the big 3-bladed props……”

(Photo: Fossettchallenge.com)