How cruel a race can the Vendee Globe be? Just ask Mike Golding, who is believed to have lost his keel just 52 miles from the finish. The most complete report I could find on the situation comes courtesy of the always excellent Daily Sail:
At the same instant the Ecover shore team in Les Sables d’Olonne were about to pull the champagne out of the cooler, so disaster struck Mike Golding’s Open 60, lying third in the Vendee Globe, incredibly just 50 miles from the finish line after the best part of 23,000 miles of sailing.
At 1400GMT Ecover developed a severe problem with her keel. At this point the team are not 100% certain whether the keel has fallen off or not, but they think the most likely scenario is that, like Skandia, the keel foil has broken outside of the hull. Golding has inspected the underside of the boat with an endoscope, but this is not providing him with an answer. Golding says the keel is not behaving as it should, so it seems likely that as with Skandia the foil may have failed and the bulb itself not yet fallen off.
Ecover Boat Project Manager Graham Tourell spoke to Golding after the incident. “The boat did come upright, but looking through the endoscope he said ‘I cannot be sure 100% whether it has gone or not’. It is definitely not a ram problem. If it broke it would have broken in the same way as Skandia.
The 1500GMT position reports show Ecover making just 2.1 knots on a course of 317deg, 52 miles from the finish line.
At present Ecover is still upright and Golding is safe. The Cross Etel, the French equivalent of the MRCC are aware of the situation and are on standby. Golding says that at present he is not in need of assistance. At present he is heading towards Les Sables d’Olonne gingerly with the daggerboards down, her centreline water ballast tanks full to stabilise the boat and flying just her staysail alone. Tourell says that it is possible to sail upwind under the arrangement.
The Ecover shore team are currently looking into way they can get a member of their team out to Golding.
There are of course theories that Golding is cursed in this stretch of water. It cannot have been far from his present position that Golding’s Team Group 4 was dismasted at the start of the 2000 Vendee Globe.
Another theory is that the keel foils of the Owen Clarke designs may be too small/not strong enough. Hence why the Skandia Open 60 and Ecover have both developed similar problems.
Is it safe to say there may be a fundamental issue with the fitting of canting keels on board race boats?
Interestingly, the next closest competitor, Dominique Wavre on Temenos, is more than 800 miles back. So even though Golding’s boatspeed is just over 2 knots, he can still snag third…if he can just keep the damn boat upright. He’s got light air for another day or so, but after that the wind will fill, and start to blow hard from the north. So the window is small. If he pulls it off, I have no doubt that he will be the first sailor ever to finish a round-the-world yacht race without a keel. Go, Mike, go…
Keel-less Golding?: “Bugger! Bugger, bugger, bugger…”
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