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Skydiving. Beautifully filmed. Great soundtrack (“Do you ever question your life?”). Want to be enthralled? Click here (hefty Quicktime download; be patient), courtesy of TWC reader “Uncle Bob” Steele…



“Enough with the peace signs, Shroomhead. There’s a corporate jet coming right at us…”

Orange II is already dodging ice in the Southern Ocean. Their pace around the global track is simply unbelievable, and it’s even possible to imagine the prospect–given perfect luck with the weather–of a sub-50 day circumnavigation. It’s not likely, but it’s also not entirely ridiculous, which tells you something about the potential of this cat. Peyron’s maxi-beast is clearly capable of putting up daily averages in the high 20s, and she has hit speeds in the high 30s (during her recent Mediterranean record her top speed was, gulp, 42.7 knots). Peyron missed the Ushant-Equator record, but he just pocketed the Ushant-Cape Of Good Hope record (14 days, 8h and 19 mins, which beats the old record held by Geronimo by 2 days, 06 h 16 mins) and the Equator-Cape Of Good Hope record (7 days 5h and 22mins, which smashes Cheyenne’s old time by 2 days, 11 h 05 mins). Orange II is 1860 miles ahead of Cheyenne at this point (details here), and there is a new video up–“Two records and a small incident” (the incident was a wave smashing to pieces the windscreen in front of helmsman Lionel Lemonchoix)–on the video page of the Orange II website. It’s all going so well, it’s making me nervous…

Meanwhile, much further north in the Indian Ocean, Orange II’s maxi-multi cousins (Geronimo, Doha 2006 and Cheyenne) are duking it out in the Oryx Quest. Cheyenne is off on a flyer to the east. But Doha 2006 and Geronimo are locked in an epic battle for the lead. We knew there would be some close racing, but who knew it would be this close. Here’s Doha 2006‘s Paul Larsen with the call:

“As the sun rises once more for the second half of day 4 GMT… There she is again. Ruining, for us, at least what would be a perfect sunrise. For over 24 hours now we have been locked in battle with the big trimaran Geronimo. Yesterday saw us commit an act most foul in the world of multihulls. We gradually reeled in Geronimo and overtook her in light upwind conditions. By all accounts this should be her forte. It was a beautiful moment for all on board and no doubt one that will start many a heated discussion in various yacht club bars. There is a whole host of reasons that De Kersauson would not have enjoyed about this scenario. The sailing was in very light, almost glassy conditions and both boats were snaking along trying to move in sync with the oscillating puffs. As soon as we drew abeam, Geronimo tacked off to windward and then came back on our hip. So the sun rose on Geronimo and in the evening it set on her as well. The sunset was a magic moment which included the legendary ‘green flash’. The sea was so calm that it reflected the sky perfectly in places and you could no longer see where the two merged. The two giant multihulls glided along as if joined by a big rubber band a mile long. The night was incredible. I have always been a big fan of full moon sailing and still will be when you are trying to see the waves, but when it’s dead flat, well you can’t beat the stars of a moonless night. The boat had zero motion but was still maintaining 5-7 knots under full mainsail and Code ‘0’.

We were trying to cross a high pressure ridge that was blocking our passage into the trade winds and which will carry us down towards the equator. As we headed south on starboard tack we gradually got headed towards the east before choosing our moment to tack across and continue our southing. Once this manouever was completed we watched Geronimo’s navigation lights slip across our transom going from her green bow light to her white stern light…. and then back to her green bow light as she also tacked across and sat on our hip once more. The seas now reflected the stars which now included the lovely Southern Cross which is always a warming sight to yours truly as well as four other members of the team. So as we glided along barely breaking the water, there were long moments of silence and calm on board. It really felt like we could have been floating through space. It truly was surreal.

The wind continued to back around which put Geronimo in a strong position as she was now inside us and as the first shimmer of daylight broke our trip across the galaxy, there she was again, ruining our perfect sunrise shot.So on the morning of the 9th of Feb, Doha 2006 is to be found peeling between Code ‘0’, ‘yankee’ and medium gennaker as we follow Geronimo who is now around 1 mile directly ahead. It’s not all 30-40 knots and huge seas on these big multihulls. They do other tricks as well. The wind is back and we are through the ridge and heading for the trades. This could be good fight.”

Incredible. Match racing these monsters can not be easy on the crew. Just wait until Cheyenne gets back into the frame. Hope they all have their rule books on board…



Dueling Doha 2006: “Sorry, guys. De Kersauson has tacked again, so let’s go too. I think I see his strategy now. He’s, err, trying to kill us…”

Well, you can never get enough pictures of strange creatures from the deep. Yesterday, TWC brought you the oarfish. And today we bring you the grotesqueries and freakish fish that were tossed up from the depths by the Indian Ocean tsunami. You can see the full photoset here. But (shiver!) take a peek at these:

Excuse me, I think I might lose my lunch. Okay, I’m back and thinking there has to be a horror movie in here somewhere. Scene 1: Mega-tsunami. Scene 2: A few months later, sunlit beachgoers (played, of course, by very bad actresses and actors in ultra-skimpy swimsuits) start getting chomped, mauled, and zapped (yes, zapped) by an invasion of deep-sea oddities that scientists have never seen before. Scene 3: Hey, I’ve done my part. Over to you Wes Craven..

(Update: Damn. Snoped again. Spoilsport, I mean alert, TWC readers–Sailing World’s Tony Bessinger and Peter Hilgendorff Jr.–write to say that according to the urban legend debunker these fish weren’t tossed up by the Tsunami, but were hauled from the deep by the NORFANZ deep sea research expedition. The NORFANZ pics can be found here. Hey, at least the fish are real…).

Okay, now that the celebrations have died down, the hangovers are dissipating, and we can all get on with our lives following Ellen’s epic record-setting voyage, I’d like to turn your attention to the latest, greatest, innovation from Ellen and the marketing geniuses at Offshore Challenges. It’s called OC (as in Offshore Challenges)-TV, and they slapped it up on Ellen’s site in the late days of her voyage. If you didn’t notice it, or just passed over it as so much spam, I’m here to help you get back on the mystical path to Internet Nirvana. Simply put, OCTV (which you can access here) is stunning. Yes, they want to sell subscriptions. But judging from the free features you can view right now, those subscriptions might even be worth it. Just click on the “Features” button, and then if you’ve got a good monitor kick the whole thing up into full-screen “TV” mode, and sit back with a rag to mop up your drool. There’s incredible footage in each of the free features I watched. In the intro film to Ellen’s record-attempt there’s a mesmerizing shot of B&Q’s leeward float submarining entirely under water at high speed and smoothly riding back to the surface. In the Transat feature there’s classic footage of the early racers, including a comment from Sir Francis himself.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll keep saying it until it is true: this is the future of broadcast sailing. We’ve already got Swedish Match TV. Now we have OCTV. If only Seamaster Sailing and the America’s Cup would go this route too, we’d never have to turn on the boob tube and watch boobs try to dumb sailing down for the NACSAR crowd at 2 am…



“No, silly, I’m not a web cam girl in mid-strip. I’m on OCTV…!”

No themes (to speak of). No commentary. Just a few gems from deep in the locker:

Speedboat Racing Can Be A Surprisingly Exciting Spectator Sport…

Glacier Watching Can Be A Surprisingly Exciting Spectator Sport…

Why Aussie Are Such Fast Swimmers… (Quicktime only)

“I train Olympians…”

Check out this wild-looking sea serpent, which washed ashore at City Beach, off Perth. It’s called an oarfish, and they are extremely rare. Last year, a woman in the UK caught a 14-footer that weighed 30 pounds more than she did. Unfortunately for the scientific world, instead of turning it over for research she sliced it up and put it in her freezer…



“F*ck the oceanographers, Dude. Do you still have the number for that sushi distributor…?”

71 days, 14 hours, 18 minutes, and 33 seconds. That’s the new standard, and Little Big Mac can be pretty pleased with herself. She also set a bunch of new records for segments of the round-the-world course:

Ushant-Equator 8d 18h 20m 7/12/04 0230GMT (taking 14h 3m off Joyon’s time)

Ushant-Cape of Good Hope 19d 9h 46m 17/12/04 1756GMT (taking 10h 45m off Joyon’s time)

Ushant-Cape Leeuwin 29d 14h 5m 27/12/04 2215GMT (taking 17h 24m off Joyon’s time)

Ushant-Cape Horn 44d 23h 36m 12/1/04 0746GMT (taking 4 days 2h 45m off Joyon’s time)

Ushant-Equator 60d 13h 35m 27/1/05 2145GMT (taking 1d 10h 50m off Joyon’s time)

Equator-Equator record of 51 days, 19 hours and 15 minutes

To pull it off she and B&Q sailed 27,354 miles through the water at an average speed of 15.9 knots. Not bad at all. So, what did it feel like to finish? Here are Ellen’s first thoughts:

“When I crossed the line I felt like collapsing on the cockpit floor and just falling asleep. I was absolutely over the moon but just the fact that you can finally let go – when you cross the line it’s over. It’s just over, you don’t have to worry anymore, I think that was the biggest emotion, elation and one of huge relief…I just feel exhausted but absolutely elated to be here and I’ve got a mixture of emotions in my mind. There are things spinning round in my head. The fact that I can see and touch people, that I can look them in the eyes, I’ve not looked anyone in the eyes for over two months. Just to have that look, to be able to see someone is very special. People take that for granted so there’s a lot of things going round in my head right now. It’s just great to have been able to cross the line, it’s great that I can finally switch my brain off and not have to concentrate on wind speed and boat speed or weather for the first time in over two months. And also just to relax in the company of others because that’s something that I have missed.”

And here is a gracious (though subtly chagrined) tribute from previous record holder, Francis Joyon:

“I always said that Ellen was a serious contender, and I can see today that she has decided to prove me right. The mere fact that she was able to sail around the world non-stop was quite an exploit, but to smash the record at the same time fully deserves my warmest congratulations. Ellen achieved this result through her concentrated efforts. Her team worked hard and backed her before and during her circumnavigation, and she did not ever lose her resolve. Being well supported is one thing, but when you find yourself in the middle of the southern lows in this type of boat, you really feel very alone. Having experienced the deep south in a multihull, and with this memory still fresh on my mind, I know full well that this can be very tough on the nerves. I am sure that at times, it must have been very hard going, and I often thought about Ellen, when she was in some difficult patches with south westerly winds and squalls violently pouring down on the boat. Her trimaran is big, there is a large surface area of sail, and in times like those, it is not her shore team that was able do much for her.

I was hoping to keep the record for a bit longer, but it was not something that I put on a pedestal either. During the press conference following my arrival, I pointed out that in my opinion it was possible to improve on my time, taking into account my damage and the times when I was becalmed. However, I did not think it would be Ellen beating me so soon, and so magnificently. Once again, well done to her!”

Both Joyon and Ellen have taken this sort of sailing to an entirely new level. Their solo times are in the ballpark or better than all the fully crewed times up to the launch of the latest generation of supermultihull. What’s next? Ellen says she’s after the transatlantic record. Fine. But have a beer first…



Ellen Returns To The “Real” World: “Uh-oh. Look at all those journalists. Maybe I should just turn around…”

She’s across the finish in 71d 14h 18m 33 seconds, beating the unbeatable by 1 day 8 hours 36 minutes and 49 seconds. It took a superhuman effort, but she is now the fastest solo circumnavigator…EVER. In the South Atlantic it looked as if she would be done in by generator problems. At Cape Horn it looked as if she might smash the record by 3-4 days. At the Equator it looked as if she was the unluckiest sailor ever to cleave a wave and might not break the record at all. And in the Bay Of Biscay, as fate teased her with the possibility of breaking the record, it threw a vicious, North Atlantic storm into her path, as if to test her seamanship, and the durability of her tri, before deeming her worthy of an epic, record-breaking finish.

It was quite a ride, and I’m not really sure where she can go from here. There’s no solo sailor and boat out there–other than Francis Joyon and IDEC should he care to make another run at the record–who can challenge her time in the forseeable future. Sure, she can go out and nail the solo transatlantic record and the solo 24-hour record to take the Triple Crown, but compared to the Big One, it will be a bit anticlimactic. Should she go back and try to win the Vendee in 2008? Should she go back to maxi-multihulls? Who knows. Ellen reminds me of a sailing Alexander the Great, who in his twenties is said to have broken down and wept because he had no worlds left to conquer…



Ellen Triumphant: “But I’m crying inside. Really…”

These are heady days for high-speed sailing fanatics. In addition to Ellen closing in a new solo global record, and Orange II on course to destroy the outright record (see below), we’ve got the rest of the world’s maxi multihulls racing non-stop around the world from (and back to) Qatar. The Oryx Quest got underway Saturday, and it’s pitting Olivier De Kersuason’s mega-tri Geronimo against her feline cousins, Cheyenne and Doha 2006 (former Club Med). Tony Bullimore is also in the mix on an endlessly updated older boat, Daedalus (former-Enza), but he won’t be in the frame long (sorry, Tony, your boat belongs in a museum).

This race is interesting for three reasons: 1) it’s a sailboat race; 2) it’s the first non-stop race around the globe that starts and finishes in the Middle East, so for the first time we’re going to learn about the Indian Ocean and the Monsoon; and 3) it’s the first time that Geronimo has lined up head-to head with Cheyenne and one of the Ollier first-generation cats. So maybe we’ll get some insights into the relative merits of a maxi-tri versus a maxi-cat.

For the moment, Geronimo appears to be out front, and the boats are in the Gulf Of Oman (see, I told you we were going to learn about some new places). Latest daily report is here. And here’s Zelig-like multihull sailor Paul Larsen (of SailRocket fame), who’s sailing with Brian Thompson’s Doha 2006, on the early cat vs. tri duel:

“As expected of the upwind,12-14 knot start, the big tri was gaining some height on the rest of the fleet. Although we led across the line we were a lot closer when we tacked across onto starboard. Geronimo slipped across in front by a boat length or two, and then proceeded to tack right on top of us which may have worked if they had of got their canting rig sorted out at the same time. They were left going upwind with the rig hanging off to leeward and hence no sheet tension on the headsail and we quickly slipped by leaving them no option but to tack back. Around the first mark we changed to a reaching sail and quickly began to pull out some more as night settled in. Geronimo wasn’t backing off and kept coming at us. Her masthead strobe light was a clear indicator and was watched intently as conditions began to build. Reefs were dropped in and headsails constantly changed as we surfed down hill heading for the exit. With Geronimo three miles directly behind we hit something with the port rudder which caused concern and the decision was made to drop the headsails, turn the boat head to wind and reverse it for a bit to help the offending object to float free of the rudder. During this manouever Geronimo went by only a couple of hundred meters away doing 25+ knots no doubt watching with interest. The object turned out to be a shark of some sort whose number had come up. We were quickly back up to speed and off after Geronimo who was now well ahead. With winds peaking at 40 knots it didn’t take long to reach the Straits of Hormutz where… we promptly parked up.”

The Oryx website has some very cool performance pages that are worth checking out. Let’s see, we’ve got a 24-hour speed graph (Cheyenne is coming on); instrument displays (De Kersauson, true to his old-school, super-secretive nature, seems to have ripped the wires out of his); and a map display (that has links to global, leader, fleet and leg charts). Not bad. This is going to be fun (well, any race that features Olivier De Kersauson is bound to be fun)…



“That bast*rd De Kersauson can black out his nav data all he wants. I can tell you exactly where he is right now, and I hope he’s enjoying the view…”

Okay, that’s an obvious headline. But it’s spot on. Bruno Peyron and his crew on Orange II are absolutely mashing, smashing and pulping (okay, that’s it for the juicing jokes) their virtual rivals–Cheyenne and Geronimo–as they power into the Southern Ocean during their outright, non-stop circumnavigation record attempt. They left two weeks ago hoping to leapfrog the St. Helena high in the South Atlantic–a major roadblock during record attempts–and they did exactly that. Now they are into the Roaring Forties and putting up monster daily runs: 686 miles yesterday (just 20 miles short of Orange II’s 24-hour record) and just 640 miles today. The result is that Orange II is a whopping 1790 miles (or more than 4 DAYS!) ahead of Cheyenne’s time to the same point (comparative chart and stats here). Go to the video page of the Orange II website and check out the latest clip (“Orange II: course in the south”) to get a sense of the speed this giant is traveling at (nice flat seas, too). So far, they report no issues with the boat. But there will without doubt be any number of crises ahead (no world record attempt has ever come off without some major problem), and how they handle whatever pops up will affect their record chances much more than inherent boat speed (there’s no doubt this thing is the fastest ocean racing yacht in the world). Bonne chance, Bruno…



“Holy Merde! If we hit a whale or chunk of ice at this speed, we’ll rip the legs right off this cat…”