Monday Miscellaneous 1–Joyon Fades: As expected, French ubermensch Francis Joyon just didn’t have enough breeze from the right angle to snag PlayStation’s outright east/west transatlantic record. Joyon’s time: 11 days, 3 hours, 18 minutes and 20 seconds, which is almost 2 days slower than Fossett’s big cat. That doesn’t sound very impressive, but it’s important to remember that Joyon was sailing, umm…ALONE! So he’s got the solo record, and put up another number for Ellen MacArthur to chase (hmm, note to respective PR teams: how about getting MacArthur and Joyon to race head to head in one of the big Atlantic races next year?). Now, hopefully, the amazing Joyon will be headed north to take a crack at the transatlantic record from New York to the English Channel. It’s been a big year in sailing, but if this guy doesn’t win the Rolex Yachtsman of the Year award it will be a crime, namely grand larceny…



Rolex Recipient?: “C’mon guys. The watch I am wearing is really, really crappy…”

Monday Miscellaneous 2–Macquarie Mess: More detail on Macquarie Innovation’s monster crash, and unfortunately it sounds as if the boat is scrap. This comes from the StarBoard windsurfing forum , and excellent site that follows closely the good, the bad, and the ugly of speed sailing at Sandy Point (as well as a lot of other sailing topics; sort of like a southern hemisphere Sailing Anarchy (without all the smack)):

“In a very unfortunate end to the emerging battle for speed supremacy between windsurfers and other craft,right in the heat of the “contest”, Macquarie Innovation (Yellow Pages) has been destroyed during a (very) high speed crash mid run at Sandy Point.

Suffering a front hull lift off at high speed, all effective control was lost at full power and MI slewed around into the wind. And sandbar. The ultimate spinout. Before cartwheeling itself and crew into a horror wipeout.

MI is a write-off but the crew of Simon McKeon (driver) and Tim Daddo (throttleman) luckily escaped without serious injury, despite being catapulted hi in the air inside their crew pod before crashing underwater and being trapped for a few scary seconds.

Data from MI is being attempted to be recovered to determine if the 50 was reached or not, but it’s certain the 500 wasn’t covered, so irrespective the record remains in Finian’s hands for now subject to ratification.”

I asked on the forum for any post-crash analysis, and Ian Fox of the StarBoard Team (who provided the above summary) had this to say:

“It’s a pretty grim scene inside the team container, not much recognizable except for color – or the steering wheel !

There’s no determination yet of actually what went wrong to cause the lift of the bow pod that caused the loss of control which ended the run.

GPS data has been successfully recovered from the wreck and confirms a 47kt crash at 250m into the 500. The actual run was also averaged (to termination) at around 47kts, somewhat below target of 50. So, if had run full distance, it could have been interestingly close with Finian at 46.82 !!

Late on the night of the crash, picking up MI shrapnel floating in the Inlet,

Simon’s famous comment to Tim:” Tim, I think we need a new boat !”

Averaging 47 and in striking distance of 50. These guys are obviously on the right track. Except for that needing a new boat thing, of course…



What Macquarie looks like in one piece…

Have A Wetass Weekend II…: With this very cool Quicktime Virtual Reality panorama of Vendee leader Jean Le Cam’s Open 60 Bonduelle. Once the picture loads, just hold the left mouse button down and drag the cursor to rotate the picture in any direction you want. Courtesy of Hans Nyberg and the wizards at Panoramas.dk…



Jean Le Cam Plants It: “Zut! Sometimes I wish I could sail this race in virtualy reality…”

Have A Wetass Weekend: And stay away from trees…

Vendee Wrapup–Charging South: The top eight boats are all in the southern hemisphere, and Bonduelle’s Jean Le Cam is still leading the sprint toward the Southern Ocean. To get there they’ll have to work their way around the South Atlantic High. Latest report here. Latest positions here.

While the lead boats are close reaching south, the middle of the fleet is just emerging from the purgatory of the Doldrums, which are characterized by windless holes, sudden squalls, and almost no sleep. Skandia’s Nick Moloney reports that he is so tired he sometimes goes on deck, only to forget what he wanted to do.

Here are a few accounts from the boats, which give you just the barest sense of how miserable solo racing in the Doldrums can be.

First up, Conrad Humphreys on Hellomoto:

I was sailing alongside Nick yesterday morning, and it was the funniest thing in my sailing career; we were going into a squall, Nick was 2m to windward of me and this cloud is as black as can be. I thought I better put a reef in the mainsail, and I look over to see Nick has furled away his headsails, and I’m looking at him thinking does he really think it’s that bad? Maybe I should put my staysail up? I look back again and see Nick has put 2 reefs in mainsail, and I’m thinking, no, it can’t be that bad, surely, and so we sail into the squall and there’s no wind in it at all! I took a few miles out of him then, but I found the whole thing quite extraordinary as I’ve always wondered how other sailors prepare for squalls, and find it amazing how differently we do it.

Typically, I’m sailing along under full main and genoa, the black rain cloud hits violently and you’re on edge the whole time, then change sails from genoa to staysail, put 2 reefs in the mainsail, then finish tidying up the boat and go down to check the chart and promptly sail into a wind hole! So you shake it all out again, put all the sails back up, and in the meantime the boat has done a pirouette, there’s not a breath of wind–if you’re unlucky you have to do this 2 or 3 times, but last night I must have done this at least a dozen times.

Physically, my upper back, shoulders and arms are absolutely in tatters–I couldn’t wind another winch right now! It takes 24hrs for your body to recover normally and you need to rest, but we don’t get the opportunity. I seem to have a whole rogues’ gallery of people’s voices, which keep popping into my head. Like when I’m thinking about technical problems, I answer my questions but hear Marco’s voice each time! [Ed: Marco is the French boatyard manager]. I couldn’t face another night like that and I feel for Nick as he has endured an extra night of it unlike me–right now the last quarter of Vikki’s fruit cake is in my sight and so I’m going to eat it as soon as I get off the phone!

Next up, TWC favorite Bruce Schwab, on Ocean Planet:

We are now in the dreaded “Doldrums,” a vast area of HUGE thunderclouds with torrential rains, interspersed by agonizing light winds. In the massive thunderstorms, there is lightning to fear along with downdraft winds up to and over 40kts.

In a mere two days the area has fully lived up to its reputation. Yesterday, I went from careening at a high speed in a downdraft (until I was able to get the genniker rolled up, a story in itself), to beating upwind for hours in 25kt winds, in addition to two hours TOTALLY becalmed and slatting noisily in the leftover waves….all this before early afternoon.

Today has been a series of TORRENTIAL downpours along with the wind blasts. I get set up in my gear for the storm when I see them coming, then stay in the cockpit and trim the sails and autopilot while trying to make the most of the sudden burst of speed. I tend to reach way off and just try to cover as much ground (er, water) as possible as long as it’s in the general direction we want to go.

I’ve had about two hours sleep total for the past two days, so I’m very tired, but will squeeze in some naps tonight..right after this update, I hope! But alas, more ominous towering clouds are headed this way….yikes!

You always hear about the Southern Ocean and the Roaring Forties, but it is the Doldrums that round-the-world sailors hate most…



Down In The Doldrums: The view from Hellomoto…

Department Of Documentary–“Dust To Glory”: If you liked filmmaker Dana Brown’s surf epic “Step Into Liquid,” you’ll be glad to know he’s been out filming again. But this time he’s taken his cameras to the wastes of the Baja Peninsula, to chronicle the Baja 1000, a 32-hour race from Ensenada to La Paz. Brown first considered filming the desert drag race after his buddy (and racer) “Mouse” McCoy popped the idea on him. At first, he wasn’t so hot on it, in part because his famous filmmaking father Bruce Brown had followed HIS surf masterpiece (“Endless Summer”) with a motorcycle pic (“On Any Sunday”). And according to the LA Times’ Ashley Powers:

Brown also fretted that a film about the Baja 1000 might come off as “ugly Americans ripping up someone’s Third World country.”

But after checking out the Baja 500 in June 2003, he recognized the hair-raising drama of bulked-up trucks, motorcycles and even Volkswagens gunning through mountains and deserts amid yahooing crowds. His worries about offending the locals subsided when he witnessed their zeal for the race.

“This is a big deal and they love it,” he says.

After the fatiguing shoot, Brown stared at 250 hours of footage from which he would craft the race’s story lines. Sifting through the characters, he settled on his friend McCoy–who finished, but came in far from first–to drive the narrative.

“Mouse staggering around heroically to the finish with snot coming out of his nose –I don’t know why that strikes me as super-fantastic, but it is,” Brown says. “Twelfth place for us was better than first; there was something about his journey.”

In the desert light, snot always looks great on film. The movie is due out in April…

Meanwhile, in a companion piece the LA Times’ Christopher Reynolds gives you a sneak preview of how much dirt the racers really eat (his story is accompanied by a great Flash photo gallery, and some thrill-packed video; I tried to rip it off, I mean snag it for you, but couldn’t figure out how, so you’ll have to go through the article):

Dave Ashley once ran Baja wired up to a machine that measures lateral and vertical G-forces. The results showed G-loads that shifted from positive 9–nine times the usual pull of gravity–to a heart-in-throat negative 5.

“And sometimes those reversals happen in less than a second,” he says. “It’s enough to where it knocks the air out of you sometimes.” Vomit happens.

Well, there you have it. The perfect race slogan: “Vomit Happens”…



“Aww, c’mon, Dude! Any more of that and we’re going to start calling this rig “Hurlin’ Herb”…

Transatlantic Record Bid Update–Fading Breeze, Fading Chances: At the moment, it looks as if PlayStation’s outright east/west transatlantic record will survive Francis Joyon’s solo assault in his 90-foot trimaran. This morning Joyon was 1,328 miles from the finish in San Salvador, meaning he has to average almost 18.5 knots straight down the track to beat the fully-crewed PlayStation’s time. Possible, but not likely. Joyon is making a superhuman effort on almost no sleep, but he’s fighting light winds, damage to his big Code 0 headsail, and a nasty seaway. The winds will fill eventually from the northeast, and when they come in they will come in strong. Tick. Tick. Tick. Stay tuned…



What Joyon Sees In His Dreams…

(Photo: F. Van Malleghem/Mer & Média)

Finian Maynard At 46.82 Knots…: Here’s the video of the record-breaking run. Here’s Finian’s viewing advice: “The speed is insane. Look what happens right at the red buoy…..mega charged 50-knot gust and the subsequent holding of it!!!!! And that is what delivered the record run completely on the edge and about to explode at any moment.” I also liked the dramatic shot of the timer coming out of the dumpy-looking trailer to pump his fist and indicate that the record is broken. A lot of Finian fist-pumping ensues. And it’s well-earned. These guys have been out there day after day, in the breeze, the wet and the cold, for more than a year (on and off). It’s not like they just showed up, jumped on their boards and got lucky. Finian and his crew worked their asses off for this record.

If you are a geek, and want to see the exact breakdown of the speeds during the run, you can click through from this page.

Side note: Half a world away, the greatest threat to Finian’s record–Macquarie Innovations–has crashed on the Sandy Point speed track. Here’s an excerpt from the report team leader Tim Daddo sent to The Daily Sail:

“After nearly three months of patient waiting for our desired conditions, a very brief window opened up for us on Monday night. Conditions were pretty close to those that we have been waiting for and the entire team were looking forward to some pretty spectacular sailing. And spectacular it was, although sadly, not for the reasons for which we had hoped.

At 7:50pm on Monday night, Macquarie Innovation was half way through a record attempt run in 18-20 knot winds, when the craft suddenly and inexplicably veered off course and capsized. Both crew members were unhurt, although spent some time extracting themselves from the debris that used to be their crew pod.

Unfortunately, damage to the craft has been extensive and not repairable within the time frame of our allotted 2004 attempt period. Consequently, the team has been left with no choice other than to retire from this year’s quest.”

Looks like it will be a while before any sailing craft can challenge Finian and the windsurfers for the outright record (sorry, SailRocket, you’re not even close yet)…



Finian Flying: “Those poor Macquarie chumps. Windsurfing is so much cheaper, simpler, and…FASTER. WOO-HOO!”

Department Of Resurrections–Gypsy Moth IV To Sail Again: Francis Chichester’s famously cranky 53-foot ketch–which took him solo around the world in 1966/1967, with just one stop–has just been craned out of her “tomb” at Greenwich. Thanks to a campaign by Yachting Monthly, Chichester’s most famous boat will be saved from rot, and rebuilt to cruise the globe again. You can follow the project at YM’s dedicated site, which has lots of good history about Chichester, the yacht, and his pathbreaking voyage…



“Hey, did you know Part 2 of this project is to crane old Francis out of his grave too…?”

Wetass Video Of The Week: Sportboat sailing can be fun. Sheet on, stack ’em up at the back, and enjoy the spray. Click here to wish you weren’t sitting at a desk right now…



In case you’re wondering: It’s a fookin’ fast Phuket Sports 8…

(Video: Via Sportzboats USA)