The Velux 5 Oceans race

Here we go again...

(From Scuttlebutt)
The Velux 5 Oceans race continues to experience extraordinary weather conditions and high drama. Following the departure from Bilbao, Spain on Sunday October 22, the fleet of 6 high performance Open 60 yachts has been blasted by enormous waves and violent winds of well over 50 knots. The race is certainly living up to its name as the Ultimate Solo Challenge, as 4 boats have been forced to turn back to land to make essential repairs following a torrential 24 hours of exceptional weather conditions. On Monday, Alex Thomson (GBR) was the first boat to stop racing and make it back to land, arriving in Gijon onboard his battered 'HUGO BOSS' to deal with headsail and furler problems. Joining Alex now are:

* Unai Basurko (ESP) on 'Pakea' Monday sustained damaged to her headsail and mainsail and also has some unconfirmed issues with the stability of her mast. Basurko was heading back to Puerto Deportivo (Gexto), the start point of the Velux 5 Oceans, but may attempt to make port somewhere closer along the coast.

* Sir Robin Knox-Johnston reported Tuesday morning that he has suffered damage to his yacht 'Saga Insurance' overnight whilst sailing in over 60 knots. Sir Robin is currently sailing towards La Coruna, Spain to carry out urgent repairs to his mast track and communications systems, which were a result of a knockdown. He is expected to arrive within 1 to 2 days to be met by his shore team.

* Mike Golding (GBR) on 'ECOVER' has also been forced to make a pit stop in La Coruña, Spain, and is expected to arrive at the port sometime mid-afternoon Tuesday. Mike reported that he has suffered damage to three of the mainsail batten boxes, which retain the forward end of the mainsail battens and connect them to the mainsail track on the mast.

David Adams, Race Director, comments, "The main problem is that you can't slow these Formula 1 boats down and they simply crash on through - it is bone breaking action! We were expecting strong winds of 40 knots, but none of the weather models or advisors predicted 60 knots. I spoke to each of the teams and their weather advisors before they left Bilbao and none of the skippers had concerns about leaving on Sunday." -

Race website:http://www.velux5oceans.com.....Surprisingly, they charge for the info! (You have to become a member )

 

I'm interested in best sources for free information about the race.... and about the designs & designers! One thing the America's Cup has going for it is a good bit of discussion about design. Here we have a relatively open development class, but so much of what's published is about the sailors. How do the boats, and the thinking behind them, differ, and who are the designers involved?

 

Not bad for an old timer (67 years old, if I remember correctly).

Hey Guillermo, about his boat I agree with you, not very comfortable

I am very curious about his performance.

I hope your French is not very rusty, because the best site for this kind of races is a French one:

http://www.sail-online.fr/

About the boats these are open 60’s, solo boats. There are 6 of them in Velux race. In the "Route du Rhum" (also a solo race) there are 12 of them racing, but for me, the most interesting class, is the new 40 class. 25 of them are racing, and lots of designers involved.

I have some information on design on this thread, if you want I can get you more.

http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/showthread.php?t=14468

 

From Velux 5 Oceans pages:
18:00 UTC 15/11/06 LOCUST POINTS EAST
Earlier in the day Sir Robin Knox-Johnston was bemoaning the unreliability of new technology and was threatening to get his sextant out. He would be impressed by Unai Basurko's use of wildlife to determine his race strategy on board Pakea. The Spanish skipper said: "I was at the wheel and suddenly a leg of locust fell in my face. I looked up and saw this bird of prey, like a hawk, on the top of the mast and another one flying around. This bird was eating a locust and didn't like the legs, so was throwing them away. Later I realised that when you can find a locust on the ocean it means that there are strong East winds near the African coast, so I hope my decision of taking the East route will be right."

More at:
http://www.velux5oceans.com/page/NewsDetail/0,,12345~928571,00.html

(Picture from the site)

 

Is Bernard Stamm's new boat a Pierre Rolland design, like his previous? ....Wait a minute, here's the answer:

THE BOAT:

Boat name: Cheminées Poujoulat
Designer: Pierre Rolland
Builder: Bernard Stamm
Launched: July 2000
Construction: Carbon-Nomex
Type: Open 60
Beam: 5.7m
Draft: 4.5
Displacement: 9 tonnes
Movable ballast: Canting keel
Board: Single
Rig type: Fixed
Mast height: 28m
Upwind sail area: 280sqm
Downwind sail area 570sqm​

Does this mean it's the same boat with a new paint job?

Also, what boat is that on the cover of Sailing World? Is it the new PRB (a Bruce Farr design)?

 

Yes, it is Vincent Riou boat, a Farr design, launched September 2006.

Vincent is not very satisfied with it:

"Suite au démâtage survenu lundi 30 octobre sur la Route du Rhum – La Banque Postale, le monocoque de Vincent Riou a été remorqué à Port La Forêt par la vedette de la SNSM Margodig. Depuis, le skipper n’a qu’une idée en tête : trouver pourquoi l’espar s’est brisé en trois morceaux alors que les conditions de vent étaient maniables. Un premier examen des débris a permis d’éliminer l’hypothèse d’un défaut de fabrication et c’est maintenant en bureau d’études que l’enquête se poursuit."

http://www.prb.fr/voile_actu_detail.php?actu_id=49

The wing mast had broken in three pieces forcing him to retire from "La route du Rhum". The mast broke in good sailing conditions and apparently it shows no defect. A design error?

http://www.prb.fr/voile_descriptif.php

http://www.prb.fr/voile_video_hd.php?media_id=209

Sthephen, if you want information about new and interesting racing boats, open a thread about it. I am also interested and I will post there .

Regards

 

Yes it is. Read through:
http://www.velux5oceans.com/page/ProfileDetail/0,,12345~897373,00.html

Yes, it seems to be:
http://www.prb.fr/voile_index.php
In October the 30th his mast had broken in to three pieces, 20 miles off the coast of the Scilly Islands. At the time of the dismasting, PRB was sailing along under mainsail and solent, in 15-20 knots of wind and moderate conditions.

Cheers.

 

Done. See http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/showthread.php?t=14789. Please help me weave the new thread!

Stephen

 

After successfully rescuing Alex Thomson, Mike Golding lost his boat’s mast. Ecover mast breaks with not much wind (22/25k).
Mike and Alex were in the interior of the boat eating, after the difficult rescue of Alex (four attempts). Alex had to abandon his boat (Hugo Boss) after a keel problem.

 

Is this a race anymore?

From Scuttleblog:

Is this still a race?

In the July 20, 2006 issue of Scuttlebutt (Issue 2141), the newsletter provided an advance report on the Velux 5 Oceans race, but also included the following Curmudgeon’s Comment:

“Scuttlebutt will undoubtedly follow this race given the top name skippers entered, and by virtue of the boats that they sail, which are among the fastest and most exciting classes of racing yachts available. However, with only ten entries listed, and with nine of them in the Open 60 class, time will tell how closely we will follow the race (Americans Tim Troy and Doug Hofman are among the entries in the Open 60 class).”

From that report to the Oct 22nd start of the race, the fleet dropped to seven entries (with six in the Open 60 class), with neither American Tim Troy nor Doug Hofman making it to the start line. Given the remoteness of this event to our North American audience, the lack of local entries, plus the shear lack of entries period, we were unsure how closely to follow the event as it approached.

The race is now in its 35th day, and there has been significantly more coverage in Scuttlebutt than any of us could have managed. Of course, the reasons for this are due to the enormously tragic events that have plagued the race. Huge storms and boat breakdowns have provided significantly more drama and story lines than this race should have earned. Thank god no one has been hurt.

Now the question is whether this is still a race at all. Most clubs need five entries for a start. Since Alex Thomson joined Mike Golding (following Thomson’s keel failure on Hugo Boss), their dismasting on Golding’s Ecover now has made their entry a doublehanded affair. Alex was supposed to be only a passenger, but when the mast went down, he was needed to put things back in order. How does that fit into the rules? Sir Robin is now peeling away from the course for the nearest port to address his auto-pilot problems. The rest of the fleet is limping, and hardly leading contenders on a good day.

Can you imagine how ridiculous this event would be without the two stops? Regardless of the elapsed time differences, what we need right now is some boat-on-boat action. But even with the stops, I am thinking race leader Bernard Stramm needs to pick up a Playstation 3 in Fremantle, as the rest of this “race” is appearing to otherwise be a book burner. – Craig Leweck

 

Mast Failures Galore

One can only wonder just how much more repetitive stress is being put into the masts with the canting keel mechanisms.

 

This race has been searching for a purpose for the last 15 years. Once the pro's and their Open 60's found that sailing around non stop (Globe Vendee) was not only feasble, but also a better challenge and less time consuming, then a 'stop-over' race aimed at the same people was always going to suffer.

The Corinthian's (and under funded 'pros') who constituted a fair proportion of the traditional entries for this race were turned away when their speed differential with the Open 60's became too wide to be either logistically sustainable or safe. But now is the time to embrace these guys once again. Perhaps as the race is owned by Clipper Ventures, this may well happen.

I think the race should revert to a 5 stop event, to include the east coasts of the US on the way home. The two classes should be the Class 40's, and a new one-design 50 footer with about the same performance as the 40's, but without water ballast. These would be designed so when their racing life was over, a keel swap, smaller main and interior would make them attractive cruisers. These boats would be available as bare hulls (ex Poland), for fit out by potential entrants.

I think there are loads of quite capable people who would like to 'race around the world', but there are only a few with the talent and sponsorship to do it in an Open 60.

 

It helps in the U.S. when there's an American sailor doing well. The Mini 6.5s got much more coverage here during the period Jonathan McKee, (associated with Team McLube) was racing one.

Having said that, I'm a fan of Bernard Stamm. He's an outdoorsy, do-it-yourself type, and goes over well here in The States. Glad to hear my guy's in the lead. Go Bernard!

I also think boats (as opposed to sailors), and their designers, can have fans. The coverage of the open ocean races has not capitalized on this as much as the America's Cup, or even the Whitbred/Volvo, i.e. there has not been as much coverage of the race to put the best boat in the water (at least not here).

 

Something nice to hear from Knox-Johnston:

"The biggest event was the consumption of the last of the whisky. It's taken 4 and a half weeks to consume 4 bottles which seems pretty abstemious. I had not allowed for medicinal usage and when it came to clean and dress the toe I decided the manoeuvre deserved a tot. Well 3 tots in fact. But it seemed silly to leave just a small sensation in the bottom of the bottle and it would have been an great tragedy if the cork had come out and spilt it, so better to drink it and avoid the potential disaster."

More at: http://www.saga.co.uk/magazine/TeamSagaInsurance/rkjBlog/index.asp?dateToDisplay=2006-11-28

 

I've started a thread for discussion of possible IMOCA rule changes at http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/showthread.php?t=15206
I'd really love to get some feedback from the contributors to this thread.

Thanks & Happy Holidays,
Stephen