Vendee Globe 2012

i think he will gain some more miles on the leaders but the wind further ahead and so close to brazil will not be in his favour... and that's when the leaders get into the trade winds propelling them directly up the equator when he has to take a more easterly course...
it will equal the gains out a little...

another interesting image i found from hugo boss:
look at the way he managed to 'fix' his starboard hydro...
and this repair was done under way...

 

gabart sets new record when he crossed the equator on his way up the atlantic back to les sables d'olonne:

from: http://www.vendeeglobe.org/en/news/newswire/10055/gabart-crossed-the-equator.html

he is now more than 5 days ahead of desjoyeaux when he did his record breaking full circumnavigation in 84 d 3 h 9'8"...
gabart could really break the 80 days barrier for a solo-circumnavigation...

good winds and all the best luck!

 

Vendee

Great news-thanks Capt.....

 

Not all of them, Francis Joyon went round the world in 57 days solo with a wind generator, solar panels and a fuel cell for backup. I'm looking at a similar setup for my weight sensitive racing multi project.

http://www.ynovex.com/fuel_cell/

Francis Joyon singlehanded non-stop round the world record of 57 days 13 hours 34 minutes in his 97 foot maxi-trimaran IDEC2 at the average speed of 19.09 knots on the water, arriving on January 20th 2008 in Brest/France. On IDEC 2 power is derived from alternative energy sources including a wind generator, solar panels and a methanol fuel cell for backup, there is neither a diesel engine nor a generator on-board. During the record the fuel cell consumed just 15 litters of methanol. Francis Joyon said "It is very satisfying to have done a round the world race with less impact on the environment. The combination of these three things has been working 100%. The batteries have always been full, I never had any concerns about energy. The systems would switch from one to the other automatically."

 

Seems like, no matter how hard they try, a mono just can't compete with a multi of the same level of technology. It used to be said that a multi was was about 50% faster than a mono. That held true from Captain Cook's day to at least the late 1970's. With canting ballast, the gap has narrowed to the multi's being maybe 25% faster.

I really think the canting ballast may be the last word on mono performance improvement. It remains to be seen if the DSS foil alone can compete with the canting ballast. Maybe the two can be combined to make an even more expensive and complicated boat that still can't really compete with a multi, but may narrow the gap to maybe 20 or even 15%.

But what do you get for all this trouble?

You get:

1.) a boat that may self right if capsized (if the keel doesn't snap off)
2.) a very deep draft along with a much heightened risk of running aground,
3.) a system that requires a motor to work and usually needs an engine to power that motor (it remains to be seen if a wind powered system (either windmill or hydro) can compete with a engine powered one), and
4.) a highly complicated mechanical system that is extremely vulnerable to underwater collisions.

As much as I admire the technological achievement, I often ask myself if it is worth it.

 

You have highlighted some very good points. However, the current monohull designs still do appear tough it out better in the Southern Ocean and other areas that could present unforseen loads on a multihull. I'll be sailing in the new Clipper 70 this fall (Capetown to Perth) and I'm glad they dropped the idea of a canting keel in favor of the bulb keel. This design is much less prone to mechanical failure, snags in fishing nets, etc. Sir Robin had to put on a wet suit and cut a fishing net off his canting keel in the Southern Ocean in the last Vellux 5 Oceans race. I'm sure he said "to hell with that idea" when they designed this boat.

While I'm discussing the new Clipper 70, it would be good to get some feedback on this new boat. It's designed to do several circumnavigations so it's a bit heavier. It does look like a good, safe design though.



Spec:

Length overall 75’6’’/23m
Beam 18’6’’/5.65m
Draft 9’10’’/3m
Mainsail area 1,326 ft2/123.19 m2
Headsail area 1,812.97 ft2/168.43 m2
Assymetric spinnaker area 3,555.75 ft2/330.34 m2
Mast height (from waterline) 95 ft/29 m
Displacement 31.19 UK long ton/31,700 kg
Bulb Keel 11.81 UK long ton/12,000 kg

Ref: http://www.clipperroundtheworld.com/fleet

 

It sure is difficult to post with those giant photos! Joseph, seems to me that they could have designed a more protective environment for the crew on deck?
At least compared to Open 60's...

 

Hello Doug, you're right. Many of us have noted the exposed deck on the Clipper 70. Like the newer racing hulls there's not much room to hide...big surf board. Fortunatley we have a crew of 20 though so we can rotate shifts. Solo racers aren't so lucky. At least their newer boats have a nice cowling/wind screen to hide behind. That helps to keep you dryer & a bit warmer.

Sorry about the initial large pic. I replaced with a smaller one.

 

Monohulls have closed the gap on multihulls by embracing the same kind of structural strategies as utilised by multihulls reducing weight and maximising righting moment. As you're aware the righting moment has to come from somewhere be it beam, weight(ballast) or some kind of lifting foil. Is a lifting foil more effective on the side of a monohull or well to leeward as on a multihull? There are practical limits to how wide you can make a monohull and there is nothing stopping a multihull from ballasting it's windward ama (L'hydroptere does for example) so whatever direction you choose to take the multi at the extreme offers a better performance platform. You also get the virtues of less mast compression issues a stiff platform and lighter weight for a given length. A statistic I found interesting from the Sydney to Hobart thread is that Wild Oats XI has a 12 ton keel thats virtually equivalent in weight to two complete ORMA 60 trimarans. There are even radical Pacific and Atlantic Proa configurations that have yet to be explored fully in the modern multihull context.

Thats not to say I dont like monohulls and in fact I'm quite a fan of traditional fixed keel monohulls as a cruiser or racer they offer excellent load carrying and sweet sailing dynamics and a lot of practical benefits from the perspective of mooring in marina's etc, I just dont see the performance gap being closed in any practical way. As far as structural failures in monohulls we have seen several in the current fleet of Vendee boats including the loss of a keel.

My apologies for the OT and I have enjoyed watching the Vendee Globe race in it's current format.

 

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Joseph, thank you for fixing the picture-makes it much easier to read!

 

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Sharpii, as things stand right now the fastest sailboat under 20' is a monohull-The Moth-it beats cats aussie 18's everything. I believe it is possible to build a 60 or 70' monofoiler that would be faster than any cat or tri using foil assist. One of the main reasons is that the 2-foil monofoiler is capable of increasing RM by 40% without increasing weight a bit-just by using Veal Heel. That is the secret of a bi-foilers speed potential. Unfortunately, the design police would raise hell because of the on deck movable ballast. But it could be self-righting and at least equal to a cat or tri using foil assist.

 

Doug, I do see your point. But I don't think the foiler moth can be scaled up effectively. One idea I have had was adding a fore and aft foil to the 'Speed Dream 27'. Because it can go faster with just its hull, it can have a faster 'take off' speed, and thus need smaller foils. Then, the bulb and strut would be completely out of the water. But a multi could have two sets of small foils and fly the windward set clear of the water. The mono then is still handicapped with the need to haul ballast.

 

Sharpii, your idea with Speed Dream might work-good thinking! I think foils will offer tremendous opportunities in monohull and multihull design. I think the target in monohull design has to be a foiler capable of Veal Heel and also self-righting. I'm pretty sure it can be done...

 

Can I ask where the 50% figure came from, cause there may be interesting shifts in the mono v multi speed relationship.

The 50% claim appears to not be borne out by reality AFAIK. For example, the primary sources regarding the Herreshoff cats (ie letters from Captain Nat and LFH, rather than their much later books) indicate that they had nothing like that sort of speed advantage around the tracks, IIRC.

Contemporary sources also indicate that early offshore multis (Pivers etc) rarely had that sort of advantage over a RORC/CCA mono of their time. The CSK cats did well in their favoured environment as did Toria and others, but I don't think any multi got anything close to a 50% advantage overall. There were occasional outstanding performances, of course, but also some very bad ones.

Monos were actually putting in very strong performances in many races against multis up till the late '80s - Thursdays Child was just 14 hours behind the first tri in the '84 OSTAR, for example.

Using the OSTAR as a guide it appears that the performance gap actually opened up in the early days of what we would now call the Open 60 class, as the performance increase of the multis in the era of boats like the Irens 60 Fujicolour was so big. From '88 to 2000 the gap between the multis and monos seems to have been around 35%! The Swedes rate older 100 foot "supermaxis" as being only 2/3 the speed of ex ORMA 60 tris.

Canting would have sped the monos up, but that's a huge gap and arguably an increasing one.

Ballasted monos are fantastic for many things, but going fast (compared to their size and cost) is not one of them.

 

Make the racetrack long enough with a diverse range of conditions and modern multihulls are nearly 50% faster for example round the world non stop.

These are from the WSSRC

Fastest nonstop monohull circumnavigation

"Foncia" Michel Desjoyeaux FRA Feb 09 elapsed time 84d 3h 9m 8s

Fastest nonstop multihull circumnavigation

"Banque Populaire 5" Loick Peyron FRA Jan 12 elapsed time 45d 13h 42m 53s


Transatlantic monohull

"MariCha IV" Robert Miller GBR Oct 03 elapsed time 6d 17h 52m 39s

Transatlantic multihull

"Banque Populaire 5 Pascal Bidegorry FRA Aug 09 elapsed time 3d 15h 25m 48s

The reason I believe that the earlier speed difference was not greater is that designers were still trying to understand how to make multihulls fast and what design solutions worked well. Early multis had very low aspect and inefficient rig, hull and appendage design by modern standards.