2015 Transat Jacques Vabre

[Rainier]

Ahhh, you're right. I forgot about the move to one design last go round.

[Panama Red]

Does anybody doubt the Volvo boats will have these if not in the next go round but the one after that?

I severely doubt it. The Volvo is looking for less expensive, more dependable boats.

[Rainier]

Rainier,

The IMOCA foilers have 2 j foils which extend 8 feet or so, in addition to the keel and 2 rudders. It's like a mini colander dragging through the water at high speed.

A 25-30 knot guillotine bouncing in and out of the water. The larger cats in flatter water have some continuity in their connection with the water. In the open ocean,
the boats are jumping in and out constantly, the loads themselves on the hull, through hull fittings and the rigs is much exaggerated. And for what? 3-5 knots of temporary vmg?

Well, they all have 2 rudders and a keel. The difference is vertical daggerboards vs horizontal foils. But I agree, lots of stuff going through the water at high speed! I suppose an argument could be made that having the foils right at the surface is more dangerous for surface oriented marine life.

And don't get me wrong, I'm not saying this is the best set up yet. I'm just saying it would be silly to give up on it after one go. Structural issues can be fixed with better design. I think gaining 1 knot of VMG for distance racing would more than cover some risk. Maybe not all the risk they have now, but some risk. Risk vs reward is what sailing is all about, even in one design!

Unless you have a foiling J70! (and are the class measurer)

I think the best argument against them so far is that they only work in certain conditions, and are a hindrance in some conditions. If you are going to race around the world you would need to guesstimate what percentage of each you would see to make a decision.

Does anybody doubt the Volvo boats will have these if not in the next go round but the one after that?

If nothing else it makes a boring race interesting! Does anybody actually follow the clipper race? Because thats what they would all look like without crazy new designs...

[Photoboy]

Closing In On The Finish For Ultimes



On the Transatlantic race track there are good nights and bad nights. Pleasure and pain. Success and disappointments. For Thomas Coville and Jean Luc Nélias on Sodebo Ultim’ it is disappointment this morning, seeing race leaders MACIF, Francois Gabart and Pascal Bidégorry at 140 miles ahead with 1450 miles to the finish.

MACIF are past Fernando de Noronha and this morning are just 60 miles off the coast at Recife on the NE corner of Brazil. Gabart and Bidégorry are just faster on the new MACIF, making 27kts to Sodebo’s 22 at 0700hrs UTC this morning.






Nélias, on Sodebo, commented this morning:
“There is a lot of frustration when we look at the rankings. But this is still a great adventure. It is a great race, the battle with MACIF is super nice. And now there will be options, opportunities to attack we will not let up. There are still a lot of miles, just under 2000. On a 600 miles race you might accept it. But there is still a fight, even if we have only two boats in the class. We must be first. The Doldrums were a pain. It took 36 hours of no wind to get through and get ourselves clear."





In the Multi 50s Ciela Village’s Oliver Krauss, speaking on the morning radio vacs with Race Hq in Brazil, could not hide his disappointment at losing miles with a longer than expected pit-stop which cost them their battle for the lead. Correspondingly Thibault Vauchel-Camus was putting a brave face on Le Coenservateur running away at the head of Class40.

The trio which leads the IMOCA class are still in V formation. Theirs is a tussle which does not let up and there are no breaks, neither literally nor figuratively. There is still nothing separating leaders PRB, Vincent Riou and Seb Col, from Banque Populaire VIII, Armel Le Cléac’h and Erwan Tabarly and Queguine Leucemie-Espoir, Yann Eliès and Charlie Dalin. The leading trio are progressing out of the Doldrums this morning in SE’ly winds making 10kts upwind. Behind them Tanguy de Lamotte and Sam Davies have been rewarded for their hard sailing since their repairs by restoring their Initiatives Coeur to fourth place.

In Class 40 the three cornered fight is over second, not first, now that Le Conservateur has made over 200 miles by escaping away from the high pressure ridge. Thibaut Vauchel-Camus of Soldiaires en Peloton ARSEP spoke of their mood, five miles off second placed V and B.




General situation Wednesday, November 4 to 6 utc

Leaders going fast, some good matches in the other classes?

Depression 978 hPa 53N and 34W extends a trough to the south.

Anticyclone 1021 hPa on the Canaries is largely stationary

The Doldrums, ICTZ, are oriented at 6 deg north.

Depression 1011 hPa 27S and 42W moves SE

Anticyclone 1027 hPa 37Sand 34W stationary

Forecast for the day of November 4 and the following night:

Ultimes: Move fast towards Itajaí, the leaders gain as they are always getting to stronger, more lifted breeze.

Multi50: Their ‘doldrums’ are light but with not many squalls. But as the two leaders are well offset perhaps there are options for the second placed.

IMOCA The leaders are emerging slowly from the Doldrums. Their fight at the front promises to be exciting as the S’ly trades increase as they get south.

Class 40 The leading quartet get south while the chasing pack continue to struggle in the anticyclone. Behind it becomes complicated as a new trough arrives.

Trend for November 5:Trade winds are moderate, gusty for the southerners. The "doldrums" are little less sticky. The anticyclone remains parked south of the Canaries.

Richard SILVANI





“We have a good race for second place. Le Conservateur has made a very substantial break. They managed to escape and so earned their miles. The elastic has stretched away. Three boats are now fighting, Carac - Advanced Energies got back at us at the high pressure ridge. We watch constantly and hope that we make more than we lose.”

They said:
Jean-Luc Nélias, co-skipper of Sodebo Ultim (Ultime): "The atmosphere is a little bouncy and shaking. We are close reaching with 24-25kts of wind. That makes it choppy with waves. It looks pretty straight to Cabo Frio with some downwind and gybes and a cold front at Cabo Frio. Would we go to the coast or stay offshore? There will be options, opportunities to attack we will not let up. There are still a lot of miles, just under 2000. On a 600 miles race you might accept it. But there is still a fight, even if we have only two boats in the class. We must be first. The Doldrums were a pain. It took 36 hours of no wind to get through and get ourselves clear."

Oliver Krauss, co-skipper of CIELA Village (Multi50): "Ours was a rather long pit stop. It as hard as we did not sleep very much. Early in the race we did not to go as well, to be as fas as we were with the boat. The good thing now is we have a boat, we are still racing. Now the question is how hard to push. We sail a little restrained now, we sailed harder when we had lots of wind, now we sail like we are sailing with friends."

Fabrice Amedeo, so skipper of Newrest / Matmut (IMOCA): "I'm in the cockpit. Eric is sleeping . We will be in the Doldrums tonight. We are under gennaker it is grey and all is well. The atmospher on board is good, we spent the last few hours looking at the Doldrums as we have in recen days. It is interesting because there is a pretty tight group of boats and we will see how it goes with them at the exit of the Doldrums. It will be in the Pot Black tonight, we are under gennaker, it is gray and all is well. The atmosphere is good, we focused on setting the last few hours looking at the Pot Black in recent days, it's interesting, because we are a pretty tight group of small boats and we will have to see how it goes at the exit of the Doldrums. When changing tack, we put the daggerboard down and the cable used to lift it got caught up in the housing. We are quite happy with our position in the ranking, we would rather be in front of MACSF but with the Doldrums and 1800 miles of racing there is still plenty of race track left."

Thibault Vauchel-Camus, co-skipper of Solidarite en Peloton- ARSEP (Class 40): "We have a good race for second place. Le Conservateur has made a very substantial break. They managed to escape and so earned their miles. The elastic has stretched away. Three boats are now fighting, Carac - Advanced Energies got back at us at the high pressure ridge. We watch constantly and hope that we make more than we lose. We watch the positions every hour to see that no one has moved laterally. It is frustrating to see them stretch away because we we racing to win. But Itajai is a long way away and so we hope to play to win again,"



Chart

[Buzz Light Beer]

I Just checked, the fastest foiling IMOCA 60' is Banque Populaire is in 3rd, behind PRB and Queguiner, which are conventionally rigged.

Call me a skeptic, but shouldn't they be way in front?

[Buzz Light Beer]

Rainier,

The IMOCA foilers have 2 j foils which extend 8 feet or so, in addition to the keel and 2 rudders. It's like a mini colander dragging through the water at high speed.

A 25-30 knot guillotine bouncing in and out of the water. The larger cats in flatter water have some continuity in their connection with the water. In the open ocean,
the boats are jumping in and out constantly, the loads themselves on the hull, through hull fittings and the rigs is much exaggerated. And for what? 3-5 knots of temporary vmg?

[Runs_with_sissors]

Then there is getting the rating certificate for your foiling J-70.

[Rainier]

BLB, 2 issues there. None of them personal so no worries about all due respect!

The new foils aren't any more dangerous to marine life than the standard dagger boards are they? I don't think there is anymore appendage footage in the water than there was before. The orientation is different but that's about it right?

Then there is the rescue operations. I agree that these teams should bear the cost of those operations. That said half of the regular 60's have dropped out too. This is more of a "should we have high performance ocean racing" arguments than it is about the foils. Once we figure out that one we should move on to backpacking, because I guarantee you there is a lot more cost in rescuing lost hikers every year than boat racers...

Everybody seems quick to point at the foils but it appears HB may have hit something, other boats had rib failures, the Tri flipped, some just plain dismasted, etc. The foils seem to be a small part of the picture even if their percentage(4 of 5) was much higher. My guess is most of the fleet waits for the big boys to figure out the technology before it becomes a bigger part of the issue. It would be interesting to see how many of the boats in the fleet are from each generation.

And again, just a friendly discussion. No panties bunched over here!

[Carl Spackler]

The boats break, they rescue the crew, give them more cigarettes. Everyone wins!

[Buzz Light Beer]

With all due respect, the concept of dragging a lead mine through the ocean with massive appendages hanging out is slightly different
than a winged cat on a protective body of water. Lots of thing out there to hit. Some of them fixed objects from buoys to nets, to couches etc.

Then there are the living things. The largely unmentioned "hits" on marine life in SF Bay? Fish strikes were the common euphemism mentioned, but do you really believe that?

[Rainier]

Seems like they made 2 changes. The foils, and a new skin with ribs type hull. I haven't seen any specifics but most of what I read pointed to the ribs failing, not the foil boxes. In reality its probably a bit of both. They made the shell more fragile and then put more load on it.

No matter what the cause is do you guys really expect these teams to give up on a new technology just because the first round didn't work? Remember all the failures canting keels had when they first came out? They sorted that one out, just as they will sort out the foils.

As for team sponsors, I think that falls under the "any publicity is good publicity" deal. What team sponsor do you most remember form the last Volvo race? Vestas Wind perhaps? You get a lot more headlines when stuff goes wrong than sailing around in 3rd place...

I guess time will tell. I think this is a great new technology and I'm glad somebody else is paying to dial it in. Everybody bitched and moaned about the last A cup but look at the foiling revolution it spurred.

[Tonapah Low]

4 out of 5 foiling IMOCA boats have failed? Or is it 5 of 6?

Numbers don't lie.

[cartman]

Only faster in test tanks.

Should sponsors risk the multi million dollar investments on fairy dust or quality boats with solid performance?

There is zero track record of these foiling Imoca's having the slightest chance to succeed in adverse conditions.

[Rainier]

So just because the first version failed they should ditch what is clearly a much faster technology? By that logic Oracle would have ditched the foiling 72...

[Photoboy]

O' Canada Withdraws

O Canada withdrew from the transat Jacques Vabre
Arrived last Saturday in corunna to try to fix the rail of mainsail ripped at the top of the mast, Eric Holden and Morgen Watson could not get the necessary parts for the repair.
At 19, they have contacted the race direction to announce their withdrawal of the race.
"we are really disappointed to withdraw from the race and we would like to thank the organization for his help" has entrusted Eric Holden, skipper of o Canada

Canada's out
Since last Saturday in a pit stop in la coruna (ESP) to try to make a comment on the support of the main candle, Eric Holden and Morgen Watson informed the direction of proof of the transat Jacques Vabre that will not be able to return in a timely manner to the competition. The problem would be the delay to replace the damaged parts. "we are very upset to get out of the regatta and we thank the organisation for all the help you gave us", I told Eric Holden, Commander of the boat of class imoca.