Merfyn Owen reports on the Calais race |
| Tuesday, 18 May 2004 |
| Merfyn Owen recently completed the 1000 mile Calais to Fastnet to Calais race onboard Mike Golding’s Ecover. In the following short article he presents his reflections on the race.
When I agreed to Mike’s suggestion to race with him onboard Ecover I knew with only five of us onboard there'd be no room for a passenger. We’d all be doing a bit of everything from helming to cooking and of course the grunt work, stacking the boat etc. I knew I’d be taking the lead from the other guys on the boat who’ve been regular crew with Mike over the last two years. They've done a lot more racing than I since I did the Mini Fastnet and skippered a BT boat around the world. I'd have to shake off the cobwebs of design office life pretty quick and find my feet (and fingers and thumbs) quickly if I was to come up to scratch with this crew. It's not that I don't get out on these boats sailing, at Owen Clarke Design we encourage all of us to get on the water as often as possible. Liz Tier is about to set off next week from Auckland to Tahiti on our 65’ high performance cruiser for instance. I’d clearly drawn the short straw there! However, to go racing you have to step up a couple of gears if you're going to contribute at this level, after all I was to be 20% of the horsepower onboard. I was apprehensive before arriving in Calais, but the delivery trip from Southampton with three of us in winds up to 35 knots helped me get back to some extent into the swing of things and after a week of waiting in Calais I was ready for the off once the time came.
The town of Calais have really taken the open 60 fleet to their hearts. This wasn’t the first time they’d put up an event and their plan is to hold a major offshore race for the class every year and become a fixed part of the IMOCA calendar. They did us proud with their hospitality and organisation, the website in particular was excellent. We the sailors were all embarrassed that only six IMOCA boats turned up, although it was always going to be a big ask for some boats to turn up so close to the Transat and in a Vendee year. However I wasn’t alone in thinking that some other teams could have made a greater effort to get there when both Bonduelle and Sill who’d only been very recently launched managed to make the event. But what a fleet, the two new Marc Lombard designs, Farr Yacht Design’s Virbac and our Ecover represent the last four open 60’s to be launched. Along with Arcelor Dunquerque and PRB, the winner of the last Vendee Globe it was intimated by more than one French journalist that we probably had the next Vendee winner somewhere on the dock. Odds are that they’ll be right.
I had said before the race that I wanted to see a range of weather conditions in which we could test our boat against the theoretical polars, sail cross-overs and ballast/dagger board usage charts that our VPP produced. In conjunction with Mike and the crew of Brian Thompson, Graham Tourell, and Bruno Dubois of North Sails one of my roles on the race was to update these charts and help find any areas where we can improve performance further. Obviously a range of conditions and close racing would be the greatest help in speedily finding out the right combinations of board, ballast and sails/sail trim.
We were to get the close racing all right, with three days of sailing out to the Fastnet in sight of Bonduelle the whole time. The greatest distance between the two boats being the fifteen-minute gap we’d opened up as we rounded the rock. Both boats now have a very good idea of their performance parameters in winds of less than 12 knots as we both lost and retook the lead alternately in the first half of the race. The rest of the fleet were out of touch of this leading pair after the first night. The reality is that the leaders are very evenly matched in these winds, both having sweet spots and areas where the other has a slight advantage, but nothing that in over 500 miles of sailing had the boats more than half to two miles apart for 95% of the time. It was like we sailed with bungee between us and as a result both skippers benefited enormously from what was effectively two boat testing in race conditions. On the few occasions when the wind rose above 12 knots from ahead and we were able to put ballast in the boat Ecover appeared to have the advantage in both speed and height, but in reality these moments were rare and the shear obstinacy of the wind to raise it’s game leaves a lot to be confirmed in the up and coming Transat Race. In theory the beamier and more powerful Ecover should have the advantage over the narrower chined hulls of the Lombard boats. The chine was a feature that we’d tank tested in 2002 as part of our 60’ R and D program.
At the Fastnet turning mark, Ecover held a three-mile lead over Bonduelle with the rest of the fleet up to six or more miles further behind. Shortly after rounding and sailing away from this mark of the course we sailed to a dead stop, watched by Bonduelle who were then able to sail around us and open up a lead of ten miles sailing away at speeds of up to ten knots while we were struggling at between zero and five. As the rest of the fleet sailed into view from south of our position to round the rock events were to be even worse for them. Slowly we managed to claw our way south to regain the chase, but of the rest of the fleet we never saw them again. By the time we were in what comparatively was steady breeze, Bonduelle’s thirty-mile lead looked fairly unassailable and in the end they finished 4hours 46 minutes ahead. We never managed to sail in the same wind as them again and so our chance to learn from each other was lost and our options to pass were limited to a thrust into mid channel while Bonduelle stayed close to the English coast. For the rest of the fleet it only got worse. Ecover and Bonduelle finished on Friday morning in time for the prize giving that evening. Virbac was the next to finish on Saturday night some 1 day and nine hours behind us. An incredible split by any imagination on what after all is only a 1000-mile race, our actual distance sailed was 1019 miles at a meagre average of 10.58 knots which was boosted by some occasional breeze of 15 to 17 knots on the way up the channel in amongst the calms of the night.
Despite the disappointment of being beaten I fully enjoyed the race and as I said to one reporter at the time as we motored in, I’d have preferred it if we hadn’t stopped. It was a tremendous opportunity for a designer to learn and provide input to a race program. I know that the boat will be faster in the Transat and the Vendee because of all our joint contributions on this race. The synergy on the boat at the time was fantastic with all parties contributing their own knowledge and it was clear from the three hour debrief at the end that we had along with the shore team, that we’d all learnt a great deal. I also had a great deal of fun racing with friends that I’ve known for years and given half the chance I’d jump at doing it again, especially from Calais who really were the most gracious of hosts.
For more information go to:
www.mgyr.com
www.1000millesdecalais.com |
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