EuroSail News #5204 - 4 November

In This Issue
• Boris Herrmann: "This time we are not in it to win it."
• IMOCA: The Favourite, His Rival And The Chasing Pack
• Harken At The Front: The Route du... Immortality
• Youth Foiling Gold Cup Grand Final
• Not long to wait - Rolex Fastnet Race
• Project Landspeed: Making The Most Of Every Opportunity
• Cup Spy: Luna Rossa picks up the pace
• America's Cup Documentary Series
• Court rejects sailing federation's lawsuit against Olympic champion
• How do you get power when sailing around the world?
• Featured Brokerage:
• • Ker 56 - Varuna VI
• • Gunboat 72V
• • Open 42 one-off
• The Last Word: Enzo Ferrari

Brought to you by Seahorse magazine and YachtScoring.com EuroSail News is a digest of sailing news and opinions, regatta results, new boat and gear information and letters from sailors -- with a European emphasis. Contributions welcome, send to

Boris Herrmann: "This time we are not in it to win it."
For Boris Herrmann, the popular 41 year old German solo ocean racer who took fifth on the last Vendee Globe, managing the expectations of the hundreds of thousands of fans he has at home now, and a big media following, is all part and parcel of this, his second Route du Rhum-Destination Guadeloupe.

Herrmann left at the start of his Vendee Globe with a hard core following but very quickly his storytelling and his performance became national news. Towards the end if his race he was on all the major news and sports channels and was greeted as a hero on his return. His book telling the story of his race was at the top if bestseller lists for weeks.

Now with a brand new VPLP designed Malizia-Seaexplorer just launched mid -July there could easily be a belief shared among the legions of new found ocean racing fans at home that the new latest generation boat should be the perfect passport to a podium finish first time out

"In my progression curve four years ago here I had already done two years racing with the boat, two Transatlantics, then I was at 90 per cent. Now I am at 40 per cent. So, people ask me what my expectations are and I explain that 'yes I am in a race, yes I want to compere as best as possible but I am not going to be competitive, I don't know the boat well enough, I am not really in race mode." Cautions Herrmann. "But that is great. It comes down to is the beauty of this sport. This is a true adventure, I go out there and have no idea about my boat. I mean…. 'what the hell!' what are we all doing? None of us have really have sailed our new boats in 40kts. We don't know what will happen, what will break, who will do what."

The most recent weather models are fairly clear about the start of the race. It's going to be tough and sometimes very hard. With a low-pressure system out in the Atlantic, a series of fronts will be moving in. This means upwind sailing in strong winds from the outset and the Bay of Biscay looks like living up to its reputation with the situation likely to worsen on Monday with the deep low generating an active cold front. There is the threat of "50 to 55 knots of wind to the north of the system with 18-21 foot high waves out at sea on Monday," explained Cyrille Duschene from Meteo Consult in today's forecast. "This is set to be tough for the sailors," added the forecaster.

"Once they get to Ushant and even before, the sea state and winds will be typical for November. The Route du Rhum - Destination Guadeloupe is used to these sorts of conditions," says Race Director Francis Le Goff.

www.routedurhum.com/en

IMOCA: The Favourite, His Rival And The Chasing Pack
The pressure will be on Charlie Dalin at the start in Saint-Malo. Not because this is his first Route du Rhum, but simply because he is the favourite. After dominating the three events this year - Guyader Bermudes 1000 Race, Vendee Arctique and the Azimut Challenge - the skipper of Apivia was beyond reach and while he has not yet won the race, he will be the one to beat.

Yann Eliès who was his co-skipper, believes "the boat has reached maturity and the skipper is rigorous, focused, psychologically solid and above all capable of really putting his foot down," as we saw in the Azimut Challenge and then the two training sessions organised in Port-la-Foret. "We can be certain that Charlie will continue to find ways to progress, even if they are minor points before 6th November," declared Jeanne Gregoire.

All of our consultants noted that Apivia has an advantage when reaching, which may be the deciding factor at the start of the transatlantic race, even if for Christopher Pratt, "the actual situation may be very different: they may catch up from behind as in the Transat Jacques Vabre last year, and downwind sailing represents two thirds of the course." That is why many see Thomas Ruyant as Charlie Dalin's most serious rival, as he is "capable too of keeping up a hellish pace," noted Jacques Guyader, and he was the winner of the Transat Jacques Vabre where Apivia had been the favourite.

Read the full editorial in Tip & Shaft

Harken At The Front: The Route du... Immortality
Hurtling over walls of hissing liquid. In a glowing world illuminated by headlamp. Considering throttling down to save the rig. Sleep.

There is no sleep. Even tied to the pontoon, who can possibly tell the mast rotator from the port side deflector in a pit so complex?

Now, try it three days into a gale.

Here, giants crawl toward legendary on all fours.

When we step aboard to fine-tune a pedestal system or test a hydraulic valve, we feel what is to come, pushing beyond that combination of awe and envy any sailor feels on these boats, to contribute the right decisions. At the front, there can be no compromises. So there will be no end to our commitment. Harken salutes the 138 who will cross the starting line on Sunday.

Bonne chance!

harken.com

Youth Foiling Gold Cup Grand Final
The Youth Foiling Gold Cup Grand Final started today in Barcelona, Spain, hosted by Marina Vela with the support of Club Nautico Vilassar de Mar. Nine races of the two-day Qualification Stage were finished by the nine teams competing here to be crowned 2022 YFGC winners and bring home the 40,000€ voucher to attend the 2023 season. Great, but very tricky conditions on the water with the wind coming from the west in the morning and turning to north-west in the afternoon, blowing throughout the day from 6 to 20 knots, and the choppy sea brought some extra challenges on the plate. It was a very tactical day for the sailors, who had to use their strategic skills other than the usual boat handling.

Team Black Salmon Argentina is provisionally leading the ranking with a nice 6.5 point margin over the second, DutchSail Janseen de Jong, with Team France third.

The plan for tomorrow is to have nine more races to finish the Qualifying Stage and to have the top six teams qualified to go through the Final Fleet Races on Saturday and Sunday morning, followed by a do-or-die match race between the best two teams.

Full results

69fsailing.com

Not long to wait - Rolex Fastnet Race
Next year's Rolex Fastnet Race will be the last edition before the 'big one'... when the 100th Anniversary event starts off Cowes in 2025, so a good time to look back at the journey to date

On Saturday 25th August 1925 seven yachts set off from Ryde, exiting the Solent to the east, past the Forts, rounding the Isle of Wight bound for the Fastnet Rock off southwest Ireland where they turned on their heels for Plymouth to be finished by the Royal Western YC. First home and overall winner, Jolie Brise finished in six days two hours and 45 minutes. This was the first Fastnet Race, known at the time as the Ocean Race, and it would strongly speed up its evolution from being merely a fresh challenge for more adventurous cruising folk into becoming today's highly refined sport. Famously at a dinner in Plymouth at the race's conclusion, the Ocean Racing Club was created, with Jolie Brise's owner Cdr EG Martin its first commodore.

Full article in the November issue of Seahorse

Project Landspeed: Making The Most Of Every Opportunity
Lake Gairdner, South Australia: After an enforced break over the past week for the Project Land Speed team at Lake Gairdner they are back on location making the most of every vital window that becomes available to get more speed runs in.

It has not been an easy time watching a seemingly regular schedule of precipitation continue to maintain moisture on the lake surface, but as Glenn Ashby explains that as frustrating as the unpredictability is with the conditions, they are extremely dynamic and can change in front of your eyes for the positive.

"We have had about four days where we have had a little bits of rain which unfortunately puts more water back on the lake each time. Just as it appears to dry out, it seems to rain again which is a bit of bad luck."

All has not been idle, with 'Horonuku' tweaked and tuned and on round the clock standby for any small chances of a sail to appear to keep progressing developments closer and closer to the world record target.

"We have done some tail plane adjustments to start to be able to self-start on our own, which is part of the rule. You cannot tow start, but it can be push started by humans as a requirement of the world record.

To break the record, we need an average speed over 3 seconds for over 205km/h. That's about 1 mile an hour over the current record of 202.9km/h. So every run that we can progress any km/h closer to that is positive progress."

www.emiratesteamnz.com

Cup Spy: Luna Rossa picks up the pace..Slingsby's first sail...Kiwis into cross-overs
What happened in the Cup - November 1, 2022:

Luna Rossa sailed their LEQ12 on the Gulf of Cagliari, with a better, more consistent breeze, and had a good session. The Mistral's arrival is expected.

American Magic emerged after 11 days in the shed. Cyclors were removed. New hire Tom Slingsby had his first sail in an AC75, he took the helm in light winds off Pensacola.

INEOS Britannia are yet to sail their newly launched LEQ12 from Mallorca

Alinghi Red Bull Racing were expected to sail on Wednesday from Barcelona.

Emirates Team New Zealand sailed their AC40 One Design early morning on the Hauraki Gulf ahead of a forecast building seabreeze which eventually kicked in at 20-25kts

America's Cup Documentary Series
America's Cup and Skydance Sports today announced an exclusive partnership to produce an all-access, behind-the-scenes documentary series on the 37th edition of the America's Cup, the world's pinnacle sailing event and longest-running international sports competition. Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, the Academy Award-winning directors of the 2018 documentary Free Solo, will executive produce under their Little Monster Films banner alongside their Academy Award-winning Free Solo producer Evan Hayes and his Anomaly Content & Entertainment (ACE) production company, with David Ellison, Jesse Sisgold and Jon Weinbach of Skydance.

For the first time ever, all the teams competing in the iconic sailing event will allow never-before-seen access into their preparations and execution of the race, and the documentary series will showcase the people and the drama – on and off the water – throughout the competition. The 37th America's Cup will take place in September and October of 2024 in Barcelona where the event's defending champions, Emirates Team New Zealand, which has won four Cups since 1995, will be challenged by teams including: United States, American Magic; Great Britain, INEOS Britannia; Italy, Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli; and Switzerland, Alinghi Red Bull Racing.

www.americascup.com

Court rejects sailing federation's lawsuit against Olympic champion
A Court of First Instance in Athens sided with Olympic gold medalist Nikos Kaklamanakis on Thursday in a lawsuit filed against him by the Hellenic Sailing Federation (HSF) for defamation.

Kaklamanakis, 53, has accused HSF of corruption and mismanagement in remarks he made to the Parliament's Standing Committee on Educational Affairs in November 2019, where he was invited along with other Olympic athletes to comment on a bill on sports violence and match fixing. In 2020, HSF filed a lawsuit seeking 100,000 euros.

The court ruled "there was no evidence" that Kaklamanakis wanted to defame HSF, nor did his comments cause any harm, but instead his intention was "to defend the federation's institutional role" in promoting sailing by tackling the numerous ills that have plagued HSF for years. It also ordered it to pay the athlete's legal costs of 2,000 euros.

www.ekathimerini.com

How do you get power when sailing around the world?
Whilst the sailing world is undoubtedly grateful to companies like Raymarine for the incredible safety and information technologies that we now take as standard when we are at sea, we have to remember that every one of these devices takes power.

The electronic self-steering gear, the chart-plotter, the radar, the radio, and other devices all require power, as well of course, as the traditional powered devices like the refrigerator, the freezer, the lighting systems, the desalinator…

On yachts, this power comes typically from a series of batteries, and generally, there will be two distinct systems. The first is the engine battery, used like a car battery to start the engine and the other is the 'house' or 'hotel' system, which will be a bank of batteries that will power all the other devices. These will normally be in banks, and the number of batteries and their power depends on the requirements of the particular boat.

Recharging these batteries and providing sufficient power to keep the batteries charged, and consequently healthy for a long voyage, is a subject that the entrants to the Global Solo Challenge (GSC) will be thinking about, as they will be away from any shore power for several months and in vastly different climatic conditions from Ocean to Ocean.

The Global Solo Challenge does not forbid the use of the engine and fossil fuels to produce energy altogether but keeping sustainability and the environment in mind has, for this edition, introduced a cap of 300lt of fuel per boat at the start. Most skippers will use some of this diesel for heating the cabin too in the coldest sections of the event, so, overall, this fuel is insufficient to complete the challenge and satisfy all of the energy needs, especially for the slower boats.

This encourages all the skippers to explore alternative means of producing power (and even heat to warm up). -- Dave Proctor