VENDEE GLOBE: BIG FIGHT ON THE INDIAN OCEAN AND BAD WEATHER ON THE WAY

Many, including me, thought that when Alex boat lost a foil, that his race would be finished, at least for the first places. Well, I was wrong and this time I am happy for being wrong😉. Alex, that was caught some days after breaking the foil by Armel, instead of continuing to lose time, put on a huge fight and for several days the two boats race almost side by side, like if the finish line was in sight.

Quite incredibly, yesterday they made more 100nm than anyone on the fleet (near 500nm) and I don't think they have better sailing conditions than some others. Kind of a psychological and physical battle to the limit those two are fighting. It would be interesting to see who is going to break first, or what is the boat that is going to break first (I hope not) since they are pushing them to the limit too.

Another point of interest is  a huge storm that is coming from the West and it has the possibility of catching the second group of boats, the one where the American Rich Wilson, the Japonese Kojiro and the New Zealander Colman are. If they are not able to make over 300nm a day they will get caught by the storm, with mountainous seas and winds over 50k. Yesterday most of them has made between 225 and 305nm a day.

You can follow the weather evolution and the boats here: Orange is rock'roll sailing, red is already too much and violet and blue...well nobody will want to be there, not even these great sailors in very seaworthy boats:

http://gis.ee/vg/

AZUREE 33C, ON THE WATER

Ok, this is going to be a short post: If you want an all around cruiser with 33ft and have only 150 000 euros, buy this one. I know magazines cannot say this but I don't care, this is not a magazine and I don't have publicity concerns.

This design is an old one, I mean the hull, it is a 7 year old design by Ceccarelli and it was a remarkably advanced design at that time, so advanced that it seems brand new. The little Azuree has been given proves, again and again, that it is a fast and very seaworthy boat. It had a ugly cabin and a good interior, a big one due to hull design, and the boat beam. 

It has now a nicely designed cabin, that made the boat beautiful, and the interior was bettered with the possibility of choosing different elements according to different needs and personal taste. The quality and the design are also good, being the quality a bit over the  usual on boats of this price.

http://interestingsailboats.blogspot.pt/2015/02/very-interesting-azuree-33c.html

It was tested recently by "Sailing Today" that said, not surprisingly:

"At the performance end of the market, a well-designed chine has more impact, giving the 33C superb balance and poise, even in challenging conditions. Her twin rudders and moderate, high-aspect rig combined with almost full-length single chines mean that she heels over, sits in the chine, and simply flies.... Sailing in 13-15kt the 33C was close winded, playful on the helm and genuinely quick. She rarely sailed below seven knots and was often hitting eight. Heeled over she sat in the chine and she was superbly balanced, but still playful on the helm...The quality of the finish is a notch above the standard production yacht, too."

 http://www.sailingtoday.co.uk/boats/big-boat-review/azuree-33c-2/

It is lighter (and probably stronger), using now vacuum infused lamination techniques and vinilester resins, very rare or unheard on boats with this price. The weight is just a bit over 5T , with 1.9m draft a highly efficient torpedo keel and a ballast ratio of 30%. That and the big beam (3.66m) gives him a lot of power and stability that is used to rig 66m2 of sail area.

A very cute boat, with a great big cruising interior, fast, seaworthy, well built and not expensive? What do you want more.😉

NEW NICORETTE (CQS) AND THE SYDNEY HOBART

Yes, what a look 😉 Like they had done with Wild Oates, they cut and past old 90ft Nicorette, that is now a 100ft maxi, CQS. Except for part of the hull the boat is all new and includes a DSS system as well as some odd looking structures for holding the shrouds and on the transom probably contributing for increasing stability at high heel angles.
I like the boat but I do really hate the transom design that seems to be maximized for light wind sailing and upwind sailing but will add nothing regarding downwind sailing. I am very curious regarding those wings on the back and their use. It looks they will increase stability at high heel angles but at the cost of a lot of drag. Can't wait to see them working.

My bet is that it will not be a winner on the Sydney Hobart, if Comanche and Wild Oats are on the race and they will be there. Anyway, more spectacular boats on a great race can only make it greater. The new design is from Simonis Voogd / Bakewell-White. 

DJANGO 12.70

This was one of the boats that I was waiting with more curiosity: a kind of a Pogo 12,50 with a better cruising interior, a hard dodger and a bit more adapted to long range cruising, at least in a more comfortable way.

Django, started to be a mini racer shipyard  (it still offers them), like Pogo, little by little, has become more involved into making fast cruising boats and both brands make today more performance cruising boats than race boats.

They used the know how of making racing boats to make light strong cruising boats, much on the hull lines of the solo racers they also build. We talked here already about the smaller brother, the Django 9.70, a yacht made along the same lines but, by his size, less adapted for long range cruising and the little 7.70, that even if less adapted, is however making a cruising circumnavigation with a French solo sailor

http://interestingsailboats.blogspot.pt/2015/11/django-980.html
http://interestingsailboats.blogspot.pt/2014/03/transat-vers-le-bresil-home-sweet-home.html

The Django 12.70 shares many of the Pogo 12.50 characteristics. Lets compare dimensions and you will see what I mean. First the Django ones (m, m2 and kg): Hull Length (12.48 - 12.18), beam (4.35 - 4.50), Draft (2.20 or 2.90/1.20 - 2.20 or 3.00-1.20), Ballast (2225 - 1900), Light Displacement (6500 - 5500), B/D (0.35 - 0.35) Sail Area (114 - 106).

The Django is a bit longer, a bit narrower, a bit heavier and with a bit more sail area. Very similar boats being probably the Django a bit better upwind but with very similar all around performance. The Django, contrary to the Pogo has a back stay (that contributes for a better upwind performance), interior proper doors and a more comfortable cruising interior.

The first boat was commanded by someone that knows something about boats, the boss of incidence sails, one of the big French top sailmakers, but or he has not a great taste in what regards interiors or that is a problem with Marée Hault. the shipyard. The cushions on the saloon are plain ugly and bad finished. It would not be difficult to make much better than that. The rest seems alright, namely a big galley.

On the cockpit the boat features one of the more functional rig arrangements for solo sailing I have ever saw on a cruising sailboat and the shelter offered by the rigid dodger seems quite good, even if it seems a bit low for big guys, but that would be easy to sort it out for a bigger owner. The Djangos are designed by Rolland & Delion. Pierre Rolland is a sailor that had raced successfully mini racers on transats, designing his own boats, before starting a carrier as a NA, Delion is one of the more talented NA of the new generation.

Another great bluewater passage makers that joins the JPK 45 (that seems to have a better finished interior) as one of my preferred fast voyage boats, I mean between the ones that have not a huge price. A basic one costs 300 000 euros and the boat on the photos 360 000 euros. Only the swing keel option costs 30 000 euros, a costly but valuable addition. Voile magazine tested it and they had only said good things about it. A sailor's boat no doubt, one that will shine on a transat or on a circumnavigation by the trade winds.

2016 ARC AND BOAT'S PERFORMANCE

It is on its way again, with 220 sailboats from all types, including many cats. The yachts that are doing it are mostly recent boats and it is a good opportunity to look at their performance on an Atlantic crossing, following the principle that it is possible to sail a fast boat slow but not possible to sail a slow boat fast, I mean out of what it is really his best potential.

The ARC is not a race even if it has a small racing division and it is only a race for those, that are a very small number regarding the 220 yachts.  Most of the boats are from European cruisers that are making the Atlantic loop, passing the European winter on the Caribbean and getting back to Europe in the Spring. There are also a considerably number of charter boats that are doing the same, going for the Caribbean charter season to come later to the Med one on the European Summer. The Charter boats take the opportunity to offer charter place to the ones that want to have the experience to cross the Atlantic. They are not racing since the crew is typically very inexperienced (with an experienced skipper) but nobody likes to go slow. You can see here what are the boats that are racing and the ones that are cruising. On the list you will have at the end of each boat line racing or cruising, as it is the case. https://www.worldcruising.com/arc/ar...ntentries.aspx 

The organization provides assistance,  a social program and loans a satellite tracker for a fee that can go from 1000 to 1200 pounds for boats between 10.3 and 16.29m  plus 125 pouds for each crew member. Not much for what is offered and  the fun to make a transat with more 200 sailboats. Even on a cruising spirit it is much more fun to make it this way than alone, not to mention comparing the performance of  our boat and crew with the one of other cruisers.

I have been following and I will continue to follow this transat, with more detail on a bot forum so if you want to participate and want more infornation you are welcomed to "my" thread about it here: http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/f129/arc-2017-the-boats-and-the-performances-175970.html

I will be more interested on cruising boats till 60ft, with a special interest on the smaller ones, specially the ones that are doing a fast passage. I have noticed some already, even if it is too soon to have a global view, made more difficult because some boats are choosing to go over the rhumb line (or to the North of it), were there is more wind (too much for some), others go really South, almost near the African coast, where there will be less win and others go on the middle of the two extreme options, for medium to strong winds, but not as strong as the ones on the North. Some days ahead there will be a big high pressure center and the ones on the North will be the ones that will have a better chance to avoid it.

Regarding the boats, some yachts doing a great performance, including among them and going fast, a A35, several More 55, a Grand Soleil 43BC , a Moody 45DS, a Dufour 44p, several Oysters, two Hanse 575, a Dufour 455, a Bavaria 51, a Solaris one 42, a Leopard 46, two Discovery 55, a First 40, a FP Lucia 40, three Lagoon 620, a Leopard 48, a Mobile 53, a Catana 47, a Bavaria 47, a X 43, a Lagoon 42, a Lagoon 450, a Beneteau 50, a Catana 531, a Baltic 51, a Baltic 50 a Dufour 385, two Elan 434, a Lagoon 52, a FP Lavezzi 40, a Sense 50, a XP50, Hylas 54 and a Arcona 400.

Lot's of boats? not in 220 and the fact there are many different types of boats there means that downwind on the trade winds,  many boats can go fast, even if the speed is not proportional to size. If we consider size then the better performance goes to the A35, the Arcona 400, the GS 43, the Lucia 40, the Lagoon 42, the First 40, the Lavezzi 40, a More 55 a Catana 531  and a Dufour 385.

Once again we see that condo cats can be fast downwind almost at the same speed than lighter performance cats and that it is not enough to have a fast performance cat to sail faster (there is a brand new 60ft Outremer 5x  that has been slower than the Lagoon 42), that the cats in a general way are not faster than monohulls and that among monohulls several types have not a very different pace. Having lots of wind, going downwind and not having racing crews seems to  contribute to equalize things in what regards performance even if performance cruisers tend to be faster, specially the smaller ones.

That is just the beginning, later, near the end of the passage I will make another post to confirm or not these ideas and to see what are the boats that really have shined on this ARC. You can follow the ARC on a tracker here: http://yb.tl/arc2016#

VENDEE GLOBE 2ND WEEK: JOY AND DRAMA FOR ALEX

 And the big winner on the 2nd week is Alex Thomson and Hugo Boss that increase his lead over the 2nd to 120nm, almost beating last night the solo monohull 24 hours record, doing 531.5nm (less 3nm) at an average of 22.1K and they did not even reach the zone where all Vendee Globe records are beaten, on the great southern sea desert. 

His boat, Hugo boss is on these wind conditions (medium winds) the fastest boat on the fleet. The designer of almost all the boats that are on the head of the race, Guillaume Verdier, explained why:

He says that even if the hull designs are not very different, each hull and each foils are maximized for a given set of conditions that are selected by the skippers, according with the studies made by their team regarding the more likely conditions they will meet on the race. They try to find the better compromise that allows them to have the overall better performance. 

This means that even if the boats and the foils were all designed by Verdier, they are not equal and the foils of Hugo Boss, Alex's boat are the ones that are less good all round but the best ones on the type of conditions they have been meeting, medium conditions.

 His foils are bigger, give more lift and therefore the boat is faster on these conditions but on stronger conditions they risk breaking more easily and he has to take them in sooner than the others. It is a long race and it is just at the beginning. 

 In meantime I have just heard that Alex is going to break the record today since he had already made more miles than what is needed and also that bad luck had come to him:

Just 45m ago he hit a floating object, or animal, in a very violent way. He was going very fast at 24k, trying to sleep, when the boat stopped suddenly and turned around. He has damages on one of the foils but it seems that the boat is structurally sound and not making water. He reduced speed till the sea and wind become more favorable for a full boat and hull inspection. 

And the top racers that use foils discovered another problem: As if it was not already difficult living on these rockets for three months, bouncing around and permanently with the sound of the waves reverberating on the carbon hull, now it become much more difficult with the foils at speed making a terrible noise, the kind of noise it is very difficult to endure. Just hear this: 

 You can follow the race almost in direct on the tracker: http://tracking2016.vendeeglobe.org/gv5ip0/

MORE ABOUT THE FEELING 13.90

Some gorgeous new pictures and some dimensions were revealed as well as the hull design that seems quite interesting. It is a relatively beamy boat (4.30m) with a big LWL (12.66) for the hull Length (13.02) and a very light boat for one with a centerboard with all the ballast inside the boat (11T).

I have some doubts regarding the displacement and I would have liked to see the ballast and the stability curve, but they don't make it public. If someone can have access to it I would be interested. 

The centerboard is deep, with 2.8m and the draft with it raised is only 0.92m. The centerboard is "helped" by two small lateral foils. I suppose the boat can be beached over the central keel, the foils, and the rudders but all that has to be quite strong to allow it without problems.

If the boat was mine probably I would not have it beached except on an emergency. Not the same thing as an aluminium hull. The rudder and foils can always found a stone or rock and I doubt that they can be strong enough for that eventuality. Well, one can always dive before doing it to prevent that but on cold climates I would not like to have to do that 😉

The tankage is not big  for the size, with 400L of water and 200L of diesel for a big Yanmar 80hp engine. The sail upwind is 83m2. That don't seem much for the weight of the boat. On the design it seems that there is an option for a cutter rig with the smaller sail going really inside the boat, over the cabin. If that is so the sail area will be more interesting since besides the staysail it can have a genoa with 53m2. That will give  a sail area of 111m2 plus the 25m2 of the stay sail. The sailing potential becomes more interesting and even more with a 103m2 Geenaker.

The boat design is very nice and even if they don't say nothing about it, I hope they will have an option for a deep keel, or even better, a swing keel with all the ballast on the keel, to make this a more powerful sailboat, more stiff and able to carry more sail upwind, a faster boat able to   face bad weather with easiness. That hull really deserves that.

This is not a boat to make concurrence to entry mass production builders, it will be supposedly better built, with a better finished interior and the price will be around 390 000 euros, with VAT?
More here: http://interestingsailboats.blogspot.pt/2016/05/feeling-1390.html