THE TRANSATLANTIC RACE OF 1975 STARTED IN NEWPORT, RHODE ISLAND FINISHING IN COWES IOW. WEALD WAS A SWAN 48 DESIGNED BY S&S. A BOAT IN MY OPINION THAT WAS FASTER THAN “CARINA” IN THAT ERA.
THIS WAS ONE OF 9 TRANSATLANTIC RACES I HAVE COMPETED IN. EACH WITH IT’S OWN SPECIAL MEMORIES. ADDITIONALLY AN EXCEPTIONAL PRIVILEGE TO COMMUNE WITH NATURE IN A WAY PERMITTED TO ONLY A FEW.
Nursing a boat around the world is no mean feat. Idec with it’s smaller rig may be better suited to resisting this kind of damage.
Any big Trimaran going around the world it is more about slowing down and finishing than pedal to the metal.
I have always had great admiration for those who dare to do.
A smaller boat with a smaller crew require smarter sailing.
TWO BIG TRIMARANS HAVE SET OFF TRYIG TO BREAK THE RECORD AROUND THE WORLD.
THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE IS FROM SAILING ANARCHY.
They’re off and the start of the most amazing global match race has begun. In the dead of night this past Sunday morning off the north coast of France two of the fastest and most amazing sailboats on this planet took off to lap the planet in an effort to break the non-stop circumnavigation record currently held by Loick Peyron and his crew aboard Banque Populaire V. The first to go was IDEC Sport skippered by Francis Joyon. At 02:02:22 GMT IDEC Sport crossed an imaginary start line that runs from the Créac’h lighthouse on Ile de Oessant (Ushant Island) to Lizard Point on the southwest corner of England. This imaginary line has served as the start of the Jules Verne Trophy since it’s inception in 1990 and the same line will serve as the finish line. It’s hard to believe but if the crew of IDEC Sport are successful in their mission they will be back just as the new year starts.
Just under two hours after IDEC Sport took off Yann Guichard and his crew on Spindrift 2 crossed the same imaginary line in search of the same record. In order to be successful both boats need to be back by late in the day January 6, 2016. The time to beat is 45 days, 13 hours, 22 minutes, and 53 seconds and was set in 2012. Spindrift 2 is the same boat that holds the record but in new livery and a refit for this almost impossible quest. They will need more than good weather to beat the time; they will need a whole lot of luck. There are so many potential pitfalls on the 25,000 mile course from floating containers to submerged ice to extremes in weather from the heat of the tropics to the bone chilling cold of the Southern Ocean.
The wind was out of the north blowing around 10 knots when both boats set off. “We don’t have much wind at the moment, just 8 to 10 knots,” said Yann Guichard shortly after they started. “The sea conditions are not easy because there is a strong current but the wind will pick up in strength. So it’s a steady start at 15-18 knots.” The breeze is expected to build to around 30 knots and the sea state to even out, a perfect way to get underway.
The first ten days will be critical. Both teams have studied the weather in minute detail to pick the very best time to start. They will need to slingshot out of there across the Bay of Biscay and past the doldrums and equator into the Southern Hemisphere. If they are not ahead of, or at least close to where Banque Populaire V was there may not be any need to continue. It’s hard to make up time and Loick Peyron himself attributed the success of there record attempt to great weather and a lot of good luck.
In under three days both boats have covered over 1,800 miles at an average speed of 30 knots. At last check both IDEC Sport and Spindrift 2 were separated by just a few miles and both boats were just under 200 miles ahead of where Banque Populaire V was at the same time into their journey.
To me it seems as if the record could well be broken. In past attempts the boats have been racing an imaginary ship; these two boats are going to be going head to head pushing each other every inch of the way. There is nothing like a physical boat on the horizon ahead to stir competitive spirit. In any event it’s going to be a clash of titans to wrap up what’s been an amazing year of open ocean racing. Bon chance to both boats. We are looking forward to some spectacular racing. Most of all be safe.
You can track the progress of each boat – Spindrift Racing and IDEC Sport .
HARD SAILING IN THE SOUTHERN OCEAN. IT IS WHAT YOU SHOULD EXPECT.
I had my own experience with a message in a bottle. I find it is a rather profound event in life representative of so many thoughts and feelings.
Angela Erdmann never knew her grandfather. He died in 1946, six years before she was born. But on Tuesday she described the extraordinary moment when she received a message in a bottle 101 years after he had lobbed it into the Baltic Sea.
Thought to be the world’s oldest message in a bottle, it was presented to Erdmann by the museum that is now exhibiting it in Germany.
“It was very surprising,” Erdmann, 62, said, recalling how she found out about the bottle. “A man stood in front of my door and told me he had post from my grandfather. He then told me that a message in a bottle was found and that the name that was on the card was that of my grandfather.”
Her visitor was a genealogical researcher who had managed to track her down in Berlin after the letter was given to the International Maritime Museum in the northern port city of Hamburg.
The brown beer bottle, which had been in the water for 101 years, was found in the catch of Konrad Fischer, a fisherman, who had been out in the Baltic Sea off the northern city of Kiel last month.
Holger von Neuhoff, curator for ocean and science at the museum said this bottled message was the oldest he had come across. “There are documents that have been found without the bottle that are older and are in the museum,” he said. “But with the bottle and the document, this is certainly the oldest at the moment. It is in extremely good condition.”
Researchers believe Erdmann’s grandfather, Richard Platz, threw the bottle in the sea while on a hike with a nature appreciation group in 1913. He was 20 years old at the time.
Much of the postcard was indecipherable, although the address in Berlin on the front of the card was legible, as was the author’s polite request that the note be sent by the finder to his home address.
“He also included two stamps from that time that were also in the bottle, so the finder would not incur a cost,” Erdmann said. “But he had not thought it would take 101 years.”
She said she was moved by the arrival of the message, although she had not known her grandfather because he died, at the age of 54, six years before she was born.
“I knew very little about my grandfather, but I found out that he was a writer who was very open minded, believed in freedom and that everyone should respect each other,” she said. “He did a lot for the young and later travelled with his wife and two daughters. It was wonderful because I could see where my roots came from.”
Like her grandfather, Erdmann said, she also liked culture and travelling around the world. She described herself as open minded, too. “What he taught his two daughters, my mother taught me and I have then given to my sons,” she said.
Despite her joy at receiving the bottled message, she said, however, that she hoped others would not repeat what her grandfather had done and throw bottles with messages into the sea. “Today the sea is so full of so many bottles and rubbish, that more shouldn’t be thrown in there,” she said.
The message and the bottle will be on display at Hamburg’s maritime museum until the beginning of May after which experts will attempt to decipher the rest of the text. It is not clear what will then happen to the bottle, but Erdmann hopes it will stay at the museum.
“We want to make a few photos available to put with the bottle and give it a face, so visitors can see the young man who threw the bottle into the water,” she said.
Saving the world from ourselves has been one of those statements often at a cocktail party as someone throws a can or bottle into the water. With changing weather pattens we need more data to know where we think we are going with the environment. Kickstarter has enormous potential.
