At 20h 49.49 UTC, Jean-Pierre Dick and Damian Foxall steered Paprec-Virbac 2 across the finishing line to win the Barcelona World Race. Their 25,000-mile journey, non-stop around the planet, has taken exactly three months, and been an impressive display of speed and seamanship. The dynamic French-Irish duo has held the lead for the majority of the race, fending off early challenges from PRB and Veolia Environnement to grab the lead for good on December 7th. More recently, it’s been Hugo Boss clipping at the heels of Jean-Pierre and Damian as they made their way back up the Atlantic Ocean.
Real obstacles came in the form of icebergs and equipment breakage. Deep inthe southern latitudes, Paprec-Virbac 2 played ‘Russian Roulette’ with icebergs on several occasions, escaping unscathed, except for the toll the added stress and fatigue had taken on the two skippers. Shortly after passing through Cook Strait (NZL), they hit an object in the water, seriously damaging their rudder system. But the were able to fix this without stopping. Then, after rounding Cape Horn, their forestay broke, and dismasting was a likely outcome. But again, quick thinking and on-board acumen allowed them to fashion a repair that would hold to the finish. Second placed Hugo Boss crossed into the Mediterranean Monday morning and is due to finish on Wednesday. You can read more here — http://www.barcelonaworldrace.com
Positions at 21:00 UTC
1-Paprec-Virbac 2, Jean-Pierre Dick/ Damian Foxall, finished
2-Hugo Boss, Alex Thomson/ Andrew Cape, 426 nm distance to finish
3-Temenos II, Dominique Wavre/ Michéle Paret, 1,126 nm DTF
4-Mutua Madrilena, Javier Sanso Windmann/ Pachi Rivero, 1,366 nm DTF
5-Educación sin Fronteras, Servane Escoffier/ Albert Bargues, 2,803 nm DTF
Retired - PRB, Vincent Riou/ Sébastien Josse (broken mast)
Retired -Delta Dore, Jérémie Beyou/ Sidney Gavignet (broken mast)
Retired - Estrella Damm, Guillermo Altadill/ Jonathan McKee, (rudder damage)
Retired - Veolia Environnement, Roland Jourdain/Jean-Luc Nélias (broken
mast)
OK , first this is an attempt to embed video into my website. Something I hope to do a lot more of in the future as I use video to help coach teams and individuals. But its also an excuse to publish an AMAZING short video of the Open 60 Hugo Boss screaming around the world. Two guys have been racing this thing for months in a race around the globe and are within a thousand miles (about two days on that thing) of finishing. Where do I sign up?
Spinsheet Magazine, a magazine about sailing on the Chesapeake Bay, features a story about my sailing lecture series for JWorld Annapolis and includes a great mention of our sponsorship of Team Tsunami’s J22 Entry in the J22 Midwinters being held in Texas.
Molly Winans, Spinsheet’s Editor, wrote the article about the Sail Trim and Balance lecture I gave for JWorld in December when Ms. Winans was a participant in the class. Check back soon for a link to the actual article.
The other plug was for Team Tsunami’s team of young guns headed to J22 Midwinters. I was introduced to the team of Steve Roth, Matt Schoene, Mike Carr and Mike Atwell during the 2007 Charles Schwab Junior Sailing Cup, where I was coaching. Read a PDF of a past Spinsheet article about Tsunami here.
The so-called Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a stewy body of plastic and marine debris that floats an estimated 1,000 miles west of California, is a shape-shifting mass far too large, delicate and remote ever to be cleaned up, according to a researcher who recently returned from the area. But that might not stop the federal government from trying.
Charles Moore, the marine researcher at the Algalita Marine Research Foundation in Long Beach, who has been studying and publicizing the patch for the past 10 years, said the debris – which he estimates weighs 3 million tons and covers an area twice the size of Texas – is made up mostly of fine plastic chips and is impossible to skim out of the ocean.
“Any attempt to remove that much plastic from the oceans – it boggles the mind,” Moore said from Hawaii, where his crew is docked. “There’s just too much, and the ocean is just too big.” The trash collects in one area, known as the North Pacific Gyre, due to a clockwise trade wind that circulates along the Pacific Rim. It accumulates the same way bubbles gather at the center of hot tub, Moore said.
A 2-liter plastic bottle that begins its voyage from a storm drain in San Francisco will get pulled into the gyre and take weeks to reach its place among the other debris in the Garbage Patch. While the bottle floats along, instead of biodegrading, it will “photodegrade,” Moore said – the sun’s UV rays will turn the bottle brittle, much like they would crack the vinyl on a car roof. They will break down the bottle into small pieces and, in some cases, into particles as fine as dust.
In the J80 Class race one of the second series of the Annapolis Yacht Club Frostbite Series was won yesterday by Animal House - the JWorld Annapolis team boat. On board were Dr. Gordon Livingston and Tim Nathan. I was on board as the coach.
Conditions were trying for any team as the breeze was out of the SE at 3-8kts and the current was swiftly flooding up the river during the start of the first race.
We made a plan during our pre-start to try and start in the middle of the line, at full speed, heading for the left side, being prepared to flop and go right if the other competitors did so. We wanted to avoid the middle of the course - so it was left or right for us. We hit the line a few seconds late, but at full speed and with a fairly clear lane. To windward of us were Dasher and Etchells 1007, both on starboard tack and just slightly ahead of us with better starts. Heading to the right on port tack was Dragonfly. Within a few minutes of the start both Dasher and 1007 tacked to head to the right. We had determined prior to the start that the current was running pretty fast - and crossing the middle, where the deepest watter is, was not advantageous in our minds. We continued on starboard tack - headed for the Naval Academy YP boat stable. Fortunately for us, we were slowly headed by a left hand shift and sailed into more pressure. We discussed covering the other boats, but felt confident that our strategy was correct and when we tacked, our hopes were confirmed. The right hand side of the course had significantly less pressure, and the current may have been running faster on that side too.
As we sailed on port tack back towards the middle we were ahead by more than 20 boat lengths and in fact had caught up to several of the boats from the class that started 5:00 before us. The separation between us and our rivals was huge, and we could have easily gone from the penthouse to the poorhouse. Fortunately the boats in our class ended up in phase with us, and we were inside and well ahead. A little more left shift and we were nearly lifted to the mark. A few short tacks later and we rounded ahead of our fleet and several of the J105’s that started in front of us.
There were several good lessons learned from yesterday’s race. They were: 1) Develop a strategy based on data observed on the course. The forecast was for the wind to shift to the right - but we saw left hand shifts - possibly influenced by the land rather than right hand shifts. 2) If in doubt…don’t tack. Make sure you have a good reason to move the boat around. When the other boats went right we were tempted to follow, but we saw what looked like better pressure to the left. We were a little in doubt as to what to do - didn’t tack and it payed off. 3) In the light air use roll tacks and jibes to keep the boat moving as close to full speed all the time. Tim (driving) and Gordon did a great job of keeping the boat fast by coaxing every last bit of speed out of the boat. Tim really improved his jibes by staying on the new leeward side after the jibe to help the boat accelerate. Well done!
It feels great to kick off the racing season with a bullet - I hope these winning ways continue!
Today the Gale Force Sailing Racing Team practiced match racing with several JWorld coaches in Annapolis, MD. We raced J80’s.
The GFS crew consisted of Tim Adelman, owner of the J22 USA1002, Oliver Whitney, National Maritime Heritage Foundation Program Director, Jon “the Dark Poet” Foote, and me.
With sunny skies, 50’s and a moderate breeze Team GFS was able to get a few sets and douses in while knocking off some of the dust we all have from a winter spent doing things other than sailing. After a small halyard problem we were off to the races. We were practicing against a team with Dan Wittig, JWorld Annapolis Director and Aaron Galvin, JWorld Annapolis coach, along with some other fairly accomplished sailors - and they fairly dominated us.
With shifting and dying breeze it was difficult to get off a fair race, and in fact the pre-starts were skewed due to the shifting breezes. At least twice a hard right hand shift allowed the port tack boat to easily cross starboard (NOTE: it may have also had something to do with out boat speed).
After about 45 minutes of fighting the breeze, and each other, we called racing for the day, picked up our marks and went home. While our proficiency on the water was lackluster, we did learn a few things. First and foremost while we often put ourselves in difficult and disadvantaged positions we didn’t realize them soon enough and quickly found ourselves sailing to nowheresville. A good lesson to take from this brief practice is when things don’t go the way you planned - circle or stop.
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At 20h 49.49 UTC, Jean-Pierre Dick and Damian Foxall steered Paprec-Virbac 2 across the finishing line to win the Barcelona World Race. Their 25,000-mile journey, non-stop around the planet, has taken exactly three months, and been an impressive display of speed and seamanship. The dynamic French-Irish duo has held the lead for the majority of the race, fending off early challenges from PRB and Veolia Environnement to grab the lead for good on December 7th. More recently, it’s been Hugo Boss clipping at the heels of Jean-Pierre and Damian as they made their way back up the Atlantic Ocean.
The so-called
In the J80 Class race one of the second series of the Annapolis Yacht Club Frostbite Series was won yesterday by Animal House - the JWorld Annapolis team boat. On board were Dr. Gordon Livingston and Tim Nathan. I was on board as the coach.
Today the Gale Force Sailing Racing Team practiced 