This is a news archive containing content from our old news system. If you arrived here via a search, you may be interested in our main news section.
A new exciting offshore race is born, the inaugural RORC Caribbean 600 kicked off at 1100 local time. Solid breeze from the east nudging 20 knots rising to over 25 knots in the squalls, was the order of the day, but the big factor was the sea state; long rollers, some as high as four metres tested the driving skills to the maximum.
First away were the monohulls, bar the IRC Super Zero Class. David Aisher's Rogers 46, Yeoman XXXII, got a great start. Choosing to take the Island shore they looked to be lifted and within seconds were in clear air ahead of the fleet.
Steve White is fighting the angles today as he beats upwind to try to make best time to the finish in Les Sables d’Olonne to secure eighth place in the Vendée Globe. White has 434 miles to sail this afternoon but is still slamming upwind into a nasty swell.
This afternoon he reported that Toe in the Water is making steady progress but he is just frustrated by the contrary breezes and the poor upwind angles which his boat makes.
His is a vicious cycle at the moment. Toe in the Water, a relatively older, wide boat with a fixed keel and sailplan more optimized for downwind sailing needs more breeze in order to sail to narrower angles to windward. But more wind means bigger seas and more crashing and bashing around.
The Caribbean is due to serve up some sublime sailing conditions for the inaugural RORC Caribbean 600 and the competitors are expecting to blast around the course in big breeze, warm seas and ocean swell.
At the Skipper’s briefing held at the Antigua Yacht Club, RORC Racing Manager, Ian Loffhagen, fine-tuned the racing instructions to a highly experienced audience of sailors from the Olympics, America’s Cup and Volvo Ocean Race. Afterwards, a reception was held on the lawn to sample some of the local fayre. The Hon. Harold Lovell, Minister for Tourism for Antigua and Barbuda, gave a warm welcome to all of the guests and Antigua Yacht Club Commodore, Elizabeth Jordan, announced that all of the facilities at the yacht club would be open 24 hours a day during the race. Not surprisingly this got a loud roar of approval!
Discovery Yachts has confirmed that one of their Discovery 55s will shortly round Cape Horn having undertaken an adventurous passage from the UK via the Falkland Islands.
'Festina Lente' owned and sailed by Nick Pochin, author of the book Poles Get Closer has already completed a circumnavigation and is now en-route to Vancouver. She becomes the first Discovery 55 to round the Cape.
If the fleet has been anxious to gain a breather from the 'power-reaching' conditions of the past week, they better be careful what they wish for ... the Doldrums are about to provide relief of a sort.
Of course, when you're in a race, it won't take too long before the sailors begin lamenting the slow speeds characteristic of a Doldrums crossing.
It was at 14h35'50" GMT today (Sunday 22nd February) that Arnaud Boissières, the skipper of Akena Vérandas, crossed the finish line of the 2008-2009 Vendée Globe in seventh place after 105 days 02 hours 33 minutes and 50 seconds of racing averaging 11.04 knots on the water covering 27,841 miles. He sailed the 24,840 theoretical miles at an average speed of 9.85 knots.
A teenage dream came true today. At the age of seventeen, he was present with his father at the start of the first Vendée Globe in 1989. It was a trip to Les Sables d¹Olonne to see the first Vendée Globe heroes and to forget for a while the leukaemia, which had been discovered six months before.
Geonav Portable Chartplotters are the perfect solution for navigation made easy whether you want to find your way on land or sea.
The Geonav 3 model (right) is available at a fantastic special offer price of just £299 including Navionics Gold Land and Sea Charts.
The Geonav 3 at 110 grams is the lightest handheld chartplotter plotter on the market. It is also waterproof and has a long life lithium rechargeable battery which can be charged from an AC or DC supply.
On the 23rd February, the inaugural RORC Caribbean 600 will start from English Harbour in Antigua, West Indies.
Offering perhaps some of the best sailing in the world, the 605 nautical mile yacht race zigzags north as far as St Marten and as far south as Guadeloupe. It will be a tough test for the yachts, the navigators and the crews.
Organised by the Royal Ocean Racing Club in association with the Antigua Yacht Club, the race has attracted a fleet of close to 30 boats, including some of the world’s most prestigious yachts.
The company’s round the world yacht race is a global success but its shares are struggling to stay afloat.
Getting people to give up their jobs and pay up to £32,000 to spend months on a cramped boat, risking life and limb in force nine winds, is the easy part for William Ward.
Securing sponsors for the Clipper round the world yacht race is also fairly straightforward, such is the kudos and marketing potential associated with the biennial event.
What’s less straightforward for the chief executive of the Gosport-based Aim-listed business, is understanding why the 13-year-old firm’s share price is in a slump.
The end of the long and winding road to the Doldrums is in sight. But the light at the end of the tunnel is going to be a train coming the other way for some of these crews, as the fleet scatters across the Pacific. Measured from the south-west to the north-east, the spread from PUMA to Green Dragon is now over 200 miles – that’s a whole lot of leverage, and not everyone will have got it right.
At 10:00 ZULU the fleet was blasting south-east, well and truly into the north-east trade winds. The wind speed (TWS in the Data Centre) was back up to 20 knots, and the wave height was up to six metres (MAX_WV_HGT). Back to life at the extreme and with everyone sailing on the same south-easterly course (within ten degrees) it looks like the skippers and navigators have all picked their lane for the re-entry into the Doldrums.