Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms vendee globe race

Gripping stuff, isn't it ?

Jean le Cam has been amazing in this race. The rate of attrition amongst the race favourites in the latest foilers is such, that the prospect of Jean le Cam atop the podium is becoming more and more of a possibility.

I am gutted for race favourite Alex Thomson having to retire on this his fifth participation. This was the one that really had his name on it. He is hugely popular in France as he's such a good sport.

If I understood it correctly Alex Thomson was back in the race having made repairs to his boat when he hit something that broke his rudder. Is that correct?

We saw the interview in today's English language roundup. The poor guy was almost, if not actually, in tears.

The problem, obviously, with these foiling boats (any race boat for that matter) is to get the right balance between structural integrity and weight. They are really on the veryt edge of the possible.

One thing about all this is that it highlights just how much technology has changed since Joshua Slocum made the first single handed voyage around the world in 1895 to 1898.

You do understand correctly.

This video by Alex Thomas of Peak Torque is quite a good explanation for the layman of the structural problems which Alex Thompson repaired. He is not a naval architect, and (as with any such modelling), makes a whole bunch of assumptions, but I think his analysis is reasonable. `He makes quite a good joke, describing Alex Thomson as the "Colin McRae of sailing", his point being that the designers should have made adequate allowance for the fact that this is a guy who has a track record of sailing his boats really hard, so should be an intrinsic part of the brief.

Consider the point that he makes, (at about 21:30), that the reinforced areas where Thomson has made his repairs, may just transfer the shear force to the area forward of the repair, causing it to crack there.The thought of the boat breaking up under him in the middle of nowhere in the roaring forties doesn't bear thinking about. In the light of the sinking of PRB, it may well be that the rudder breaking when it did paid Alex Thomson a favour.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKDv7vSemrI

"All's well that ends well" at 2am in the morning.

After Le Cam found Escoffier in his life raft he lost him again in the high wind and seas but finally managed to find him in the dark because of the flashing light on the life raft.

Talk about a dramatic rescue. Escoffier said that after he saw water entering the boat and managed to get out a message he had 4 seconds to get into his life-raft before the boat was hit by a wave, broke in two, and sank.

Greatly relieved by this morning's news. I woke twice in the night, thinking of poor Kevin Escoffier being tossed about the roaring forties in his life raft. An outstanding piece of seamanship by Jean le Cam to effect his rescue, and a good team effort with three of the other competitors also involved in the search and rescue effort.

The bow of Escoffier's boat, PRB failed, and folded up 90°. Unlike Thomson's boat, which was designed as a foiler, PRB was converted to foils, and her bow was beefed up. Not enough as it turns out.

In the light of this incident, and the failure of the bow structure of Hugo Boss, I'd be very nervous were I at the helm of one of these boats just heading into 12000 miles of the Southern Ocean, some of the wildest sailing conditions on the planet.

On a lighter note, I was greatly tickled by an outstanding piece of Google-translate. An article which had clearly been translated into English using the app had managed to convert "Le Cam avail trois ris dans sa grande voile" (le cam had 3 reefs in his mainsail) into "Le Cam had three laughs in his mainsail".

Yes I last looked at a few minutes to 2 am, our time, and there was still no news. Le Cam, understandably, looked totally exhausted in the video this morning.

I must say that I don't want to be in the Southern Ocean on any boat but I would love to have a go on a foiler in calm waters. They look absolutely exhilarating.

Out of curiosity I ran "Le Cam avail trois tis dans sa grande voile" through DeepL. For me DeepL is much better than Google Translator and you can make corrections or select different words of phrases. It translated "tis" as fabrics. I suspect DeepL stores corrections that people make and eventually offers them as alternative choices in translation.

Sorry Peter. My fault. For some reason autocorrect changed my text from ris to tis and I didn't notice. I've put it right now in my post.

Ah DeepL did much better with that. Without making any changes it translated "Le Cam avail trois ris dans sa grande voile" to "The Cam has three reefs in her mainsail". That was easily corrected by clicking on the obviously wrong words to " Le Cam has three reefs in his mainsail "

I am a great fan of DeepL and I use it whenever I am asked to translate something into English. It quickly gives me a draft which I can correct and, if necessary, turn into colloquial English. After using it now for about 3 years I find it is improving to the point that correction is often not needed.

My friend who sometimes sails with Pip Hare said this to me about JLC this afternoon.

“He really is amazing; has sailed a superb race so far and now pulled off this. Multiple tacks in those boats in those conditions is desperately difficult, I have sailed enough on Medallia to wonder how he did it at all, he’s a phenomenon”.

It seems that the plan is for Jean le Cam to rendez-vous with the French Navy frigate Le Nivose to the North of the Kerguelen Islands on December 7th to transfer Kevin Escoffier into the hands of the French Navy.

The way the foiling boats seem to be breaking up, how many he will have on board by then is anybody’s guess....

It is good to see Pip still racing and perhaps more importantly enjoying it. I am amazed that with the foil boats more testing had not been done on design and build. We have wind tunnels, wave machines and the ability to ship boats quickly around the globe. Boats could easily be shipped to Australia for southern ocean testing with a suitable safety boat. I suspect more boats will retire but hopes no more rescues for terminal damage to boats.