At 3am today I awoke to take part in the annual Round The Island Race. I was crew on Spirit of Diana a sister boat to Spirit of Minerva who I crewed back from Horta to Portsmouth a couple of weeks earlier. We slipped our berth, or rather left our 3rd place of a 5 boat raft at about 3:45 and made our way to the start side of the course for a 5am start. With tide and wind both pushing us to the line we were cautious at the start not wanting to be course side of the line before the starting gun and face a penalty, but we were over cautious and ended up being one of the last of our class, category 0, to cross the line. However we had opted for a more southerly track than our competition and were keeping to the better water to exploit the tide. By the time we reached the first real landmark, The Needles, we’d hauled in many boats including all of the other Farr 65′s. We maintained that lead and continued to hauling in other boats eventually being the 14th boat in our class of 47 to cross the finish line. Our handicap adjusted place was 29th.

On 6th May this year a design concept finally made it from drawing board to reality as l’hydroptère was craned into Lorient in north west France.

The project was first conceived in 1975 but it wasn’t until 1987 that work first began on building a one third scale model; a project which lasted five years.  On 1st October 1994 l’hydroptère made its first flight.  1998 saw the addition of crossbeams and following 3D modeling during 2000 additional tweaks were made.  In February 2005 Blériot’s symbolic record was smashed by l’Hydroptère with an average speed of 33 knots in 34 minutes and 24 seconds prompting serious attention from the sailing community.  By August of that year the l’Hydroptère team were joined by Thierry and Adrien Lombard and Alain Thébault prompting the project to take a new turn in developing l’Hydroptère.ch and l’Hydroptère maxi. On 4th April 2007 the concept boat won two world speed records officially ratified by the World Sailing Speed Record Council:  

500 meter speed record in Category D at an average of 44.81 knots
1 nautical mile speed record, all categories, at an average of 41.69 knots

500 meter speed record in Category D at an average of 44.81 knots
1 nautical mile speed record, all categories, at an average of 41.69 knots

This record was beaten in October 2008 and again in September 2009

On 8th November 2009 l’Hydroptère ended the absolute speed record campaign with an exceptional achievement i.e. she exceeded the 50 knot wind barrier by over one nautical mile. l’Hydroptère established a new world record at 50.17 knots.

Foiling a trimaran

On 1st June the latest iteration of l’hydroptère crossed the channel bound for England and on 3rd June debuted sailing in british waters around Cowes.  She’s an awesome looking boat and has I’m sure further record breaking intentions in her sights.

But the story doesn’t end there.  Over recent days there have been sightings of a competitor to l’hydroptère:  A British competitor.  It’s not yet a full size 60ft Trimaran but a smaller version the designers are calling the coastal revision.  Their plans are set on building a full size 60ft Ocean version and in the true spirit of the British underdog, taking on and beating the French by sailing faster than l’hydroptère.

I hope they paint it British racing green and place a union flag on the bow; the British underdog, taking on the mighty French who, despite what we might like to believe are, collectively at least, the best sailors in the world. But Britain has a history of out engineering and out performing its competitors, particularly when the chips are down, when funding is less that our adversaries, and our backs are against the wall. I want to see the British bulldog take on the Levithian French and take the records from under their bow, and when we do I shall be there, waving my Union flag, singing Rule Brittania, drinking tea from Whittards and offering the french British cheese as a consolation prize.

The British boat doesn’t have a name yet, but until she does, I shall call her Churchill….

Tomorrow I travel to Horta on the Azores to tick the box on one of my ambitions and join the crew of a 65ft yacht and bring her back 1370nm to Portsmouth.  In order to be able to fly from Birmingham, and to get there as cheaply as possible I’ve gone for the scenic route, first flying to Zurich which is of course in the wrong direction, and then transferring to Lisbon where I will overnight before catching the forward flight to Horta on Sunday morning.  I’ve then booked a few nights of R&R ar the Pousadas Hotel overlooking the harbour on the Island of Faial which is where I join the crew on Wednesday 26th May.  We expect to depart Horta on Friday 28th with an ETA back in the UK on 6th June.

A little footage to get you/me in the mood

Footnote:  Mrs H and my family are not away, so the house is not unoccupied

Ahem

I’ve just got to get me one of these t-shirts.

Grotty Yachty have launched their website here

She took a lot of criticism when she set out to become the youngest person ever to sail solo around the world, not least because just weeks before setting off whilst on a 10 day sea trial she managed to sail her boat into the side of a merchant ship causing not insignificant damage to her mast and bow, but also because at 16 years of age many commentators thought her too young to attempt to sail solo around the world fearing that it may lead to tragedy.

The truth is, in sailing around the world alone tragedy can potentially visit anyone of any age.  The feat itself remains accomplished by only a handful of sailors nearly all of whom would probably say that the risk is part of the attraction; that, when out there alone survival is down to just one person.  Self reliance.

Despite all of the criticism, and the fact that the WSSRC (World Speed Sailing Racing Council) will not recognise her achievement as a circumnavigation, politically because they want to distance themselves from assessing youngest sailors record attempts, fearing that they will be associated at some stage with a tragedy, but also because Jessica’s route is a couple of thousand miles short of the official definition of a circumnavigation, a fact I struggle with a little* on the basis that she started and aims to finish at the same point on the globe having sailed around the world and crossed the equator twice, I commend and congratulate Jessica.

It is a fantastic achievement and notwithstanding the controversy and at the risk of repeating myself I’d like to congratulate Jessica on her achievement.

*For the record I agree with the WSSRC in respect that at 2000 miles short of the current holder of the record, Jessie Martin, this does not and can-not be deemed to take his record, but I also maintain this WAS a circumnavigation.

This is remarkable footage which shows the moment a Japanese Whaling boat the Shonan Maru appears to deliberately run down a protest boat in the Southern Ocean

The Peoples Boat Logo

I’ve been following the campaign of Alex Alley in his People’s Boat campaign to raise funds to compete in the 2011/12 Global Ocean Race.  The general idea is that rather than securing a single boat sponsor that the entry will be sponsored by lots of individual and SME sponsors.  At the end of the campaign the boat will be sold and a donation made to to charity out of the proceeds.  It’s a bold and brave concept and I for one wish Alex the best in raising the necessary funds to make this happen.

Putting my money where my mouth is I’ve already purchased pixel space on the boat.  Sponsorship starts from as little as £25 per pixel.  More detail on that here.  I’ve also purchased a branded peoplesboat Musto Jacket and Polo shirt as modeled below…

It’d be great if the sailing community could get behind this project and help.

I’ve just got back from a fabulous four days away sailing with HOEOCA (Heart of England Offshore Cruising Association).  When I first got interested in sailing I found the club through an internet search and after realising that they met each month at my local pub in the village, went down to meet them.  They invited membership which I decided at that time, for whatever reason not to persue.  However, through my twitter activity a couple of years later I met Richard Horswill AKA @racesail who, after about a month of tweeting I realised lived in the same village as me!  We arranged a tweetup (twitter friends meeting) at the Brickmakers Arms which quickly decended into a bit of a booze up.  After a couple of other meets in the Brickies Richard dropped the Kings shilling into the bottom of my glass and lightened my wallet with a deposit for the weekend we’ve just had.

The initial plan was for a crossing to Cherbourg, but the weather man clearly had different ideas so the revised plan was to head west to Poole.  As the weather forecast deteriorated we again revised that plan and decided that we’d be more sensible to stay in the Solent and so on the first day ended up in Lymington for lunch where we met up with another twitterer @PRPeta for a mid afternoon OJ.  Friday morning saw us take a pleasant sail back down to Cowes but the weather was pushing in from the south west and the wind building so we went to start the engine and motor into Cowes Yacht Haven.  Unfortunately the engine failed to start, which was traced back to the electronic black box shortly after, and so we sailed onto a bouy picking it up at first attempt to try and diagnose the problem. Despite having two engineers on board, because of the nature of the fault we were unable to resolve it and had to be towed back to the marina by Sea Start who were very good.

Saturday, because of the weather, turned into a shopping and pub day until the evening when we took a mini bus to Yarmouth for the HOEOCA November Rally Dinner.  I’ll not publish photo’s here to avoid embarrassment but it was a fancy dress theme of Angel & Demons and so the crew of our boat went dressed as transvestite angels….. not my idea you understand, but terrific fun.

During the weekend each of the crew contributed money to a kitty for provisions, meals out and the occasional drink and at the end of the weekend there was a small sum left over.  As HOEOCA has chosen as its charity to support this year is toe in the water, the balance of the kitty will be sent to them for the excellent work that they do with injured soldiers.Technorati Tags: HOEOCA, Sailing