Hey folks,
Now that many of us have snow on the ground and we are now armchair sailors for another 5 or so months, I thought I might mention some wild and crazy sailing news (although I'm sure many of you are aware of this already):
How about these VOR 70's? On the first leg to Cape Town-the first boat in had a 24 hour run of 546 NM!!!! Class? Anyone? Anyone? Class?
That is an AVERAGE of 22.75 knots- for 24 hours! And many of the boats were routinely posting 500-525-530 miles days-so averaging 20+ knots day in and day out is becomig "common".
This morning, the 4th place boat is sailing at 19.8 knots with JUST a JibTop reacher and Staysail-they wanted to "back off" for a while.
All of this is quite cool-but think about this: to make these kinds of averages, these boats are seeing peaks over 40 KNOTS down the waves!!!
Surfing into the high 30's is common..
Let me tell you on a 70 feet boat with Canting keel and twin rudders and daggerboards, this will get your attention.
I think I mentioned a while back that at least one of the REALLY big guys, like Mari-Cha V is so fast she cannot carry spinnakers-she makes so much apparent wind that even if the she starts out going DDW, by the time she is up to speed she is on a close-beam reach-always-hence, no kites..
Don't forget Orange II (125 foot Cat) days' run of over 706 NM-averaging 29.4
Wanna guess where she peaked out?
Most amazing to me are the performances of the guys just finishing leg one of the double handed Transat-England to Brasil. There is a 60 foot multi hull, and 60 foot monohull (Open 60's-these were used in the Volvo last time around fully crewed), and also 50 foot multi and mono divisions.
Needless to say, the Tri's were all getting 500 plus mile days, and I believe ,
one or 2 of the 60 mono's. If not, it was close. Doing this with only 2 people on board takes EXTREME Sailing to the next level!!
Some amazing photos here:
http://www.jacques-vabre.com
Back to work!
S
Now that many of us have snow on the ground and we are now armchair sailors for another 5 or so months, I thought I might mention some wild and crazy sailing news (although I'm sure many of you are aware of this already):
How about these VOR 70's? On the first leg to Cape Town-the first boat in had a 24 hour run of 546 NM!!!! Class? Anyone? Anyone? Class?
That is an AVERAGE of 22.75 knots- for 24 hours! And many of the boats were routinely posting 500-525-530 miles days-so averaging 20+ knots day in and day out is becomig "common".
This morning, the 4th place boat is sailing at 19.8 knots with JUST a JibTop reacher and Staysail-they wanted to "back off" for a while.
All of this is quite cool-but think about this: to make these kinds of averages, these boats are seeing peaks over 40 KNOTS down the waves!!!
Surfing into the high 30's is common..
Let me tell you on a 70 feet boat with Canting keel and twin rudders and daggerboards, this will get your attention.
I think I mentioned a while back that at least one of the REALLY big guys, like Mari-Cha V is so fast she cannot carry spinnakers-she makes so much apparent wind that even if the she starts out going DDW, by the time she is up to speed she is on a close-beam reach-always-hence, no kites..
Don't forget Orange II (125 foot Cat) days' run of over 706 NM-averaging 29.4
Wanna guess where she peaked out?
Most amazing to me are the performances of the guys just finishing leg one of the double handed Transat-England to Brasil. There is a 60 foot multi hull, and 60 foot monohull (Open 60's-these were used in the Volvo last time around fully crewed), and also 50 foot multi and mono divisions.
Needless to say, the Tri's were all getting 500 plus mile days, and I believe ,
one or 2 of the 60 mono's. If not, it was close. Doing this with only 2 people on board takes EXTREME Sailing to the next level!!
Some amazing photos here:
http://www.jacques-vabre.com
Back to work!
S