Vendee issues - lessons for us all ??

CPD

CPD

Well-Known Member
Joined
20 Sep 2006
Messages
3,014
Location
Hampshire
Visit site
I for one have been quite surprised at the number of incidents being reported by skippers so far. I am thinking of bits of kit failing, electrics going wrong, generator exhausts blowing off, spanners shorting across battery terminals etc, not to mention trawler collisions. Now, accidents happen as we all know, and these yachts are far more complex than anything that was sailed in the JAC08 however, given the number of team members that exist, the amount of time they have to prepare, the sponsorship and everything that gores towards making it what it is, that these potential race stoppers are happening. Or is it just over-eagre reporting I wonder ?
 
Occam's razor comes to mind... these boats are now so complex and built for speed (rather than a Jester boat that folk try to make 'bullet proof')... every new level of complexity must exponentially increase the risk of something going wrong - compound risks and all that (with the upside of course that if it goes well, it goes really well... that's the trade off I guess). I probably havn't expressed my thoughts very well.. but you get my drift? 'Keep it simple' seems to be a winning formula for Jesterites.
 
Agree with Boomshanka. These racing machines are built to be as light and fast as they can be, are probably very wet and then you add a load of high tech kit with loads of electronics. Is it any wonder they have problems!

Maybe in 20 years or so when they have sorted the issues and the prices have come down, then the 'ordinary' (if such a person exists) can buy the kit. Until then (and if I am still about) I shall keep to KISS as I am the second S! /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
 
These are machines designed to push the boundaries of what's achievable. When you're sailing on the edge, sometimes you'll go over that edge.

It's like Formula 1 racing. These people are sailing / driving faster than I will ever sail / drive in state-of-the -art machines. But accidents are more frequent, and reliability is terrible. Wonderful to watch (if you like that sort of thing - personally, Formula 1 bores me rigid) and a potential testbed for new ideas / technologies that might one day be available to mortals, if we want them.

It's a different game. Vendee Globe is about as relevant to me, knocking about the Estuary, North Sea and possibly Atlantic, as Formula 1 is to getting to the sailing club in my old banger. Doesn't stop it being entertaining in its own right, though.

But there are lessons about preparation & approach. The Golden Globe race gave enough lessons there - the thoroughly tested slow boat winning through. And let's not even think of the corners you can paint yourself into by over-committment (think Crowhurst); which is why the organisers have received no entry from me, and won't unless and until I am a lot more ready than I am now.

ps - I'm the first S as well as the second!
 
Things are/were probably not helped by their sailing straight out of Le Sables into a full blown Biscay Storm. The advantage that Jester Yachts or indeed any un-sponsored sailer has, is that when he sees a forecast like that issued for last Sunday & Monday, he can decide to defer his departure until Tuesday - or even Wednesday, it'll let the seas subside too.
 
Ooo er!

JEAN-BAPTISTE_DEJEANTY_01.jpg


Doh!

BrokenBoat.jpg


Doh!

dismast.jpg


Who can afford this??
 
The thing that always gets me is the swinging keel. Without fail any given fleet of such boats is bound to have at least one develop problems with it, occasionally catastrophic.

There must be a better design. I can think of one, but I'm not boat builder, so perhaps it's not viable, but my thinking was a t section at the top of the keel, spreading near the beam of the boat. The rams could push down vertically, with leverage which would reduce the pressure required. Also, in the event of a hydraulic failure you could simply wedge a (pre fabricated) emergency solid bar between the deck and the internal keel "wing". Actually, you could go one better and do away with the rams and have motors turning screws. If the motors fail, you could do it manually. Either way, it's much safer than having a free swinging keel under the boat.

Still, as has been said, these things are the formula 1 of the boating worls and designed to be right on the edge of what is possible. That said, McLaren don't build their cars to cope with the southern ocean, so I'd like things considerably less towards the edge if I were onboard.
 
[ QUOTE ]
so I'd like things considerably less towards the edge if I were onboard

[/ QUOTE ]
Then you wouldn't win.

Why would someone who wanted to cruise around the world be interested in entering a race? The sport is about finding the balance between performance and durability, about knowing when to push and when to ease off, etc.

It's easy to be too conservative or even too reckless. It's getting the balance right that is hard. That's why they call the ones that manage it; 'winners'.
 
The point I was trying to make wasn't one surrounding the "leading edge design" or "sailing on the edge" nature of these boats. It was to do with the fact that basics on quite a few boats seem nopt to have been tested. Spanners falling across battery terminals, sparking and causing a fire, electrics failing etc etc etc smacks of ill-preparedness rather like RKJ had to suffer on his Velux trip. The keel issue will continue no dount, as that is the most critical bit of kit on the boat, and failures will continue until the balance has been reached.
What I was referring to was the basic preparation, not the limit pushing thing. Dont get me wrong, I have a go and blame no-one, it just seems that there are rather a lot of relatively silly things going wrong that could so easily have been avoided.
So there.
 
Thats a good distinction Alan.

I must confess that getting ready for JAC08 was a real challenge for me. Towards the end of my preparations I just had to accept that I was not going to get everything done.

I guess that it is unlikely that you would want to prepare a boat to that degree unless you had a specific event in mind. The event will give you a deadline, and in some respects you will fall short.

Someone once said to me that "If you waited until you were ready you would never get away."

As you are aware I had a forward window stove in. I knew that I should have boarded up the windows before I left but I ran out of time. There were other little jobs that never got done but had less serious consequenses.

I thought your boat was well prepared - anything you missed??

Paul
 
Good points re deadlines. I am sure there is another saying along the lines that a job will expand to fit the time available, and as I did everything by lists, which I thought to be complete, then there wasnt any time left to fit in stuff that wasnt on the list in the first place, if you see what I mean. I guess in an ideal word we would all be fully prepared with a month to spare, however thats not how life for most works. And I guess that brings us back to the point, that being that the Vendee skippers aren't like "most" of us, they have teams and technicians and all sorts of other clever people.

The biggest thing I got wrong was that I didnt put enough thought into water ingress. I had a manual pump (that I rebuilt on the way - a biro had somehow got stuck in the pump outlet), and a big electric until I fitted beneath the floor. Great for a very big hit, but not great at all to deal with the water ingress I had through the keels, despite having them re-bedded etc. There was just too much water sloshing around in the bilge and the only real way to get it out was manually. All to do with the veritable maze that is found in the centaur bilges. A few other minor niggles (VHF aerial was tightened wasnt it ??) but nothing too bad. But hey ho, I guess we all had our own issues to deal with, and dare I say it, or even think that it could be possible, that the Jester boats could, in fact, have been prepared better in some ways than the Vendee boats ???

Now there's a thought.
 
Re: The trawler collision you mentioned in your first post, no can blame the crew of the boat for not being prepared. From what i have read, they had navigation lights on, a strobe at the masthead, deck lights illuminating the boat and a AIS transponder giving their position.

From the sound of it the trawler is entirely at fault, because i believe Hugo boss was also restricted in ability to manouver.
 
A black hull and a black mainsail at night. /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif
Keeping watch with the deck lights on? /forums/images/graemlins/mad.gif
Ouch.
I wouldn't like to have to explain that to Mr Boss. /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif
 
mmmm I suspect Mr.Boss will have been most displeased. When another boat gets so close, it is the responsibility of BOTH vessels to avoid a collission.
 
"HUGO BOSS was stationary with only its mainsail up when the fishing vessel struck. The race boat was visible with its navigation lights, trim lights and a strobe light on. Its radar and AIS systems were also activated and working."

They were waiting to transfer a technical team on board.
I certainly would have spotted it.
 
Yes, but did Hugo Boss spot the fishing boat? Certainly doesn't look like it. Just because they were lit up like a Christmas tree does not mean they can avoid keeping a watch, and avoid their obligations as well. Appears both parties were at fault.
 
[ QUOTE ]
Yes, but did Hugo Boss spot the fishing boat? Certainly doesn't look like it. Just because they were lit up like a Christmas tree does not mean they can avoid keeping a watch, and avoid their obligations as well. Appears both parties were at fault.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yep, my view too. A great shame too as my water tells me this will be a good race for the UK. Mind you my water tells me many things.
 
[ QUOTE ]
lit up like a Christmas tree

[/ QUOTE ]

I've nearly hit a purse sein fishing boat in the channel at night. He was showing so many lights and the only coloured light I could make out was a green light, which I took for a stbd hand light. Silly me, it wasn't until he turned all his forward deck lights on that I realised I wasn't going to leave him to my port but he was heading straight for me that I was able to immediately duck around behind him. In some cases too many lights are not a good thing. I wonder if it was a surfeit of lights that caused the problems for Hugo Boss, confusing the fishing boat.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Top