Transat Jacques Vabre - Golding objective about his chances

by Victoria Low on 7 Nov 2009
Tranat Jacques Vabre - Mike Golding explains what's to love, and what's not on this ninth edition.

A new course with a boat that has great potential and that Mike Golding still feels he has yet to fully realise. But there are many variables which will come into play even during the first days of this ninth edition of the Transat Jacques Vabre.

Golding is objective about his prospects in the 14 boat IMOCA Open 60 fleet. Looking forward to the next Vendée Globe, he is very keen to prove that this boat has a good result in her. Along with Bruno Dubois, he led into the Doldrums despite the last edition being the first serious race with what was then, a brand new boat.

His relationship with the boat is on an even keel, but there is still plenty of room for improvement: 'It is still not a great love affair but I live in hope.' He grins, 'It would take a win, nothing else.well maybe a good performance, for me to truly love the boat, a good solid performance is what the boat needs to do.'

'And I think it has it in it, for sure. I do think the boat has great potential. It is fundam entally a quick boat and we saw that in the Vendée, which was less than a year ago. A lot seems to have happened since then, but materially the boat should be even better than it was then.'

Up against this high quality fleet, he finds it hard to fully evaluate the potential he and his co-skipper really have, not that it particularly bothers him. He firmly believes that his Owen Clarke design is a solid allrounder, devoid of obvious weaknesses, and with no outstanding single strength: ' We have not sailed as much as some of the boats here. A lot was tactical in the Vendée and so it's hard to judge exactly against other boats and the boat is a polyvalent. It is not extremely quick in one thing or another. It is kind of good at everything and not bad at any one thing, that is quite a good way to be. When everyone is looking at the weather and it is windy, that is good for us, but then if it is light, then we are OK. So we have the same level of confiden ce in the boat across the wind range and directions. There is nothing which really spooks me. If we have a strength it is light airs downwind, which has go to be good for this race.'

'I think we saw that Bruno and I got the boat into the groove in the last Jacques Vabre two years ago, and when we got into the groove, downwind in light airs, we went well. We were alongside Groupe Bel and just smoked them, and Bel is Safran and everyone says Safran is fast. So I figure that if we can do that against Bel and Safran then we can me be good. Foncia were there as well and we did well against them.

But the point just now for me is that some of them have been working very hard and so we will see. That does not mean that we have not done any development, because we have. We have got a new reaching configuration and have concentrated hard on that. We have a new reacher which replaces the one that broke the mast, that is now fractionally set. The idea is that if you have the type of conditions when you really want to press on it, then you can. And we have a new reaching strut which we saw at work on our qualifier, and it worked really well. It is like a jockey pole pushing the sail down and outboard. We took it to its limit on the qualification, doing 20 knots in 20 knots of breeze. It was pretty cool.'

He is quietly pleased about the new course for this edition, and explains that it could play to the perceived strengths of his IMOCA Open 60: 'The big change on the course, Le Havre to Costa Ric a, is taking out the Doldrums element of. That was our downfall on the last edition. This time there is the transit through the islands and the Caribbean Sea. We did it before on the first race I did, when it went to Cartagena. So we have been through there before, predominantly downwind and so we could do alright. The start and the first bit does tend to be a bit of a weakness for us, and so we have to come out of the blocks quickly, pushing a bit more. But then again Javier and I have not sailed together that much and so, as well, we need to find our feet and get the balance right. On the one hand I feel I want to come out the blocks sprinting, on the other hand let's not shoot the pooch, and break something early on.'

Of the weather outlook, such as it is at more than 48 hours before the start he says: 'The weather is really changeable day by day. At the beginning, a few days ago, we were thinking about routing down the Portuguese coast, latterly we are thinking about a more northerly track, getting over the High. So potentially, then, maybe a reachy start, pushing off to the west, staying as close to the rhumb line, then pushing south. The question is when to drop south, and after that you enter into the classical trade wind configuration. The routing may say north but it could still be quite divisive, and we could see a split into the north and the south.

'But, really, as well when you look at the boats and the sailors, then you think, well maybe not, maybe we will all go for the same option. But I do think that we need to make that commitment, whatever it is, quite early on. Because, from Ushant it is a straight line, there are no more corners. From Ushant onwards you are on the line. That changes things slightly. And if it is a heavy airs, upwind race then perhaps Artemis could well initially, as could Hugo Boss, we are not too worried about Foncia or Groupe Bel. It is just those heavier, more powerful boats, I'm not nervous about that and their gains, such as they might be, I think we can make back downwind. And hopefully there will be a prevalence of downwind over the whole length of the course.'

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