Lounge Music

by John Curnow on 15 Jan 2017 What a groovy time that all was. Very sophisticated, and was the world so much simpler back then or what? It even managed it’s own parody with Jerry Lewis and the über-cool Purple Pit in the original Nutty Professor. I’ll just have an Alaskan Polar Bear Heater right now, thank you… Some will get their noses all twisted up about now saying it is all elevator music, but it was so, so, so well orchestrated, arranged and sung. Two words for any soothsayer out there – Bobby Darin!

Alas, our story is not going to be about the man that was brilliantly portrayed by the supremely gifted Kevin Spacey, who actually sung his role in the movie BTW! We’re going to go with another superstar of the time, who even had his own TV show in the day and passed away only four years ago. He was Andy Williams, and one of his great tunes was, Up, Up and Away. C’mon – you know need a fix, which you can get now, and it will only take two minutes of your life!



So yes, any sailor would love to come and ride on the new breed of beautiful balloons. Many are out there trying to, or completely succeeding in either achieving fully, or semi-foiling. Many have one thing in common. They came from the pen of Marc Van Peteghem, and Vincent Lauriot Prevost, with Guillaume Verdier, too. The former pair built an enviable and unassailable name in multihulls first, and together with the latter, now effectively own the IMOCA 60 class. (Yep, they also penned the mighty Comanche too.)

So here we are at the point. When a former Vendée Globe winner, Michel Desjoyeaux, says he’d put his money on Alex Thomson and Hugo Boss, you kinda gotta have a very good look at the deal. After all, it’s something like over 55 days since Thomson hit a UFO and demolished the Starboard J Foil, which meant port tack was never going to be glamorous ever again. And yet, here he is within striking distance (hovering around 100nm astern) of pre-race favourite, Armel Le Cléac’h. Note too that the top four are all foilers, even if 1200nm lies between first and fourth.

So if you can only go hard on the one board, what is it that has you so very, very close and a lot of people looking around to see where the differences are? Well your foils are different to the others. They have been coined ‘Dali’s moustache’, but seeing as there is only one now, and you went across the Indian Ocean mostly on the Port board, this cannot be the sum total.

Is it elsewhere in the MkIII design that we must look, especially as even Le Cléac’h is effectively in a MkII boat? Well it could well be, and we might have even seen a bit of the thinking for real on the under-prepared CQS at the Hobart. One of the really telling tales is the chamfer, which drags the breeze up an over the foresails. The other is in the fact that Boss is way skinnier than the earlier boats with less inherent form stability, and CQS, nee Nicorette, was so slim she had to have wings sown on to get the right sheeting angles, and also get the crew mass out.

It is the amount of ‘air’ that the boat can get, and in low breeze that is key. Ingvall certainly said they did have it at one point. Yet CQS was not in the same displacement class as the 7500kg Boss, and thus far they are not all up like an AC72 or MOD70. And so we get to the point. Is this where we are going with monos? Cannot wait to see who wins and then what is next. We already reported on Beneteau’s production foiler before Christmas, so it really is up, up and away! YeeHaaaaaaaaaaa…

OK. Moving on, and we just have to mention IDEC Sport. Now the best part of 2200nm ahead (at time of writing). Truly and completely amazing…

Also, after all her efforts, Lisa Blair was meant to take off on Sunday. She was wise enough not to go, simply because some artificial clock said so. Prudence demands she gets the boat sorted, which she will. Talking with her over the weekend, she commented, “It has been a huge process, but I do feel good and cannot wait to go. Certainly all the effort has been exhausting, and with good conditions initially I am sure I will be able to absorb the enormity of what I’m up to!

“Honestly, I have not had too much of a chance to think about it, as it turns out. Only the other day I was getting a haircut (Blair never sails with long hair) and I was on the phone, and making notes on a pad – all at the same time! Dad was impressed.”

Speaking of her parents, Blair said, “Mum and Dad are thrilled and super-proud. As for me, I am settled, if somewhat frantic. The record does not really bother me at this point. It is simply awesome just to have got here. I do aim for a finish, which is a record in and of itself, and will have a crack at the men’s title if it all goes to plan.” Blair does have her eyes on the Vendée, but she is always reminding me that, “We’ll build to that!”

In the meantime Blair is about inspiring young people, and getting the climate action message out there. In terms of final words, Blair just wanted to say, “Thank you to everybody. I have had the most incredible support in Sydney, Eden, Portland and here in Albany, where I have the whole hall to do all my work in. I have something like 10 volunteers working on the boat, and they probably know it better than me, so I might have to get all their phone numbers.”

“It is totally amazing. One of the volunteers could not even make the farewell dinner as he was working feverishly on the boat. I am blessed. Seeing everyone make my dream happen is very humbling!”

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