Murray rejoins Cup fray...Nicholson on Vestas Wind disaster + recovery

by . on 19 Dec 2014 Welcome to Sail-World.com’s New Zealand e-magazine for December 19, 2014

Firstly an apology to those who may have received a discombobulated version of our previous edition dated December 16. To read that fine publication here is the link www.news.sail-world.com/newsletter/464168

The fallout from the Team Vestas Wind disaster continues to dominate world sailing news.

Today comes the news that a recovery team is assembling in Mauritius to travel back to Cargados Carajos Shoals. We have the story and images from Mauritius, which have just come in.

In this edition, we feature the three part series with skipper Chris Nicholson. We cover the whole sequence of events from the time they were handed the course change in Cape Town to their arrival ahead of the fleet in Abu Dhabi.

That two-week period covers an eternity of experience.

Nicholson's answers to some of the questions will surprise many.

On Thursday, the Volvo Ocean Race management announced they had assembled a three man panel headed by Rear Admiral Chris Oxenbould, who is also chairman of Yachting Australia's National Safety Committee.

In reading the interviews, and reports to come, the armchair navigators must realise that they have vastly superior facilities at their fingertips than do the navigators aboard the yachts competing in the Volvo Ocean Race.

On board the boats they do not have the luxury of high-speed internet connections to interrogate all manner of websites and information sources. All the navigators have is a standard weather data-feed provided to all boats by the organisers, plus some other limited data access and email.

The comparison that used to be made that there was more computing power in a smart-phone than was in the Moon-Lander. That is a reasonably accurate comparison of the facilities that fans enjoy at home compared with those aboard a Volvo Ocean Racer.

Factor in that one is belting through the ocean at 20kts, and the other is sitting in a steady chair, well rested, and with a high-speed internet connection at their finger tips.

What will come out of the report when it is announced in the Auckland stopover? Who knows? Certainly we are expecting Nicholson and Verbraak to be criticised for their navigational preparation - but they have admitted as such already. But that must be tempered with the knowledge that one other boat had a very near miss with the same reef. The other boats who had already entered the Cargados Carajos Shoals, did so in daylight and were able to see the hazards.

Those astern had the benefit of hindsight and weren't about to emulate Team Vestas Wind.

The crew of Team Vestas Wind have been uniquely upfront, transparent and honest with what happened - and recorded a lot of it on video. The challenge is now for others to do the same. The race organisers who changed the course change the night before the Leg 2 start, after the navigators had done their preparation. And the charting hardware and software suppliers as to why it is necessary to drill down to three levels on an electronic chart to see above water terrain and other issues with chart data.

One of the points that will be looked at in this inquiry/report will be the interface between electronic charting and manual navigation systems. If there are lessons to be learned by the wider sailing community from this incident, it will probably be in the degree of accuracy of electronic charts and reliability.

The ISAF Sailing World Cup Melbourne is over for another year, and was marked once again by Australian Sailing Team members dominating the leaderboard, winning five of the ten classes and both the Paralympic classes.

With very small numbers of international competitors has the regatta become the Australian sailing variant of kissing your sister?

In this edition, John Curnow, looks at the issues facing the event - which must be sheeted back to the International Sailing Federation and how serious they are about creating a true Sailing World Cup.

The reason for the Australian dominance is simple - they're the only ones turning up. Organisers will be quick to point to the number of countries attending. They would also note that while five events were won by Australians, equally five were not.

But the simple fact is that the top European sailors are not good travellers. Only one real name sailor came out from England - Ed Wright in the Finn.

The top Kiwis did not make the short journey to Australia, although ISAF Vice President Adrienne Greenwood (NZL) did and another simple point is that if just the Australian World Champions competed with the New Zealand World Champions - the pedigree of the fleet would rise measurably.

Would it ever get to the level where it was too good a regatta for the Europeans to leave their winter for a sailing summer Down Under? Probably not - as that would require changing an attitude that is now generational.

What does need to happen is for the ISAF to put some teeth into its World Cup, if that is what it wants to develop and virtually compel the top sailors to hit the road and compete outside Europe.

Sure there are changes due to come into place to address the issues that have been covered above. But any student of the ISAF, and World Cup in particular, will be well aware that the weasel clauses always exist in any ISAF prognostication, and they provide a convenient channel for the Europeans to do what they have done for years.

Time will tell on this one.

The day of reckoning is fast approaching for the Rolex Sydney Hobart Race, with the massing of the maxis in Sydney.

For some weeks we have been following the training sessions, developments and racing amongst what is by any measure a very high quality field.

The event also has the vital ingredient of any great sporting contest - the existing champion - albeit a veteran but still very much the boat to beat. Wild Oats XI is the top rater in the fleet and on that basis alone should be the fastest.

She will come up against a mixed field of Perpetual Loyal - capable of besting the champion, provided she gets an even break.

The dark horse is Comanche, the new US supermaxi having her first real test. Widely expected to tear up the field, her initial performances against Wild Oats XI have indicated that may not be the case, and a real arm-wrestle is expected to ensue.

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Then there are the refitted supermaxis of Ragamuffin and Rio100. The latter being manually powered only and without a canting keel should not be able to hack it with the top canting keel maxis.

But as some have noted the canters are all in the same corner of the rating rule, and make the same trade-offs in speed versus sailing angle. If there is a lighter Hobart, with plenty of downwind running then Rio100 will come into play.

Ragamuffin is a real wild card. Describing her as a refitted maxi is selling her short - she is virtually a new boat - and given half a break and a spoonful of luck, could well show the way to Hobart.

But the talking will stop soon in the afternoon of Boxing Day when we see who is first out of the Heads and how they settle into their work down the New South Wales coast.

The 2014 Rolex Sydney Hobart is going to be an outstanding event, make no mistake about that.

For once the question of whether the race record will be broken may be set aside, and the focus will go on who is actually going to win the race.

On the former point, early indications are that the record is not under threat. Our first run of PredictWind's routing function over the course showed a time of 2 days and 8 hours for Wild Oats XI, with fresh SE breezes on the final stretch putting paid to any new record. But as we all know the forecast and prediction will surely change between now and Boxing Day.

Follow all the racing and developments in the Rolex Sydney Hobart and other major and local events on www.sail-world.com/nz

Good sailing!

Richard Gladwell
NZ Editor

sailworldnzl@gmail.com

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