B&Q, just passing through…

by Ocean Challenges / Guy Nowell on 13 Mar 2006 Last week Ellen Macarthur’s 60’ trimaran, B&Q, arrived in Hong Kong. The 10,000-mile delivery from Southampton to Hong Kong, took the CMA CGM container ship the 'Bizet' 23 days to complete.

The B&Q shore team were waiting in anticipation for B&Q's arrival. 'It was a tense period as we craned B&Q from her position onboard deck to the water below,' commented B&Q Shore Manager Oli Allard, 'the team from CMA CGM shipping were fantastic and B&Q was soon safely back in the water'.

B&Q then took up temporary residence at the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club. ‘It’s a tough call taking B&Q visiting,’ said Tessa Pelly, Operations Manager of Ocean Challenges. ‘There are plenty of places that can accommodate a 60’ yacht, but not when the boat is nearly 60’ wide as well.’

B&Q left Hong Kong today (Monday) for Yokohama, Japan, where Ellen Macarthur will join ship and take off on the first leg of the Asian Record Circuit.

The declared objective of the ARC is to establish a series of 12 new crewed record times between principal ports in Japan, South Korea, the PRC, Taiwan, Malaysia, Vietnam and Singapore. This is a first-of-its-kind for a major sailing campaign to take to these waters with the aim of setting benchmark times that can be challenged in the future by other sailors.

Right now there seems to be a craze for setting records sweeping across mainland China – annual sales of the Guinness Book of Records rose to 30,000 copies last year since it was first published in Mandarin in the late 1990s. Some of the records being set in China may be slightly bizarre - the longest karaoke session, the world’s tallest building made of flowers or the most people brushing their teeth at one venue – but this passion for setting records is believed to be a sign of mainland China’s growing prosperity. Mainland Chinese people now lead more comfortable lives, have more leisure time and, as a result, more time to follow their own dreams.

Quite what China will make of Ellen and her record-breaking trimaran, in a country where sailing is hardly developed, remains to be seen. But one thing is certain, the fact that Ellen, the fastest sailor to circumnavigate the globe non-stop, is female may not surprise them. In sport, female Chinese athletes are leading the way. At the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, where 26 national teams had no female participants, 199 of mainland China’s 309 competitors were women. At Sydney 2000, 65% of the mainland Chinese team were female.

Asian Record Circuit: proposed dates and route
25 March - 1 April 2006
Yokohama, Japan to Jeju Island, South Korea
Target: 4 days, 18 hours

Record 2: Jeju Island, South Korea to Dalian, China
Target: 2 days 5 hours

Record 3: Total time Yokohama, Japan to Dalian, China
Target: 7 days, 1 hour

5-6 April 2006
Record 4: Dalian to Qingdao, China
Target: 1 day, 10 hours

9-11 April 2006
Record 5: Qingdao to Shanghai, China
Target: 1 day, 15 hours

16-18 April 2006
Record 6: Shanghai to T'ai-pei, Taiwan
Target: 3 days

21-23 April 2006
Record 7: T'ai-pei, Taiwan to Hong Kong SAR
Target: 2 days, 11 hours

From 1st May 2006
Record 8: Hong Kong SAR to Sanya (Hainan Island) China
Target: 1 day, 21 hours
Record 9: Sanya, China to Nah Trang, Vietnam
Target: 1 day, 21 hours
Record 10: Nah Trang, Vietnam to Terengganu, Malaysia
Target: 3 days
Record 11: Total time Hong Kong to Terengganu, Malaysia
Target: 6 days, 17 hours
Record 12: Terengganu, Malaysia to Singapore
Target: 1 day, 11 hours