Engines out for Bullimore RTW attempt

by Peter Sharpe on 5 Nov 2006 British ocean racer Tony Bullimore and his delivery crew are currently aboard the 102ft catamaran Doha 2006 is on the way to Hobart from Qatar, via the Maldives and is expected on November 13.

Bullimore is hoping to break Dame Ellen MacArthur's solo non-stop around-the-world record of 71 days 14 hours 18 minutes 33 seconds, set last year in the trimaran B&Q.

Once Bullimore's cat arrives in Hobart, final preparations to lighten the boat can begin. The round-the-world catamaran will be too big for Hobart's three major yacht clubs, so it will be moored at King's Pier to prepare for its record attempt and there is still serious work to be done.

`We have taken a lot of extraneous weight out of the boat in Qatar, and when we remove her engines in Hobart prior to starting the record attempt, she will be three tons lighter than before,' Bullimore said.

While the catamaran will have no means of propulsion other than her sails, she will be retaining her generators which will provide electrical power to operate radio, computing and tracking equipment as well as desalinators.

Doha 2006,’s round the world attempt, has been timed to promote the 15th Asian Games in Doha

The course will take Bullimore straight down into the Southern Ocean where the westerly winds in the Roaring Forty latitudes will slingshot him across the first 5,000 mile stage to Cape Horn.

He will then follow the South American coast northwards and across the Equator from where he must pick his way through the calms of the Doldrums and those associated with the Azores high pressure system to round the island of Flores before returning southwards to the Cape of Good Hope.

He will be guided throughout by American weather router Lee Bruce, who will be advising him about impending weather systems on a daily, if not hourly basis. Once in the Indian Ocean, the British yachtsman will rely on Bruce to help him to avoid the worst of the Roaring Forty winds that will speed Doha 2006 towards Cape Leeuwin marking the Western tip of Australia, and passed the point where Bullimore famously spent five dark days capsized during the 1997/8 Vendee Globe Race.

Once across the Australian Bight, he must navigate his way through Bass Strait and back to Hobart - all in 70 days!

The course has been sanctioned by the World Sailing Speed Record Council www.sailspeedrecords.com/ which will time Bullimore's start and finish from Tasmania and monitor his progress around the world. The distance is exactly the same as if he started from Ushant on the north west tip of France where Dame Ellen Macarthur, the current record holder began her 71 day voyage last year.