ECOVER 3 arrives in City of Sails

by Mike Golding media on 31 Jul 2007 Mike Golding's new Owen Clarke designed Open 60 yacht ECOVER 3 completed her first gruelling trip slightly ahead of schedule early this morning.

The 681 kms passage by road from Wellington to Auckland would usually take about nine hours by car at a safe driving speed, but on Sunday evening (local time) the exceptional cargo left Wellington's Hakes Marine - where the boat was freshly completed - and it arrived at the City of Sails' famous Viaduct Basin in the early hours of this (Tuesday) morning.

With three support vehicles clearing a safe passage in front of the boat as it made its way up the road, progress was slow, but the brand new Open 60 - which took the best part of six months to build - arrived safely at the former base of America's Cup winners Alinghi this morning Here ECOVER 3 will be united for the first time with her mast - which was built by Auckland's Southern Spars - before going in the water for the first time ever possibly later today, or possibly first thing tomorrow morning.

Delays to the demanding build schedule, caused mainly by some late detail changes, mean that the boat now has a very tight itinerary this week before shipping to Europe on Sunday.

A target time window of three weeks during which preliminary sea-trials should have taken place has been cut short, and so the ECOVER team now need to complete rigging the boat and a crucial 180 degree self-righting inversion test before ECOVER 3 goes on the ship Sunday.

The first competitive race for the new boat will be the Transat Jacques Vabre transatlantic race from Le Havre, France to Brasil in early November, but prior to that Golding must complete a 1000 miles qualifying race.

The ultimate goal, for which the new boat was built, is the 24,000 miles solo round the world race, the Vendee Globe, which starts November 2008. In the last Vendee Globe race, in 2003-4, Golding finished third in ECOVER 2. The new boat is the first Open 60 build for Hakes Marine, who were chosen by Golding and lead designer Merf Owen of the Owen Clarke partnership, for their experience building the MedCup winning Transpac 52 yacht Mean Machine, the maxi Konica Minolta, and work on several America's Cup yachts as well as owner Paul Hakes long years of race boat building.

'It is great to see the boat here. I am hoping that working at the Alinghi base will be a good omen. But after all the work and stresses over the last month it is great to see the boat in the flesh, it looks fantastic here, and you start to appreciate what we have. It looks like we have a great boat.' Golding said today before getting back down to work.

'In the greater scheme of things a month is nothing to worry about. My eyes are very much on the big prize and I'll just do the best that I can with the Transat Jacques Vabre. It will be very intensive next year.'

Paul Hakes of Hakes Marine explains: 'The level of detail we had to take to the finishing of the boat, and that is not only the cosmetic level - which is in itself is quite extraordinary for a race yacht - but also in terms of making sure everything is going to be 100% robust and making sure it is 100% reliable. Which means no misalignment of any blocks, every hole has to be perfect so that we know it is not going to leak and we know that it is going to last forever. This a little bit different from your average race boat where the crew push you to keep things light, knowing they are going to replace things after a year.

'The other thing that has been quite different for me is that Mike has accumulated from his previous boats and his experience, a wish list. And that wish list is very long and they are all on this boat. All those years of experience have culminated in this boat.'

The boat should undergo the statutory 180 degree inversion test Wednesday.
The boat must be turned over by a crane with the crew inside. Then without any outside assistance they must right the boat using only the swinging keel system.

'It a very scary test' warns Golding, 'If things go wrong - it would not be just a little wrong!'

On Wednesday afternoon the mast and rigging will be stepped for the first time.

On Thursday if the weather is perfect, the ECOVER team may attempt the second test stipulated by the race and class rules, a 90 degree test in which they measure the pull up load on the mast with the boat pulled over at 90 degrees.

On Friday the boat must be lifted out again, disassembled and packaged for shipping. On Saturday the container and boat and mast will be finally packed for movement to the dock in three loads first thing on Sunday, loading onto the ship will take place Sunday.