It’s difficult for the average sailor to imagine sailing alone on a 60-foot boat, surfing down huge seas created by the sustained fury of the icy Southern Ocean. Boat speeds of 20 knots and more are frequent, and icebergs are a concern. Designing a boat that will be up to the punishing conditions and still be one built for speed is a tricky undertaking. Getting the numbers right is one matter, being lucky is another. There is no shortage of risks inherent in this kind of sailing, as noted in a terse e-mail back to shore in the 2002-2003 Around Alone by solo sailor Bruce Schwab:
“I'm sad to say that we were laid out by a big breaking wave while I was napping. It knocked stuff everywhere and woke me up, but I was groggy and realized too late that my autopilot had lost its marbles and was headed for a crash jibe in 40 knots of wind. I scrambled for the tiller when I became aware of what was happening, but only made it to the vestibule when the 35-foot boom came over and crashed into the runner. A lot of stuff broke all at once. The boom broke right where it hit the runner, the runner deck block exploded and then the runner jammer ripped out of the deck leaving a good sized hole. Just what I needed!
"It has taken me several hours to clean up the mess as best as I can for now, and I am sailing under headsail alone. A fair amount of water came in through the hole in the deck. If I can get some supplies sent to the Falklands, I will stop there and see if I can fix the boat. I'm okay other than being dispirited and tired. And broke.”
Flash forward to 2004 where around the globe some of the best, and some would say zaniest, sailors of the planet are preparing for the most grueling race of all, the Vendee Globe. Unlike Around Alone, there is no stopping until the finish line in this contest pitting man and machine against the elements that starts November 7 in France. There, a fleet of 27 Open 60s—the formula one of the sailing world—will set off on a course that will take some three months for the boats at the head of the pack to finish, and much longer for those lagging or limping behind. The 27,000-mile battle drops down to round the Cape of Good Hope, crosses the most forlorn regions of the Southern Ocean, rounds Cape Horn, and heads back north to the finish line in France.
 |
| "Aboard each boat will be a lone, sleep deprived sailor pushing his boat as much as he can without breaking his sailing machine. " |
|
Aboard each will be a lone, likely sleep deprived sailor pushing his boat as much as he can without breaking his high-tolerance sailing machine. There’s no outside assistance, either for repairs or weather routing. The aim is simply to round the world as fast as possible while keeping the boat in one piece. The course is an exacting one that includes both the blistering heat and listless regions of the Doldrums and the ice strewn towering seas of the Southern Ocean. No American entry has ever officially finished, and a portion of the entries in the next go round will undoubtedly be forced to drop out due to gear failure, as toppling masts, torn sails, and broken rudders or worse are fixed features in the race.
While past editions of the race have long been European dominated, for the first time since American Mike Plant raced in the 1989-1990 Vendee, offshore sailing fans in this country have someone to pull for. In a shed at Portland Yacht Services in Portland, ME, Bruce Schwab is at it again, racing already, against time and money constraints, borne by a hand full of sponsors, and a volunteer crew that has been preparing his Open 60 renamed USA/05.
In the seven months it took Schwab to race Around Alone, he learned a lot about the boat. Ocean Planet was designed with some very outside-the-box thinking and showed promising bursts of speed throughout. Most importantly though, in this kind of race, it proved itself safe and capable, despite two broken booms, exploded sails, and a litany of other 'teething pains;' the boat was the first one to complete racing around the world with a free standing carbon fiber mast.
“Taking a boat like Ocean Planet and getting her up to her full potential takes time and money. Ideally, we would have tested the boat more before Around Alone, but we simply were running short on both," said Schwab caught momentarily in between boat projects. “In the Around Alone we basically repaired our way around the world,” says Schwab, “which is of course not an option in the nonstop Vendee Globe.” At the finish of each leg, he pulled into port perpetually broke, exhausted, and under the gun to get Ocean Planet repaired in time for the next start. Somehow he managed to keep his campaign funded through his Internet-connected fan base and through new found fans ashore, and made it to the next port, finishing fifth—while other well heeled competitors succumbed to the war of attrition that typically marks these contests.
| 
|
|
In Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and many other parts of the world ocean racing is huge, akin to the NBA or NFL here in the States, and as such sponsors are many and varied. Here, the America’s Cup is about as mainstream as sailing gets, although Schwab is hoping to change those perceptions with his entry. In his second entry in Around Alone, Brad Van Liew, who finished first in the Open 50 class did so with the backing of Tommy Hilfiger. Van Liew also had the backing of Balance Bar for the 1998-1999 edition of that race. So it’s not like sponsorship for offshore single-handed sailing can’t be done in this country.
Until a major sponsor steps forward it will be up to sailors like you and me who will be following the action on the Internet that make up the bulk of the funding to date.
There have been a host of supporting marine sponsors: MAS Epoxies, Coastline Composites, and Doyle Sails are just some who have lined up to donate gear and supplies, and several were on board for the last race. “With a mad combination of donations, loans, matching grants, and relentless credit card use, we got the boat to the Atlantic and I gingerly completed my qualification sail to the Azores. Even though we were barely tested and broke some equipment, we started and finished the 28,000-mile Around Alone race,” wrote Schwab in one of his periodic e-mail updates to his supporters, recapping the adventure so far to provide a reference for the future. “Along the way, I discovered that there was a seemingly never-ending supply of even more crazy people to help get me out of Newport, (RI), Brixham (UK), Cape Town (South Africa), Tauranga (New Zealand), Port Stanley (Falkland Islands), and Salvador (Brazil). Now that we're back in the US and I have confirmed my devotion to this crazy scheme, some people continue to defy their common sense and keep coming to my aid to help prevent the dream from dying
—which it's been close to doing so, trust me.”
There are a number of things about the USA/05 campaign that exemplifies cutting-edge American ingenuity in action. The biggest departure from traditional boat design is that the mast is freestanding—there are no cables or wires attached to keep it in place. The entire carbon fiber mast rotates on a bearing taken from a 747 tail assembly. Ocean Planet is the first racing sailboat, single handed or crewed, to complete an around the world race with this configuration. Most thought the mast wouldn’t survive the punishing conditions, but the design proved itself and stands ready to go again.
|
| "Simpler is better. Mike Plant’s effort to compete in the Vendee came to an end when a $5 rigging part failed." |
|
“There are so many advantages to the design,” said Schwab, “especially for single handed sailors, but the benefits are there for a cruising rig as well.” The mast flexes in high gusts, spilling the wind and keeping the boat level, producing a ride with less heel and more speed.
Then there is jibing the boat, which is done by loosening the running back and basically letting the boom come flying over
—there are no shrouds for it to go crashing into, and in a race where boats have lost their rig in uncontrolled jibs, this is a big plus for the fatigued sailor sailing alone. There are no end fittings, clevis pins, or other standing rigging to worry about failing, and hopefully few reasons to ever have to go up the mast as Ellen MacArthur did in huge swells aboard her Open 60
Kingfisher in the last Vendee. Simpler is better. Mike Plant’s effort to compete in the Vendee came to an end when a $5 rigging part failed. He was forced to anchor to make repairs, but then his boat started to drag ashore, and he had to take a tow, disqualifying him from the race. Finally, when flying the chute, Schwab can lower his sails forward, bringing the headstay to the deck, reducing both windage and weight aloft. This means that jibing the kite is much easier all of which makes the boat more maneuverable. Other Open 60s can take up to half an hour to jibe due to chores like moving the canting keel, adjusting dagger boards, lifting one of the twin rudders out of the water, trimming water ballast and wrestling with large sail plans.
| 
|
|
The narrow, easily driven cold-molded hull is optimized for long periods of down-wind surfing. “The highest I saw the speedo hit was 28.8 knots surfing down some big Southern Ocean swells,’ says Schwab. “The best eight-hour average was 16.8 knots.” The Californian rigger turned solo sailor is currently looking to make
USA/05 even lighter, trying to shave 500 pounds off before the start of the Vendee.
The weight that is coming off is coming from unlikely areas. For instance the jib leads on the boat are being converted to floating jib lead with barbarhaulers. The jib lead tracks, cars, bolts, and the backing blocks beneath the deck are coming out, lightening the boat. The same line of thinking has been applied to the engine instrument panel. Formerly mounted in the cockpit, the panel will now be mounted below, closer to the engine. Some 37 feet of wire came out and was replaced by six and a non-essential step was removed in the process. Up in the bow, a bulkhead is being replaced with a carbon fiber one, with an eye on keeping the bow lighter in the hopes of driving it over waves rather than through them as large sheets of crashing sea water on the deck has the tendency to slow the boat down. They’ve also added a true-false bow, designed to break away in case of a collision with an iceberg or another navigational hazard. The boom is getting a redesign as well, and will emerge as a shorter one, which means less weight higher up on the boat, as well as make it less likely to drag in the water when the going gets rough. The electronics have also gotten an overhaul, some 37 pounds of computer equipment has come out in the aim of producing a leaner, meaner, sailing machine.
“The worst part was that we even had to weigh the dust from our cutting/sanding/grinding efforts (46.2 lbs!),“ noted Andy Evans who spent a week working on the boat as a volunteer. “I am amazed that a knee made of solid wood and fiberglass can be replaced with six ounces of carbon and foam.” Having already raced around the world once has its advantages. Schwab has been conferring with designer Tom Wylie throughout on how much to take off and where to take it from. “Sometimes, it’s a judgment call that comes down to Tom asking me, ‘Well, did you ever see it flex there?’”
| 
|
|
Keeping up with electrical consumption on this extreme sailing machine is another area where the interests of energy hungry cruising sailors and long distance speed junkies overlap. There are two 360-amp hour 12-volt batteries hooked up as one 24 volt bank, configured to allow both 12 and 24 volt usage. The 240-amp alternator at 24 volts is big enough to put a significant load on the engine, a 27-horsepower Yanmar. A big alternator puts a load on the engine which will be running in neutral for the duration of the race, bringing it up to a temperature that makes it burn diesel more efficiently. “A lot of French boats use a Nanni diesel engine
, which is 60 pounds lighter, but then you’re talking about spending $10,000 to $20,000 to save 60 pounds.”
Like many cruisers, a day of agonizing decisions lays in the future over what to bring and what to leave on the dock. “It all comes down to what level of security you want, whether you’re going to sail with a dock load of stuff on board, or whether certain redundancies in your onboard systems are going to be enough. Do we bring an extra big alternator, or leave the little one on the engine; how many spare water ballast valves do we bring? We’ll be taking a hard look at these questions in the near future.”
The project list is a daunting one, time is running out, funding is always an issue, but Schwab has proved a tenacious competitor both on and off the course with an uncanny ability to persevere whatever fate throws his way and remains hopeful and determined to make it to the starting line in November. Between now and then there are EPIRBs to buy, as well as flares, a liferaft, and little decisions like what kind of freeze dried food you want to eat for the next three months
—cooked on a gimbaled single burner stove
—to say nothing of the $65,000 radio and communications system required by the Vendee or the nearly $12,000 entry fee to pony up and all sorts of other gear to purchase. Still, Schwab has is eye on getting out on the water. “We’re hoping to get out on the water this spring and try to break some things,” he said. Better now, than out there.” In the meantime the icy temperatures of winter in Maine have brought some unintentional climate training that may make the Southern Ocean feel balmy by comparison. “I’ve learned that there’s a huge difference between merely freezing and sub-zero. Portland Yacht Services is paying for the heat in the shed. That’s a huge deal around here.” For more information and becoming a part of the magic, check out www.bruceschwab.com.
Connect with Facebook
