[PCP]

I love the "Route du Rhum" a big Transat that takes place each 4 years. Just look at the start:
Interesting Sailboats: AND HERE THEY GO AT FULL SPEED POINTING TO STORMY SEAS: BEAUTIFUL IMAGES
and at the boats(videos):
Interesting Sailboats: ROUTE DU RHUM THE WORLD'S BIGGEST SAIL RACE?

A solo race with monohulls and Multihulls. Multihulls are faster but have disadvantages with bad weather and when sailing upwind. They had a big advantage on the first hours but now they are sailing upwind and some monos overtake some multis. Bad weather on the way. Not so fun for them but very interesting for us LOL
Route du Rhum â€" Destination Guadeloupe
Somebody want to follow it? Good fun with a good weather prevision tool on the tracker above.

 

[PCP]

Come on guys...lots had seen this post, some even liked it and nobody is interested to post?

The first day of the race was just incredible: Huge seas at night, damaged boats: Broken multihulls, monohulls tha lost the keel and an incredible old timer (55 year's old) leading the race skipping alone one of those big trimarans, but not among the bigger neither the faster: pure skill in bad weather even if I don't understand how he manage to have the stamina to tame that moster that is a terribly physical boat, alone, without sleeping: The man is a giant and if he wins this race the French will go crazy

I think I have made a good post about it here:
Interesting Sailboats: RR: NASTY NIGHT WITH BIG SEAS ....AND AN OLD MAN LEADS!!!!

 

[jerryrlitton]

I have to say that I enjoyed greatly the video of the solo sailing of that Tri by the 55 year old man. I am 56 and know very well the power of experience and determination. Hey, what was that bicycle thing he was on toward the end of the video?
Jerry

 

[PCP]

I have to say that I enjoyed greatly the video of the solo sailing of that Tri by the 55 year old man. I am 56 and know very well the power of experience and determination. Hey, what was that bicycle thing he was on toward the end of the video?
Jerry

They go as light as they can, batteries are heavy and a hydogenerator takes some speed to the boat, wind generators are heavy too and need an heavy set up solat pannels are not enough so....if you want to go really fast you make your own electricity: Go to that bicycle and pedal as quickly as you can

 

[Stumble]

The bikes are just to power the winches, not power the boat.

The electrical power for most of the boats comes from towed generators. But keep in mind these generators are optimized differently that the ones most cruisers use. First they run the batteries down to ~20% since the cost of new ones is immaterial to the boat program, and only charge to 80%. So the generator only operates at bulk charging ranges. This means they can throw huge amounts of power at the batteries for short periods of time, accept that the batteries will have shortened lifespans, and not worry about it.

The hydro-gens are optimized for this. High speed running above 20kn puts out a lot of power, which allows for smaller props, short times, and unlike a lot of cruisers these boats use lowered shaft drive gens, not towed behind.

Here is a nice article about the hydro-gens... Not really relavent to this post, but it has some nice pics of the installations. http://www.vsail.info/2013/01/08/be...roblems-date-from-months-before-vendee-globe/

And here is the actual generator the Mod70's are using
http://www.wattandsea.com/en/racing-hydrogenerator . Keep in mind these are expected to operate continuious lay at speeds in excess of 15kn boat speed, and up to 30kn. So the vpp's they use allow optimization at any speed.

And here is a nice article about the bike being used on Spindrift (131' Tri) as well as a video about the bike they are using. http://www.spindrift-racing.com/2014/03/spindrift-racing-series-40-metres-solo-episode-6-the-bike/

 

[TQA]

I recently read Race Against Time by Ellen Macarthur. It gives you a really good feel for what it takes to single hand a monster tri.

30 knots, at night, under autopilot, asleep, RIGHT nucking futs!

 

[PCP]

Update over the race. Peyron, the 55 year's old skipper has been able to go out of that storm in one piece and is still leader but a bigger tri is recovering slowly. Will Peyron be able to maintain the leadership over a fast boat with a better routing? The race is about at the middle.

Another old timer, one that makes Peyron look young, is Sir Robin .just have the balls to enter it is great, but at 75 he did not only enter it as he passed stormy waters, slowly but surely and is now in rapid recuperation. He was 13th and is now 7th. That's truly unbelievable that the first winner of a solo non stop round the world race, back in 1969, is still racing and going fast. Cheers to him!!
Some videos and photos as all the story here:
Interesting Sailboats: ROUTE DU RHUM: DEMOLITION DERBY?

..

 

[Stumble]

It looks like Spindrift keeps closing the gap (down to 120nm) and so long as BP doesn't sail into better conditions may be able to chase her down. There is no question that Spindrift is the faster boat, but with a lead already established BP may be able to gain an advantage in conditions...

I wonder how much BP's handeling ability played a part in getting thru the storm helped. Given it takes almost an hour to reef Spin, there is a real possibility the boat had to be intentionally de powered more than the early conditions dictated for safety.

 

[PCP]

No, Peyron has managed to recover. He has an advantage of 180nm. He only needs to control now and make no mistakes. Yes, the way he passed the storm was truly masterful. It was that what made the difference. These are very tricky boats to sail on a storm, they are hugely powerful boats very dificult to de-power and can break if the limits are reached. Also the routing is very important and it seems to me that the ones behind Peyron, maybe Armel himself had made a better job on the last day.

While the cats have outside routing, the monos don't are allowed to do that.

Also very in interesting the fight between the two first Open 60 and among them and the first 50class Multihulls.

The Class 40 is always interesting and there we have a very curious fight between an old timer, Kito, that used to race on Open 60 and the fast kids. For now the old timer is leading.

On the Rhum class Mura is fighting with a lady, Anne. I bet on Anne and her junkyard cat. That was a great way to make a boat... out of garbage

Route du Rhum ? Destination Guadeloupe

 

[PCP]

And the old man won the big race and not only, he beat the race record too: The fastest solo sailor is now a young man with 55 years!!!! I would love to know his secret to be faster and more able then all the younger racers

more here:

http://interestingsailboats.blogspot.pt/2014/11/magnificent-peyron-and-old-man-won.html

.

 

[Zdanowicz]

Looks pretty cool. I'll have to check it out this evening. Thanks for posting the link.

 

[Stumble]

PCP,

also remember he has only spent a few months on BP. He was selected as the emergency skipper when the original one pulled out for health reasons. Of course it is his seventh time doing this race, so it isn't like its his first time out on these boats.

It's an amazing win, glad he did it.

 

[TQA]

There was a pretty downbeat interview with Yann Guichard skipper of Spindrift 2 the 130 ft tri. He talked about how physically hard it was to ' maneuver ' [ his word ] the big tri I guess he was talking about tacking and gibing.

It seems to have vanished from the Route du Rhum site.

Maybe 130 ft is too big?

 

[PCP]

PCP,

also remember he has only spent a few months on BP. He was selected as the emergency skipper when the original one pulled out for health reasons. Of course it is his seventh time doing this race, so it isn't like its his first time out on these boats.

It's an amazing win, glad he did it.

He holds the absolute circumnavigation record (with crew) curiously using Spinndrift , now Guichard's boat so I would say that he knows a lot regarding these boats, but one thing is sailing with a crew, other is to sailing it solo.

Cammas won the last Route du Rhum on the same boat Peyron used (other name on the boat) and before that it was judged impossible to sail on a Transat one of these monsters solo and at the time many skippers thought that was impossible. The use of that bicycle as a way to give more power to the skipper was "invented" for Cammas.

Peyron was already one of the French skippers with more victories and this one makes him enter the Legend category:

His first race was in 1979!!!!, a mini transat and his first big victory was on the Europe 1 star transat (1992) that he won with Fujicolor II. Several victories with that boat.

Many don't know that he was also an accomplished monohull sailor that made 2º on the 1990 Vendee globe.

 

[PCP]

...
Maybe 130 ft is too big?

Certainly a thing for super sailors. There are very few that are able to do that.

 

[PCP]

And big surprise on the race with the victory of an all Spanish team (including boat designer) on the more competitive class, with almost 50 boats racing, the 40class.

Pella beat all the French, using mostly used sails, racing for free (the budget was so low that he preferred to spend it on two new sails). The budget was 10 times less than the ones of the main competitors.
Cheers to him and all team including the designer, Botin. You can read more about it here:
Interesting Sailboats: AN ALL SPANISH TEAM WON THE ROUTE DU RHUM

.

 

[tweitz]

In one of the early videos of the eventual winner, there was a big handle behind him near the stern that looked vaguely like a tiller, seemed to be moving back and forth, but was entirely unattended. Does anyone know what that is?