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Vendee Globe 2016


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I'm certainly finding this much more exciting to follow than the volvo has been the last few times.

 

Coleman has made good ground back on the guys around him since his drama a couple of days ago. Very impressive.

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AC does not hold any interest by comparison either. It seems to me that the advances in technology thru Vendee and similar ocean races are a hell of a lot more transferrable to my boat (I wish I could get it over 10 knots eh :wtf: ). These sailors are all legends - even those who withdraw have 'made it' IMHO

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 from Kito's facebook page.

 

https://www.facebook.com/madeinmidivoile

 

" give up the ship

The day is dawning over here.
The Commander of the marion dufresne just tell me that it was a zodiac in the water.
They come pick me up in the 1/2 pm who's coming.
It's time because I can't limit the rise of water inside the boat...
This will be my last word from the edge...."

Kito
Bastide Otio

 

"Good evening,

The Marion Dufresne is by my side and the crew waiting for the sunrise to put a zodiac to water and pick me up.
I'm very sad, desperate and of not being able to bring this boat somewhere, the sands it would have been top but anyone or elsewhere, it would have done, but right now let him in the middle of nowhere, get in there and smoosh by the waves Me, this is unbearable.
But it has to be solved. I can't move forward, not back, so I can't go nowhere with the keel which takes on anything and the risks are much too great in this ocean if inhospitable.
Good luck to all the other competitors of the vendée globe, it takes a decidedly a lot...
Kito de pavant
Bastide Otio"

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nice work Willow - have been waiting for an update on the race site.

 

There's also new posts on his facebook page that translate to

 

"I give up the ship
The day rises here.
The commander of the Marion Dufresne has just indicated to me that he was putting a zodiac in the water.
They pick me up in the 1/2 hour that comes.
It is time because I can no longer limit the rise of water inside the boat ...
This will be my last word on board ...."

 

and then an hour ago

 

"Kito is safe on board the Marion Dufresne.  The rescue took place at 2am (HF)"

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Triumph and tragedy (for the boat I guess) in the one act...

 

Thankfully he will tell this tale to his kids.

 

Meanwhile .... back at the front Le Cleac'h seems to be creeping away, and what game is Josse playing?

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I still reckon it's a great piece of engineering to be able to withstand an impact capable of ripping off a keel, without catastrophic structural failure of the hulls intergrity, whilst still having a keel strong enough to withstand the huge forces on the keel - especially a canter, and being light enough for a race boat.

There is no keel attachment system capable of withstanding anything that could happen. Any structure can be broken, given sufficient force. The keel box top is supposed to be above the waterline - but it's a coffer dam, right? Not a sealed bulkhead. It could go below the waterline - remember the Titanic?

 

Impacts. I've hit 2 things ( both logs) sailing offshore. That's an average of about 1 per 20,000 nm. Both would have had dire consequences if I was doing 20+ knots. Just as well my boats not a foiler! So, is this about average? If so, most boats would hit something on a circumnavigation...

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My tracker currently shows Coleman down to 2 knots of boatspeed, with tws of 11 on the aft quarter which should see him going a fair bit faster than 2 knots.

 

Hopefully just a tracker issue or something minor...

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Latest updsate from the Crazy Kiwi:

 

Without sounding too morbid, I feel a little like I'm sitting on death row and my fellow competitors have already been taken to have their last meal. It's emotional and shocking to hear about Kito's rescue and to think that for the third time in a row he won't make it back to Les Sables under his own steam. With such great teams as Gitana and PRB also falling to misfortune it's just the proof that the ocean does't look at your bank balance or the size of your team when dealing out the hard cards.

 Mich Desj, two time winner of the Vendee Globe, says that you need to be mentally prepared for one major problem per day and so far I'm keeping up with his tempo. I am still working to get the battery pack online after the fire and whenever I look around there's a new error message displayed on the instruments. It appears that I'm still losing a little oil from the hydraulic ram I repaired in the doldrums and I just got back on deck after over an hour up the mast to repair a sail.


When the wind shifted this afternoon from NW to N, I changed from my bigger reaching sail to my smaller flatter sail, the Solent or J2 which means it's the second biggest jib on the boat. When I unrolled it I saw that the pocket that holds the sail onto the cable was damaged and the sail risked to unzip itself completely. As the front of the sail is only exposed when the sail is unrolled I would have to fix it when the sail was working and the boat was fully powered up because I couldn't bear away onto a run because the Ice exclusion zone isn't far to leeward.


So, with the wind blowing at 20 knots and boatspeed sometimes the same, I climbed almost to the top of the mast and then hand stitched the pocket closed and then covered the repair with self adhesive sail cloth. Because I had a lot of stitching to do I did it several sections, which of course meant I had to cut new lengths of string and re-thread the needle. 22 Metres in the air, one foot hooked around the sail and the other around the mast, bracing to stay stable and then concentrating on the needle I figured the closest possible comparison would be threading a needle on the back of a galloping horse while doing the splits and situps at the same time. I guess you need to have a head for heights!


By living with a tool kit and multimeter in my hands as much as the helm and the sheets I just hope that I can resolve enough of the problems fast enough to keep me in the race and avoid the fall of the executioner's axe!

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