Auckland to Noumea 2012

[Guest]

Carrera Competed in the Auckland Fiji race about 4 years ago...

[Guest]

The tracking pages are temporarily down. Please be advised that we are working on the situation and they should be back shortly. Thanks for your paitence.

- Suellen Hurling (RAYC Marine Sports Manager)

[Guest]

The tracking pages are temporarily down. Please be advised that we are working on the situation and they should be back shortly. Thanks for your paitence.

- Suellen Hurling (RAYC Marine Sports Manager)

 

And where back live folks.

[JK 28]

Carerra have made a decision to return to NZ due to failure of their electrical systems, probably due to the previously mentioned water issues.

[Wannabe 0]

This is so exciting... as I observe from my cozy office chair... I can only imagine the crazy range of feelings the crews must be experiencing!

[Guest]

from the trackers looks like starlight is racing again?....

is the weather that bad out there?...hatrd to gauge from here in the office?

blizzard has been doing about 3knots for the last 4 hours??...do they have no wind?..or are they fixing something?

[ScottiE 174]

Carerra have made a decision to return to NZ due to failure of their electrical systems, probably due to the previously mentioned water issues.

 

Come on D-T - I just know you want to jump in on this one!

[Guest]

I was going to wait till the race is over and start afresh

[Mothership 6]

This could be interesting:

 

"No PC, overbearing laws for us yachties!"

 

to...

 

"No racing, as you ruin it for us cruisers!"

[Guest]

icebreaker reported keel issues and have stopped on the tracker and starlight express heading west.

[Guest]

I was wondering why Kia Kaha was sailing so slow.

 

From there facebook page

 

‎1825hrs Sail Noumea - not a good day. Mainsail ripped in the early hours this morning. Been fixing it all day, just "raced" under jib. Saw 55kts of wind today. Managed to get mainsail up again just before dark (now). 3 crew down with seasickness. But we are all good. Must make it to Nouméa by Saturday to watch the All Blacks play

[Guest]

From Lesley Haslar in Noumea

 

It seems that Ice Breaker is back in the race – can you just delete their name from the withdrawals – they were said to be out – but now back in….Lesley

[Tim C 23]

It is interesting having Steinlager 2 as part of a fleet where boats are breaking. I was part of the build team 23 years ago. From memory she is 35mm foam in the slamming areas, Nomex on the topsides, and Carbon and kevlar on the skins. I'd guess 30% kevlar, either in uni's with carbon or cloth. No skin ties. All prepreg, vacuumed and cooked laminate, much like today's systems. She has held together (at least I haven't heard otherwise) in all this time.

So it would appear it is not the material, but the amount of laminate going in. Or the lack of kevlar, to give the skin more slam tolerance...

 

Dave "Killer" Wood said they were dropping the J4 in 25knts expecting more, being conservative.

 

Back in the old days we had choppo and polyester, then we got stiched and knitted cloths and epoxy and foam cores, then we started breaking things, then came kevlar, which didn't stop it breaking but held it together. then along comes carbon, if we put as much carbon in as the kevlar it wont break..... Ok lets put in less carbon ...............

The big problem is what to engineer it too, if you say have a 2:1 saftey, but your performance and loads eceeds expectations by 25% you suddenly have 0 saftey margin. Now we have ISO standards that exceed ABS, the volvo boats are surposed to be built above that again.

The other thing with carbon is there is no warning typicall ( unless it's big, and or, you've got good ears ) so it's good, good, good good, gone.

Most of the time it fails in compression first, then add in core failure as well.

The Jaun K boats have core ties, basically stingers glassed over inside the core tying the inner and outer skins together, his boats have structurally feared well, you can google speedboats construction video to see what i mean ( didn't stop the keel falling off )

[Guest]

From Lesley Haslar in Noumea

 

It seems that Ice Breaker is back in the race – can you just delete their name from the withdrawals – they were said to be out – but now back in….Lesley

 

That's pretty questionable.

 

There was a release issued by the race organizers that they had retired, it was noted on the tracker as retired but not anymore and was on their Facebook page but has been deleted.

 

I wont say what I really think.

[Battleship 100]

I guess this is what happens when boats that are not sea-worthy are granted Category 0 status and allowed to sail offshore - yet some bloke in a Cav 32 will get denied Cat 1 because he doesn't have all the latest greatest fandoolged stuff from 'Safety at Sea' nevermind that his boat, though 40 years old is triple or more the build integrity than the sh*t these guys race offshore in nowadays.

I always thought that to win a race the boat has to be built strong enough to finish....such an old fashioned concept I guess.

 

I guess someone had to say it

[Guest]

[Guest]

From Lesley Haslar in Noumea

 

It seems that Ice Breaker is back in the race – can you just delete their name from the withdrawals – they were said to be out – but now back in….Lesley

 

That's pretty questionable.

 

There was a release issued by the race organizers that they had retired, it was noted on the tracker as retired but not anymore and was on their Facebook page but has been deleted.

 

I wont say what I really think.

 

Rumour has it that the keel issue is now really serious. Plus a forward bulkhead issue.

Icebreaker is waiting for Starlight before making towards Norfolk.

All rumour of course

Hope all stay safe.

[B00B00 310]

Yup that is what I was thinking paddy, keel issues just don't go away.

I hope everything goes well for them.

[Guest]

exactly what I have been told too, a bit more than a rumour. starlight is not exactly 100% either'

 

this from Akatea "There has been a fair bit of sea-sickness on board and yesterday they had 66 knots of wind over the deck with heavy seas.The wind never got under 38 knots for 24 hours"

 

little wonder they weren't making much progress

 

Starlight is still 50miles away

[Fogg 427]

I guess this is what happens when boats that are not sea-worthy are granted Category 0 status and allowed to sail offshore - yet some bloke in a Cav 32 will get denied Cat 1 because he doesn't have all the latest greatest fandoolged stuff from 'Safety at Sea' nevermind that his boat, though 40 years old is triple or more the build integrity than the sh*t these guys race offshore in nowadays.

I always thought that to win a race the boat has to be built strong enough to finish....such an old fashioned concept I guess.

 

I guess someone had to say it

 

Surely it's not just about the strength of the boats per se but the way they are used?

 

Cos no cruiser in his right mind would try to continue slamming to windward in these conditions - they'd back off/hove to/find shelter/run with it (take your pick) therefore not expose the boat to the same stresses that racers do for such extended periods.

 

Surely on a like-for-like basis a VOR boat is immensely strong and much stronger than an equivalent sized cruiser? But it gets pushed so much harder than racing boats in the past. The evidence is the faster speeds and new records that pop up every year.

 

So either the boats need to get even stronger or race crews need to back off earlier?

 

I am impressed with the performance of TVS. Sitting in the viaduct it looks a powerful but somewhat fragile machine but obviously someone designed and built that boat for some serious offshore bashing (the French again?) so don't they set the benchmark for the perfect speed/weight/strength/crew combo?