2002 - a year in sailing pt2

James Boyd looks back at what happened in our sport during the second quarter of this year

See part one of this series here.

April began with a litter of disasters. Mike Slade's maxi Leopard broke her rudder while on a routine delivery trip back to the UK from the Caribbean. Similarly Josh Hall's Open 60 Gartmore dismasted in storm force winds and Jean-Luc Nelias' Belgacom suffered the first of what was to become a spate of rig failures in the 60ft trimaran class.

Gartmore crewman Ollie Dewar sent us a tremendous account of Gartmore dismasting. Back in the UK we spoke to Leopard's skipper Chris Sherlock about what happened. But this was not the end of the story as Leopard subsequently fell off her cradle as she was being shipped back from Spain.



On board the maxicat Orange midway through her Jules Verne Trophy attempt, there were fears that the aft beam was delaminating. However this did not seem to hold them back too much and to the south of New Zealand the 110ft cat was putting in daily runs approaching 500 miles. She maintained this until after crossing the date line on 6 April and after negotiating an area of high pressure was back up to speed incredibly put in a 610 mile 24 hour run. After a ridiculously fast passage across the bottom of the Pacific Orange rounded Cape Horn on 13 April.

With the Volvo Ocean Race safely tucked up in Miami we spoke to Grant Dalton and Assa Abloy skipper Neal McDonald.about how they felt their respective races were going

We brought readers the final report from the Rolex St Thomas regatta where Tom Hill's Andrews 68 Titan XI dominated the big boat class. However Titan was beaten at the subsequent BVI Spring regatta by Roy Disney's maxi Pyewacket.

A new breed of maxi was born in April - the maxZ86. The first example launched was Bob McNeil's Zephyrus V . Other new launches included Alain Gautier's new Foncia 2 trimaran with a wingmast that could be raked aft so much that the bottom of the forestay had to run on a track.

But the launch everyone was waiting for was that of Peter Harrison's new GBR Challenge - GBR-70. Long, narrow and heavy was what we predicted and at the gala launch at their base in Cowes the Princess Royal broke the bubbly (in fact after a failed first attempt it was technically Craig Nutter who christened her). Peter Bentley was there wielding his camera while Ed Gorman provided his own critic on the proceedings. James Boyd spoke to design team head Derek Clark about how they went about conceiving GBR70. We looked at the other America's Cup launches taking place.



We spoke to BT Global Challenge winner Conrad Humphreys about his plans for the 2004 Vendee Globe.

In the Olympic arena Andy Rice looked at the musical chairs going on in the UK 49er fleet. Paul Brotherton soon found a new crew in Mark Asquith. Nigel Cherrie caught up with 470 sailor Graham Vials.

In April a new round the world race was announced. The Antarctica Cup would be sailed flat out through the Southern Ocean in Ron Holland one-design maxis. There would be $6.4 million prize money available, but the entry fee would include the price of the boat. There was some comment about this new event and John Roberson set the record straight about some of the issues. Early May saw the event's first signings.



On 14 April the Volvo Ocean Race set sail once again on the short leg up the eastern seaboard of the USA from Miami to Baltimore at the top of the Chesapeake Bay. An action-packed start saw six boats OCS (see the photo gallery). Once again illbruck and Assa Abloy powered into the lead, with News Corp third 24 hours into the leg. Rounding Cape Hatteras News Corp pulled into the lead and in a much welcome change of fortune and despite the fickle conditions of the Chesapeake Jez Fanstone and his crew hung onto their lead to bag their first win of the Volvo Ocean Race.

It was a particularly disappointing leg for illbruck but especially so for the highly rated Tyco who found themselves racing tailenders djuice and Amer Sports Too.

Back in Europe Steve Fossett broke the obscure Plymouth-La Rochelle record aboard PlayStation while Tacy Edwards' Maiden 2 team were preparing for their first record attempt - on the Route of Discovery passage between Cadiz and Salvador. They set off on 11 April, but were having trouble holding on to the pace set by record holders Club Med. Sam Davies sent us an exclusive report. Eventually on 22 April they had to call off their attempt and instead made their way to Antigua for Race Week.

Into the South Atlantic the weather was making Orange's progress north even more tricky than her outbound passage. On 16 April they were virtually becalmed. We spoke to Orange's Australian crewman Nick Moloney. It wasn't until five days later after an unconventional passage straight across the South Atlantic high pressure system that the maxicat was up to speed again.

Down in Australia to Macquarie Innovation speed sailing team were feeling equal frustration having failed to break their own world speed record.

In Naples George Andreadis's Atalanti won the first of the Farr 40's Mediterranean series. We spoke to Iain Percy, sailing on the German Farr 40 Struntje Light.



Rob Greenhalgh and the RMW Marine team set the tone for the season by winning the first UK 18ft skiff series in Portland Harbour. Hyeres Olympic regatta got underway. Peter Bentley sent us photo galleries from day one and day two and spoke to Paul Goodison about taking on Laser legend Robert Scheidt. Nigel Cherrie profiled the Laser.

Over in California the International America's Cup Class San Francisco (thankfully IACCSF for short) were preparing for their first season racing old ACC boats. Larry Ellison won the first race.

The first leg of the Figaro class' Transat AG2R was won by Vendee Globe competitor Herve Laurent and Rodolph Jacq who sailed a radical course hugging the coast of Portugal on the way down to the stopover in Madeira. Erwan Tabarly, nephew of the late great Eric Tabarly, and Philippe Vicariot were first on the second leg of the two handed transatlantic race, but Laurent/Jacq took honours overall.

At about the same time as Orange was crossing the Equator Bruno Peyron revealed major concerned about the rig. The ball socket on which her wingmast sits was disintegrating. They managed a repair, but Peyron announced they would be going out of their way to avoid putting the boat under any more pressure by sailing upwind.

Andy Rice interviewed Prada's Kiwi helmsman Gavin Brady about the Italian team's prospects for the America's Cup while Nigel Cherrie reported on the final race of the Warsash Spring Series and caught up with skiff sailor Rob Greenhalgh about his plans for the Tour Voile.

Franck Cammas' Groupama was showing form on the opening blustery day of the frist trimaran Grand Prix of the season in Lorient. With the final day of racing blown off Cammas beat Loick Peyron by just one point. Soon after Banque Populaire broke up on a delivery trip. James Boyd caught up with Vendee Globe winner Michel Desjoyeaux to see the construction of his new trimaran Geant.

Prior to leg seven of the Volvo Ocean Race across the Atlantic to La Rochelle, we spoke to winner of the previous leg, the amiable Jez Fanstone. With ice forecast and after the crews' experience on the second Southern Ocean leg, the race committee decided to introduce an 'ice box'.



The leg got underway on 28 April and two days into it clever use of the Gulf Stream saw illbruck pull into the lead. From 1534 GMT on April 29 until the same time 24 hour later illbruck covered 473 miles to break the 24-hour monohull world record held by Bernard Stamm on the Open 60 Armor Lux.

Disaster struck Lisa McDonald's Amer Sports Too when she dismasted 400 miles to the southeast of Halifax, Nova Scotia (see the disturbing photo gallery). The girls got their boat back to the UK and rerigged and by 18 April had set off to make the restart in La Rochelle. They were in good company - a few days later Mike Golding's Open 60 Ecover lost her mast during the Larmour Plage Grand Prix, while Team New Zealand lost a second rig. In Auckland a fresh round of allegations were brewing.



At the end of April Antigua Sailing Week started with a lumpy run up to Dickenson's Bay. Roy Disney's maxi Pyewacket was looking set to pull out another win, but was knocked off the top spot by Peter Odgen's Swan Spirit of Jethou.

30 April saw Orange heading up the westerly side of the Azores high pressure system, Bruno Peyron taking the long route before turning right to pick up the westerlies, but it wasn't until 3 May, after one aborted attempt, that they were able to make their final gybe east. Finally on 5 May they pulled into Brest after making their circumnavigation in 64 days 8 hours 37 minutes and 24 seconds, an impressive 7 days 5 hours 44 minutes and 44 seconds less than the previous record set by Olivier de Kersauson's trimaran Sport Elec in 1997. We spoke the world's fastest Anglo-Saxon Nick Moloney and Bruno Peyron about their historic voyage.



By 4 May illbruck had pulled out a useful 30 mile lead on Assa Abloy and Tyco as the boats were experiencing gale force winds and there was talk of bettering illbruck's 24 hour record. After being held up by a high pressure system illbruck sauntered into La Rochelle on 9 May in first place by a comfortable margin. Ed Gorman gave his prognosis on illbruck's latest win.

Nick Hewson's Team Tonic won the RORC's Cervantes Trophy. RORC announced the parameters for the Admiral's Cup's IRC class - 50 footers to maxis. Not one to miss a trick Race 1 soon after announced their new Race 1 Ker 50.

Nigel Cherrie spoke to Cordelia Elgin about her fourth place in the Women's World Match Racing Championship in Spain. Le Defi Areva's Philippe Presti won the Toscana Elba Cup match racing. The new French challenger FRA69 was launched on 18 May and tempers frayed when the boat was rammed by Greenpeace activists. Crewman Tim Kroger described what happened while French journalist Christian Fevrier provided his comments.



Nigel Cherrie looked at the outcome of the Tornado Europeans and spoke to Mick Worrell following his famous 1,000 mile long offshore cat race up the coast of the States. Elsewhere ISAF President Paul Henderson was kicking up a storm about cheating in the Olympic classes. Peter Bentley gave his views on this.

11 May saw the Open 60's Regate de Rubicon get underway into the teeth of 40 knot headwinds. We spoke to Tour Voile winner turned Open 60 sailor Jean-Pierre Dick about his transition to singlehanded offshore racing and his new Farr-designed Open 60. Meanwhile Brad van Liew announced his sponsorship by fashion brand Tommy Hilfiger for Around Alone. Leg one of the Regata de Rubicon into the Canaries was won by Roland Jourdain's Sill Plein Fruit.

Following their lacklustre performance, Knut Frostad relinquished and pulled in Team New Zealand's Erle Williams to skipper djuice for the remainder of the Volvo Ocean Race. Andy Rice spoke to another new djuice crewman Jeff Scott about why he got off News Corp. Meanwhile the hand of experience in veteran navigator Mike Quilter was brought in to assist on Tyco. Ed Gorman assessed the seven boats which had not made the grade in the race. illbruck crewman Stu Bannatyne looked back at a successful leg.

To make up for the failure to break the Route of Discovery record Maiden 2 set up a new record from Antigua to Newport - hitting 40.6 knots in the process.

The SPA Olympic classes regatta in Medemblik got off to flying start for the British Laser sailors who were holding the top three spots. At the end of the regatta the UK was the top scoring nation with six medals. Andy Rice looked at the ' SPA experiment'.

Steve Fossett added the Transmed record from Marseilles to Carthage in Tunisia to his collection. Meanwhile the radical French foiler L'Hydroptere was in Ocean Village waiting to make a record attempt. 'Are there too many record attempts going on?' asked James Boyd.



25 May saw the start of the La Rochelle to Gothenberg leg of the Volvo Ocean Race. The MacDonald family had difficulty getting away with Assa Abloy towing a mark while Amer Sports Too hit a mark (see the photo gallery). We spoke to Tyco skipper Kevin Shoebridge about their race. Coming into the Channel the boats were stuck together like glue but in the end there was a popular winner into the Swedish stopover of local boat Assa Abloy (the site of Magnus Olsen's grin will remain with us for sometime). The arrival could not have been closer with the first six boats arriving within seven minutes of each other! Even war torn ocean racing veteran Gordon Maguire was speechless.

The maxi Boomerang won back their record for the Storm Trisail's Block Island Race but this was overshadowed by the news of the tragic loss overboard of former America's Cup crewman Jamie Boechel.

Roland Jourdain's Sill was again leading the Regate du Rubicon fleet on the second leg into the Mediterranean en route to the finish in Italy until the wind crapped out and Bernard Stamm's Bobst Group took over. However this change in places was shortlived. After some tactics which didn't pay off in the Straits of Gibraltar, Kingfisher was down the tubes. Disaster struck Simone Bianchetti's Tiscali on 28 May when the top of her mast broke as she had to withdraw. Sill went on to take line honours. We spoke to skipper Roland Jourdain.

Meanwhile after a delay of almost a week due to strong winds the Course des Phares for the 60ft trimarans got underway and in a preview to what was to happen later in the year in the Route du Rhum, the fleet began to fall apart. In the end just three of the 10 starters finished with victory going to Loick Peyron on Fujifilm (see Gilles Martin-Raget's photo gallery of the tris rounding Ushant).

We got the scoop on Bruno Peyron's latest idea for an alternative to the Volvo Ocean Race - The Race Tour with stops to be sailed in the newly dubbed 'G class' giant maxi monohulls and multihulls. Offshore Challenges announced that they had purchased Peyron's Orange for Ellen to make her attempt on the Jules Verne Trophy and then to do The Race 2004. We spoke to Karen Hodges, a young Milton Keynes girl following in Ellen's footsteps by making a solo round Britain passage.

By early June Olivier de Kersauson's maxi trimaran Geronimo was back in action following her rudder cavitation problems. She was soon rammed - accidentally - by an errant Figaro sailor.

Hamish Mackay and a core crew of ex-dinghy racers repeated their 2001 success to retain the overall lead Bell Lawrie Scottish Series aboard their Elan 333 Elanor. Meanwhile Rob Greenhalgh was cleaning up once again in the 18ft skiffs, this time over in Carnac and Black Seal cleaned up at the French Opens for the Melges 24s.



Following the event in Croatia, Oracle Racing's Peter Holmberg became outright winner of the Swedish Match Tour with an event to spare. Adrian Stead brought us up to date with progress within the GBR Challenge camp and K-Yachting announced their challenge for the 2006 America's Cup. Nick Hewson added the Morgan Cup to the Team Tonic trophy cabinet.



With Volvo's announcement about their plans for the next race, Ross Field gave us his views about what should happen to the race. Andy Rice spoke to Volvo Ocean Race CEO Helge Alten while James Boyd discussed the future of the event with some of the skippers.

The final leg of the Volvo Ocean Race got underway from Gothenberg amid a huge spectator fleet on 8 June. Remarkably after their average showing during the race the final leg was taken by Knut Frostad's djuice and even more welcome was the fourth place of Lisa MacDonald's team - ahead of the boys on Amer One and resulting in a close encounter between Grant Dalton's posterior and a spicky pineapple. Ed Gorman looked back at the finish while Amer Sports Too crewwoman Emma Westmacott gave her reflections. James Boyd accosted illbruck skipper John Kostecki to find out how they won the Volvo Ocean Race and to designer extraordinaire Bruce Farr about what the next boat for the race should be.

Meanwhile the fleet in the Royal Western Yacht Club's two handed Round Britain Race we getting a pasting. By the time the boats reached the first stop in Crosshaven almost half the fleet had retired including favourite Sir Robin Knox-Johnston. We spoke to race leader Roger Barber on Meridian. The weather seemed to be relentless and once up in second stopover in Barra the fleet was stormbound. Meanwhile in the same neck of the woods the 3 Peaks Race record was broken.

Things were looking up for Maiden 2. They had set off from Newport in an attempt to break the 24 hour record. Navigator Adrienne Cahalan reported how they had hit 44 knots. Between 1915GMT on 12 June and the same time the next day, they covered an incredible 697 miles, breaking Steve Fossett's previous record of 687.17 miles. We caught up with Cahalan and crewman Paul Larsen about the flying passage and once they'd docked we spoke to Sam Davies about what it is like to sail on board.

The Dutch pairing of Sven Karsenbarg and Mischa Heemskerk won the 25th anniversary Round Texel Race. Cat sailing veteran Mitch Booth was injured during the race when his cat pitchpoled. Volvo sailors Magnus Woxen and Klabbe Nylof won the Archipelago Raid through the fabulous Swedish archipelago.

Andy Rice caught up with Finn contender Sebastien Godefroid. At Kiel Week it was blowing dogs off chains, reported Nigel Cherrie as a result a majority of the races ended up being held on the final day.

On 15 June conditions were lining up for the course record of the Bermuda race to be beaten. Roy Disney's Pyewacket continued her winning form pulling into the lead and sure enough set a new record time of 53hrs 39min 22sec for the 635 mile ocean racing classic. Roy Disney gave his comments on their success. After Jamie Boechel's loss, there were remarkably three more man overboard incidents during the Bermuda race - but fortunately on this occasion none of them were fatal.

Prior to the annual Round the Island Race, we caught up with trimaran sailor Peter Bryant about his new Formula 40 trimaran. James Boyd reported on a rather quick loop of the Isle of Wight aboard Maiden 2 and spoke to Simon Rogers whose designer father Jeremy won the Gold Roman Bowl, knocking Bear of Britain off the top spot. However Bear subsequently picked up the IRC Nationals.



In the Round Britain Race Meridian was forced to retire and by the time the boats had reached the penultimate stopover in Lowestoft Ross Hobson was leading in the 40ft trimaran Mollymawk and managed to hang to this until the finish in Plymouth, the second consecutive time this boat has won this race.

Meanwhile confusingly the Round Ireland race was also starting. Nick Hewson's Team Tonic got off to a flying start. Unfortunately conditions were such that they fell behind the record. Navigator Pete Selby described how they'd got on. A third island rounding was also getting underway with the Gotland Rund.

Nerone won the final event of the Farr 40s Mediterranean circuit to win the circuit overall.

Tomorrow we will look at what happened in the third quarter of 2002.