24 hours and a Whole Pile of Miles

Neal McDonald talks about breaking the mono-hull and multi-hull distance records

With PlayStation regrouping after their recent narrow miss at the trans-Atlantic attempt, Club Med in the boatshed repairing the damage sustained on their trans-Atlantic and Team Philips still quietly working towards a re-launch on 23rd September, it’s been a quiet week in the record breaking department.
Taking time out from Club Med’s rebuild and refit is Neal McDonald, who can justifiably call himself one of the fastest men on the planet. Along with Jason Carrington, Neal now holds the record for the greatest distance sailed in 24 hours by both a mono-hull and a multi-hull.

The pair were both aboard Silk Cut back in the 1997-98 Whitbread when she shattered the 24 hour record with a run of 449.1 nm. And Jason and Neal were together again aboard Club Med when she drove a coach and horses through the multi-hull and overall record earlier this year, recording 625.7 nm during an east-to-west trans-Atlantic run.

McDonald was home in Hamble this week, trying to grab a few days from their collectively busy schedules with his wife, Lisa Charles-McDonald. Lisa is heading up an all-women’s Volvo Ocean Race challenge, Team Waterfront, and has been traveling the world talking to potential sponsors.

But Neal managed to find a few moments to talk to madforsailing about the different experiences of breaking those two records. ‘I was a lot more scared on the Whitbread 60 (W60). The conditions were much heavier, 35 knots plus and six metre waves, whereas on the cat we had 25 knots and one metre waves.

‘It was also a lot easier work on Club Med, we go fastest reaching and so the sail changes tend to be a reef in and a reef out - nothing too dramatic. But on the W60 we were hard running in big seas and big breeze and every sail change involved the spinnaker. And that’s always a potential drama in those conditions. We were very comfortable with four on deck on Club Med, and it was always six, plus two ready to join in, on the W60.

‘Having said that, it’s still pretty exciting on Club Med, it was drier funnily enough, though it was still plenty wet. The most dangerous thing in those conditions is the flying fish. When you’re doing 35 knots they come at you pretty fast, you feel one zip by your head and think - a couple of inches this way and I’d be dead, or at least pretty unhappy. And when they hit the hull they’re just pieces, morsels, there’re scales everywhere. But I guess we won’t be worrying about that in the Southern Ocean though.’

But, we might reasonably suggest to Neal, what they will be worrying about in the Southern Ocean aboard Club Med, is the kind of weather that drove the W60 to her record. ‘I don’t think we’ll be going any faster in Club Med in those conditions than we did in Silk Cut,’ said Neal, ‘and so we won’t go looking for them. Flat water is the key for these big multi-hulls, and you don’t find that in a gale. I think our quickest conditions will be close to those that we set the record in.

‘In a mono-hull you’ve got to go find the 35-40 knots and then pour it on to really start to motor. But in Club Med we’ll be sailing low and trying to slow her down in those big waves and breeze. It’s safe enough, we’ve gybed Club Med in 42 knots of breeze and it was fine because we were going so fast - 26 knots when we did it.

‘But one of the most interesting aspects about these boats is the new set of tactical options that the speed provides. In Club Med we’ll be more able to dictate the conditions we sail in, and we should be able to find that flat water. It’s going to be interesting.’

And it should be almost, but not quite, as interesting to watch.