One Aussie requiring sponsorship

We speak to Offshore Challenges' Nick Moloney about the Jacques Vabre and his on-going quest for Vendee Globe funding

It has been almost five years now since Nick Moloney gave up the high flying world of the America's Cup and Whitbread/Volvo to slum it with the solo sailing community, first in his attempt on the gale strewn 1999 Mini Transat, during which he broke his arm and nearly drowned, and now with the Vendee Globe - his sights squarely set on competing in next year's event.

Buying Le Poisson, Ellen MacArthur's Mini from the 1997 race brought Moloney into contact with the embryonic Offshore Challenges and when Turner-MacArthur decided that they wanted an new nag for their stable, it was the talented Aussie whom they signed.

Since joining Offshore Challenges Moloney has been on board Ellen's Open 60 Kingfisher whenever she has been entered in crewed races - such as the Grand Prix, the EDS Atlantic Challenge or the Regate de Rubicon, skippering the boat when Ellen has not been on board. He raced it across the Atlantic doublehanded two years ago with Mark Turner in the Transat Jacques Vabre. He also scored a first place in class two of last year's Route du Rhum, on the Open 50 Ashfield Healthcare, which in a former guise Franco-American JP Mouligne had campaigned to a class win in the 1998/9 Around Alone and has since been chartered to Conrad Humphries for the TJV.

Moloney's latest venture is again on Kingfisher, now renamed Team Cowes, joining forces with Offshore Challenges' other thoroughbred Sam Davies for the two handed Transat Jacques Vabre.

While Moloney knows Ellen's Open 60 inside out, for Davies their recent qualifier for the TJV was the first occasion she had sailed an Open 60 in anger, although having raced everything from Minis and Figaros to maxi-cats the experience was not that much of an eye-opener.

"I think it was what we needed," says Moloney. "We had pretty light air, but we did have enough breeze to get a little bit of pace on at times. We did 18 knots of boat speed at one stage when we were fully powered up under full main, genoa, pressed reaching through the fishing boat fleet on the continental shelf. That was a good insight for Sam about how powered up the boat can get and how quick we can go.

"So I think it served its purpose. Sam and I wanted to spend some time at sea together just to see how each other works and for Sam to get a good overview of the boat and for both of us to put our heads on what the job list should be - what the priorities and what they are not."

Since the qualifier they have been out in 40 knots which was also a good shakedown for the boat and for the crew. "It was good for both of us to work out our way of sailing this boat upwind because you know what these boats are like upwind in any breeze... In 40 knots we got a better idea of what our rig combination should be and how the boat responds. It is good for both of us to get a reality check of how light the boat is. In 40 knots, the windage on the hull for instance makes it pretty hard to drive the boat upwind. We slabbed the sails and saw the rig pump quite a bit and it didn’t fall over and every time you do that you gain a bit more confidence."

Clearly Moloney being part of a team comprising his good self and two 'chicks' - Ellen and Sam - has been a source of great amusement for many of his Antipodean friends. "It’s great. I am pretty fortunate. There’s no denying there are uglier chicks to go to sea with!" he says, turning up the Australian. "I think I am in a good situation - I’m in between two pretty good looking girls both with good attitudes and both great sailors. It could be painful but fortunately for me it’s not. They are good natured people and they’re both really reputable sailors.

"And they’re both positively chalk and cheese - that’s refreshing as well. It’s healthy. I think it is great to have two different personalities." Possibly not the best turn of phrase.

When asked to expand on Ellen and Sam's differences there is a diplomatic pause. "Their capabilities are very very similar. I’d hate to take anything away from either. There is no denying that Ellen is gung-ho get covered in s**t, spend four hours on deck without a wet weather jacket on just getting soaked while Sam may have been wet for longer in her life, maybe that’s one of the issues - Sam has been sailing longer than Ellen has and even I get to the point too where I don’t want to be wet any longer. So they are two very different people. Ellen is ‘get in there and rip the head off it’ and Sam is more calculated. So their train of thought is very different. I don’t think I’ll see Ellen kicking around in a pink Kingfisher jacket! But they’re both a treat and I’m very fortunate."

Since qualifying Moloney and Davies have been out corporate day chartering for their sponsors and took the boat down to Lorient in France in order to fit some new sails and make some rig adjustments. North France has conjured up a new staysail, Solent jib and mainsail, made from Kevlar/3DL with a Taffeta covering (they used carbon/3DL in the EDS Atlantic Challenge but found it interfered with the satcom B and the radar). Aside from this they have two new chutes, their existing genniker, called a Code E (Ellen?), and a furling genoa. "The genoa has done the Transat Jacques Vabre and the Route du Rhum, but anyone following those races may not know that we never unfurled the sail for either! So that is basically brand new," says Moloney. Essentially the sail wardrobe is what the boat has had before.



Aside from the sails, Moloney says that they have done little to enhance the boat's performance and have concentrated on sorting out the wear and tear from the Team 888 charter this summer, plus working on the comms gear and its reliability.

The qualifier threw up a few issues with the boat's electronics, principally the all-important autopilot which is of particular concern for Moloney. The likelihood is that if a sponsor materialises he will be racing Team Cowes/Kingfisher or whatever she will be called in the Vendee Globe and in order to qualify for this is racing the boat back singlehanded from the end of the Transat Jacques Vabre in a new Vendee Globe qualifying event from Salvador de Bahia to La Rochelle in December.

Moloney says that since his campaigning Kingfisher in the Vendee Globe has become the more likely scenario rather than a new build, he has been spending a great deal of time considering the modifications he'd like to make in order to be happy to race the boat around the world non-stop.

So what modifications would he like made? "The furniture inside is a disgrace. It is designed for Ellen, which is fair enough, but if I did it would have to be designed for me." He cites the example of the nav station, tailored to a 5ft tall Derbyshire lass, not to a more brawny Australian. "The nav station would have to go and we’d have to build a new one because my legs don’t even fit under it and I don’t fit on the seat and I can’t sleep on the seat. So it is totally not feasible to spend potentially 100 days at sea in that scenario."

He says he'd also like to have a bigger rig fitted and "more power in the package". "Everyone is upscaling now - the rig height average is getting higher as is the sail area on all the boats. So I am assuming they have all got heavier bulbs to handle the power that they’re putting on and for the rule for the inclination. So I’d like to play that game and be out there with everyone else, pushing. So I spend a lot of time looking at the mast and the keel weight and the internals of the boat."

The new Ecover he likes because the size and distribution of the sail plan is similar to what he has been considering. "I haven't quite pinpointed what the relevance of the rig rotating is and what the benefits are," he says of the new Golding craft. "I’m quite reserved when it comes to the mast. I like conventionally stayed rigs and the rest you can draw down from horsepower. When you think about the Route du Rhum, when I arrived in Guadeloupe there were two conventional rigs at the dock - one was me and one was Ellen."

Moloney says that compared to Ellen - who is highly proficient technically - he prefers his boats more basic. There is a huge amount of comms and media gear on board, that is mandatory fit for all Offshore Challenge projects, but there is also a lot of gear that has been tested on the boat over the years, some of which has left its legacy. "That needs to be removed and we’ve got a couple of gremlins in the electronics system that I think have come from old uninstalled equipment. That’s my worry - electronics - because I don’t know anything about it."

While Moloney considers what to do about the boat, he is only too aware that nothing will come to pass unless they get a sponsor on board for the Vendee Globe. "There is a lot of pressure on me personally, because it is a crunch period for us to find the money and there will be quite a few potential sponsors that will be following these trips from a communications point of view and hopefully the office team and us out on the water can convince someone we are a good punch for the Vendee."

The deadline for their finding money is March 2004 but Moloney thinks that they should know one way or the other by Christmas. "I am pretty realistic. I don’t expect someone to step up and hand over a £1 million for me to go yachting unless they think it is a good bet. I’m not a Brit. I’m not a Frog. And they are the target markets. If I was CEO of an Australian company and there were two guys popping proposals on my table, I’d probably be more biased towards a national. Then the Olympics is coming up and there are a lot of people looking for funding and not necessarily looking for it for a Vendee."

Even if the Vendee Globe doesn't come off then Moloney is still adamant that he is going to achieve his objective of sailing around the world singlehanded, even if it is in Around Alone (now called the Five Oceans) or on an east to west record attempt. In the meantime it is a case of calling all Australian companies looking to get their foot in the door in Europe or European companies wishing to do the same in Australia - Moloney is your man...