2004 Review - part four

From birthday cake to Christmas cake and all that went between

The final three months of the year kicked off with TheDailySail’s second birthday - after our celebrations at the Square Rigger in Hamble it was back to the coal face. At least in our state we did not have to get Mari Cha IV off the deck of a ship!

October started pretty breezy on the south coast, coinciding with the start of the Global Challenge. Three months later the boats have stopped over in Buenos Aires, rounded Cape Horn and are now approaching to New Zealand.

In Switzerland Anne Hinton reviewed how the season had gone for the new breed of Decision 35 catamarans. We also had reports in from a couple autumn classics - photos from the Voiles de St Tropez (below) and Miranda Merron’s experience on the chocka-block Barcolona, the world's largest regatta. The inaugral Swan 45 Gold Cup ( photos) went to the Italians on Mintaka overtaking their fellow countrymen on Vertigo on the last day.



On the dingy front the US Champion of Champions went to Mike Funsch and Jay Laurie sailed on the Great Beds. In the UK it was Inlands time for the RS classes – the 200s were won by Tom and Jo Hewitson, the 600s by Richard Leech and the 800s by Steve Irish and Martin Gotrel. The 400s were taken by Nick Craig and Keith Bedborough (below). This final pair then when on to take the Endeavour Trophy and we spoke to them about their successful season.



The Endeavour Trophy is one of those long standing traditions in UK sailing and we had a look at the reasons why it had waned in the last couple of years. This prompted plenty of feedback from readers.

Following an inaugural regatta in Marseille the America’s Cup roadshow moved to it’s new home in Valencia for Acts Two and Three. We met the teams, now numbering seven, and got some photos of the action in Act Two. We spoke to the new boy at Emirates Team New Zealand, Ben Ainslie and also the old hand at Luna Rosa Francesco De Angelis. While Team New Zealand won Act Two on a boat especially flown in for the occasion, Act Three was taken by the Swiss defenders. We looked at plucky performance of the South African Team Shosholoza.

In October there were plenty of designers coming out with their latest plans on the Transpac 52 rule. We spoke in detail to one half of the IMS design power house Shaun Carkeek. There were also designs from Merfyn Owen, Clay Oliver, and Vallicelli amongst others.

Two people in the sport who have had highly successful seasons took the time to tell us how it all came together: Italian ‘giant’ Vasco Vascotto and the Argentinian maverick of design Juan Kouyoumdjian. Meanwhile Russell Coutts won his seventh Bermuda Gold Cup.

Frank Pong’s 118ft long Maiden Hong Kong, one of Kouyoumdjian’s designs, hit the water in October and we had a detailed look (part one and two) at this brand new super maxi. Could this be the boat that could challenge Mari Cha IV? Having keel problems of her own was the superyacht Mirabella, which returned to the UK after dragging her anchor and running aground in the Med to get the mess sorted out.

The Rolex Middle Sea Race started in Malta in reasonably benign conditions, but halfway round the course things got very hairy for the front runners with eventual line honours winner Alfa Romeo losing (and recovering) a man overboard. The handicap win went to the Greeks on their Farr 52 Optimum 3. We were thrilled for them as we found out that they are all avid readers of TheDailySail!



Also on the receiving end of some new time pieces were Robert Scheidt, Sofia Bektorou and Emilia Tsoulfa (above) who won the ISAF Rolex World Sailor of the Year Awards. In Britain it was a case of ‘Already going for Gold’ for the RYA, but two time Olympic medallist Ian Walker brought to attention the potentially dire lack of wind in Qingdao, the sailing venue for the 2008 Games.

This winter it has been the Vendee Globe that has made us feel safe in our beds at night. The race started ( video) from Les Sables d'Olonne. With such a healthy collection of Open 60s we looked at why they all have different rigs and the subtleties of their various hull shapes. James Boyd put together TheDailySail’s form guide for the race and got the views of past competitors Isabelle Autissier and 2000-1 winner Michel Desjoyeaux about the race.

The race got off to a blazing start with uncharacteristic following winds that propelled the boats rapidly past Cape Finisterre. It wasn't until the leaders were approaching the Cape Verdes that the wind finally dropped briefly. We spoke to Hugo Boss skipper Alex Thomson about his progress and his first rig climb.

By 17 November the front runners were through the Doldrums continuing their record pace to the Equator. Jean le Cam's Bonduelle was first across. having pulled ahead at the Cape Verdes, leaders Bonduelle and PRB extended further in the South Atlantic. By 29 November the leaders had entered the Roaring Forties. The first major drama of race happened when a hole opened in Hugo Boss' deck where the gooseneck for the boom had pulled out ( audio). Two days later Conrad Humphrey's Hellomoto broke a rudder in a collision. He pulled into a bay near Cape Town where he succeeded in making repairs.

On 1 December Bonduelle was first past the Cape of Good Hope while holding a 81 mile lead of PRB. We spoke to Mike Golding about life in the Southern Ocean. There was disaster for front runner Roland Jourdain whose Open 60 was suffering another bout of the same old keel problems. Remarkably at the half way point of the race to the south of New Zealand the leaders were just six miles apart. From New Zealand on was a nerve-wracking time for the competitors as they encountered ice culminating in Sebastien Josse's VMI colliding with an iceberg two days before Christmas. Going into the new year the 20 strong fleet is now down to 15 with today's retirement of Marc Thiercelin as race leader Jean le Cam closes on Cape Horn, just three days sailing away.

Back in October Carphone Warehouse millionaire and Nokia Enigma owner Charles Dunstone had come out of the closet about his involvement with GBR Challenge. However even this wasn’t enough to tempt the right people in and the British America’s Cup syndicate announced in November that they were to ‘suspend operations.’ We spoke to GBR’s Leslie Ryan about the implications of this.

It was 11 years in the coming but on the 13 November Irish boardsailor Finian Maynard broke the flat out sailing speed record. Over a 500m course Maynard averaged 46.82 knots in the Mistral conditions in Southern France, raising the bar by 0.3 knot from Yellow Pages October 1993 record. We spoke to ‘The World’s Fastest Man.’

There was some Volvo Ocean Race news during November with Mike ‘Moose’ Sanderson’ chosing his crew for his ABN AMRO entry. Meanwhile one of the Spanish 49er Gold Medallist joined the Telefonica team for an altogether different challenge. John Amtrup prised some information out of the Atlant team about their fourth VOR entry.



Ellen MacArthur was suddenly ‘code green’ at the end of November and we spoke to her before the off about ‘The big one’ beating Francis Joyon’s impressive record time for sailing non-stop singlehanded around the world set earlier in the year. There were photos of her as she crossed the line off Brittany and we also revisited the technical innovations on board that would enable MacArthur to handle the powerful trimaran.

Ellen started on 28 November and by 7 December had set her first record - crossing the Equator 14 hours faster than Joyon. Mid-South Atlantic Ellen revealed the power crisis going on on board her 75ft trimaran B&Q Castorama. 18 December and Ellen set her second record this time between Ushant and the Cape of Good Hope - 19 hours faster than Joyon. On 27 December Ellen followed with up with the record to Australia's Cape Leeuwin - 17.5 hours ahead of Joyon. Approaching the end of 2004 Ellen made great gains over Joyon as she was able to sail a much shorter course south of Australia. Today she is 2 days 11 hours ahead.

Meanwhil on a romantic note at the other end of the Southern Ocean one of the Global Challenge crews proposed to his girlfriend (who was on another yacht) while rounding Cape Horn to starboard.

Michael Coxon was annointed as the NSW 18 foot Skiff Champion and a couple of weeks later it was 19 year old Jacqui Bonnitcha that piloted her skiff Rosemount to a double victory on Sydney Harbour.

America’s Cup sailor Andy Green started his new column on TheDailySail in December, in his first installment he gave us his views on the Valencia Acts.

As Christmas drew nearer the majority of the Sydney Hobart fleet were limbering up at the Rolex Trophy series on Sydney Harbour ( photos). The class winners were announced in the 196 strong dinghy sailing championships, the Sydney International Regatta. Things however were proving to be a little more difficult over in waters off Adelaide where the Cadet Worlds were about to commence. Just 5km north of the Adelaide Sailing Club was the scene of a fatal Great White shark attack on a wake boarder just the week previous.

Paul Henderson retired as President of ISAF and Andy Rice spoke with the man about what he had achieved during his tenure. We also got the views of the new man at the top; Swede Goran Petersson (part one and two). As Petersson says: "I welcome suggestions, ideas, whatever that could improve sailing. One way would be to read your site…I read all the important magazines". Quite so.

As we head rapidly towards the New Year we would like to say a big thank you to all our readers and contributors. And most of all to the sailors out there who give us so much to follow and write about. Roll on 2005!