Mr Round Britain

The Daily Sail catches up with Ecover crewman Brian Thompson, just embarked on his sixth loop of our islands

In sailing terms, Brian Thompson has been 'putting it about' a bit this year. He's been sailing his old Mini with her new and rather talented owner, Jonathan McKee, trimaran racing on board Karine Fauconnier's 60 footer Sergio Tacchini, most recently he crossed the Atlantic and was sixth on elapsed time in the Daimler Chrysler on board the S&S 80 footer Tempest and while all this was going on has been keeping his fingers crossed (like all of us) that the corporate world come to their senses and meet Tracy Edwards' demands for sponsorship of her Maiden II The Race/Jules Verne Trophy project.

Shoehorned into the middle of all this is a quick lap of the British Isles on board Mike Golding's Open 60 Ecover in the Calais Round Britain Race on which he is sharing navigator's duties with Miranda Merron.

Aside from Thompson's reputation as the UK's leading offshore multihull sailor and a man of unflappable cool - we have witnessed him drive the 75ft wide PlayStation at pace through a Round the Island Race start line on one occasion and his pulse seemed not to miss a beat - he has also unwittingly earned one for sailing around the British Isles a lot.

The Calais Round Britain Race will be Thompson's sixth lap. As part of Steve Fossett's crew on Lakota, he held the outright record for 10 years, only to better it himself last year as skipper of Maiden II. The record has since been swiped back by Fossett on the even larger PlayStation and now stands at 4 days 16h 8m and 54s. He has also sailed the course in the Royal Western Yacht Club's two handed race.

The only people to surpass his number of laps, believes Thompson, is Robin Knox-Johnston who has done it eight times and Olivier de Kersauson who in his secret squirrel way may have done this course around six times in the last year alone on training runs as well as a record attempt last year aboard his maxi trimaran Geronimo.

While the chances of a record set by a 125ft maxi-catamaran falling to an Open 60 are slim to non-existent, Thompson believes there is a good chance that the monohull record for the course will fall. The present holder is Alex Thomson who set a time of 10 days 18 hours in the 2000 RORC Round Britain Race.

He hopes they do break the monohull record as then this will make it open season for others to attempt it. "It would be great training for a Volvo campaign to do the Round Britain. There can’t be any courses with more changeable conditions because you are sailing on so many different compass headings." We are thinking...a Volvo Round Britain Race?

Despite the advantage of Open 60s attempting a record held by an Open 50, it will still be no mean feat, thanks to the conditions the boats are likely to experience. "We should be quite fast down to the Lizard, but after that it will be a lottery ticket," Thompson told us prior to yesterday's start, referring to the trough that the boats are currently negotiating. "Once we are free of that we should be fast up to the Shetlands.

"To be honest I would bet it could change completely because it is all so weak. I think we have to be opportunistic on this race," he says.

Their pace is certain to be a little more pedestrian than Thompson's previous trips on board the world's fastest multihulls. "Both times we did the record we got up to the Shetlands within 36 hours. On Lakota we did Southampton to Edinburgh in 24 hours..."

During his many laps of the British Isles Thompson has been around in both directions and he says neither is the better - it is all weather dependent. "Both records I did anti-clockwise. I think it is always so changeable - that is the great thing about the course: We could have gone the other way, but it just so happens we went clockwise."

In the Calais Round Britain Race, no routing is allowed. Ecover were working with French meteoroglist Pierre Lasnier prior to the start. Under race rules they also had to specify websites they would be looking at during the race - but unlike the Volvo Ocean Race they are not allowed to know the websites other teams are using.

Thompson walks the course for us: "One of the most difficult bits is the beginning, going down the Channel although I think it will be easier in this: We’re not beating into a light southwesterly against the tide. Hopefully we will be sailing out under spinnaker.

"If there is enough wind we’ll probably not worry about the tide too much and just try to stay heading for the mark. And then across the Irish Sea it should get increasingly light. We still should be in sight of everyone by the Scillies, which could be on the first morning, but certainly the afternoon.

"Then it is going to all get very shifty and tricky off the west coast of Ireland. By then the fleet would have split up somewhat - the first boat to the wind will get away a little bit. Then it is pretty straightforward up to the Shetlands. You haven’t got any thermal breezes. Down most of the North Sea it is the same thing - out into the open water. When you get down to East Anglia you will be right in on the beach off Great Yarmouth and you can get affected by light winds from there right down to the Thames Estuary from the land. And then the current is building up down to Calais."

Aside from this there are the obscales such as oil rigs in the North Sea: "you've just got to not run into them. They are quite spectacular though." Thompson also says that there is the potential to encounter fog on the course whenever the wind is southwesterly.

The boats will also have to negotiate the shoals from Great Yarmouth south. "We’ll be going outside the Goodwins on the course, which is not the round Britain course. On the east coast there are three extra waypoints - outside Great Yarmouth, outside Thames Estuary and outside the Goodwins and then there’s a turning mark outside of Dover."

Particularly hazardous are the salmon fishing nets off Ireland. Thompson says he has never encountered one, but there have been some famous episodes from others who have. Mark Gatehouse was seen off one by a gentleman wearing a balaclava and packing a shotgun during one two handed race. Perhaps most impressive was American Dave Scully (currently running PlayStation) who during one Figaro race was sailing along under kite, saw that he was about to run over a fishing net and deliberately broached the boat. With the keel out of the water, the boat slid over the fishing nets after which Scully sorted the boat out, righted her and carried on sailing (another boat he was sailing against had to sail round the fishing net..) (If you have heard any cooler tales of sailing heroics than this - we'd like to hear them)

Aside from this Thompson says racing round Britain "is like a 100 day races. It is always changing. You change the sails a lot and you have to stay alert."

From here...

Thompson is still hoping that the Maiden II will come off and there are rumours that things are happening again on that front, although we will not be printing anything about this until we see the signature on the contract.

He says he would like to do the Transat Jacques Vabre and this is likely to be on a monohull if it comes off. Mike Golding, for example, has still to fill this position on the new Ecover.

If there is one man who deserves a 60ft trimaran in the UK, then it is he. Aside from being one of the world's best trimaran drivers, he has sailed some 60,000 miles in them.

"A 60ft trimaran for the next OSTAR would be fantastic," he says. "It is just a matter of getting someone to pay for it. I think it is something that would get good publicity in the UK.

"England has always had great trimarans in the past - Apricot and Paragon started the fleet off. And before that there was Chay Blyth and Rob James who had Brittany Ferries and then Colt Cars. And of course Peter Philips in Travacrest Seaway...

"I don’t think there are any other British people talking about it."

Top quality boats are also likely to be available next year. There is a certain amount of musical chairs going on in the 60ft trimaran world with Groupama becoming available (Cammas is having a new boat built at the moment) and Bonduelle with Jean le Cam's move into Open 60s for the Vendee Globe.

We fantastise a little about who would be on the crew: "it would be good to get a lot of the Olympic team involved. I’ve got the experience of the boats and they have the youth and the hunger… We have many of the best Tornado sailors in the World.

"There’s a really good potential pool of sailors. For grand prix you need 10 sailors, so you could potentially have the best British sailors, rather than the French who have the best of the French sailors divided between 11 boats."

At present he is loosely part of the Sergio Tacchini team, although DaimlerChrysler commitments kept him out of the Sardinia Grand Prix which the boat won and the subsequent series in Marseilles. He hopes to return for the next trimaran grand prix in Fecamps on 29-31 August.

"I am very comfortable with that boat," he says of Fauconnier's tri. "It didn’t feel radically different to the sailing I’ve done before on Lakota."

If anyone has any potential backers for this or Tracy's maxi-cat campaign they can contact TheDailySail Sailing Sponsorship Worldwide Inc here.