Race favourite

Prior to Monday start of the Transat, Mike Golding discusses his campaign and trends in the Open 60 class

Mike Golding goes into Monday's The Transat with what might be described as quiet confidence. Mid-week in Plymouth Golding and his new Ecover were ready to roll and he and his shore team were meeting to establish whether in their state of 'readiness' they hadn't failed to dot any 'i's or cross any 't's.

Since her launch last summer the new Owen-Clarke designed Ecover has scored a second place in the Transat Jacques Vabre, won the singlehanded return journey in Le Defi Atlantique and recently came second to the new Bonduelle in the 1000 Milles de Calais. Sill and Bonduelle both remaining in France to resolve their keel problems has cleared the field in The Transat and many feel that Golding now has the form boat.

In last November's TJV Ecover and Virbac were distinctly the quickest boats upwind and this bodes well for The Transat where this point of sail is likely to prevail in the early stage of the race at least.

"I think the aerodynamic thing is important. Some of our choices which seem odd are the result of a lot of research," says Golding of his yacht's upwind ability. "The combination of the daggerboards and the rig are big upwind features of the boat. We have three spreaders. On the face of it Bonduelle and Sill’s rig looks more aerodynamic but they have a very big cord and you have the deck spreaders training along."

While Sill and Bonduelle each have what appears to be an aerodynamically very clean wingmast and deck spreaders, but no spreaders on the mast itself, Ecover is fitted with a unique mast configuration where the masthead and shrouds effectively remain fixed while the mast, fitted with two sets of diamonds, can rotate thanks to the inboard ends of the main spreaders hinging.

Golding continues: "The weight of their rigs is a good few 100kgs heavier than us and so they have to have more lead in the bulb for the same power. Looking at Bonduelle and Sill I think we are still the most powerful upwind boat. They may have more sail area in some conditions, but we have more power." He points out the 'power' doesn't necessary mean more sail area, but a stiffer hull shape, etc.

If the older generation Group Finot designs were reaching and running machines par excellence and the new Ecover has better upwind potential, possibly at the expense of downhill performance, Golding believes the new Lombards lie somewhere between these two extremes. But he is only too aware that Le Cam and Jourdain are two of the most competitive solo sailors in the class which could make up for any shortcomings in the performance of their boats come the Vendee Globe.

In the Vendee, where racing can continue non-stop for more than three months there are so many variables it is possible that the winner could be an outsider, Golding says. "Conrad [Humphreys - who now has the old Ecover] could do well and we know his boat is quick. And for the Vendee in the south that boat clocks some miles - even last time when we started miles behind and I was unmotivated we took a lot of people. I used to measure myself against Desjoyeaux’s time [the winner of the Vendee] and it was only just in the Doldrums that I lost being in front of him, because they had a very fast north Atlantic stretch. That was the only thing driving me." Setting off a week after everyone else in tthe last Vendee Globe, due to his dismasted within 24 hours of the start Golding was ultimately on elapsed time fourth fastest around the world.

As a trend in the Open 60 class in this latest Vendee cycle Golding says that mast heights are increasing as is sail area. "Sail area is always good because you can take it away, but you have to think carefully about mast height. There is a crossover. We saw it very dramatically with Dominique Wavre [whose Temenos had the tallest mast in the last Vendee, but who's performance never shone]. Virbac is different because that boat was designed to have that mast. I think one of the reasons why the masts are going up, particularly with the classic rig, is that you need the extra mast height otherwise you can’t make the 10 degrees rule."

Under IMOCA rules Open 60s when static must not heel more than 10 degrees with their movable ballast (be it water ballast and/or a swing keel) deployed. Golding maintains the problem these days is not boats exceeding the 10 degree rule but failing to make it because they are too stable.

" Kingfisher had that problem. We started to struggle with the Finot, because we made so many reductions in the rig weight. The other thing is while it is fine having a very tall rig you do end up reefing very early and you end up dragging all that extra sail around. Our push wasn’t to drive the rig up. We are about 200mm higher than the Finot. Virbac is 2m taller. Bonduelle and Sill 0.5m taller. Pindar has a classic rig so it has to be big whereas we have gone for efficiency. It is not all about packing area."

While Kingfisher seemed to indicate that under the Open 60 rules a narrower than normal beam was quick, subsequent boats haven't progressed down this route and wide still seems to be fast says Golding.

With Sill and Bonduelle's retirement from The Transat so the biggest threat upwind is likely to be Jean-Pierre Dick's Farr-designed Virbac. " Virbac goes upwind very well but in a different way to us," says Golding. "She goes upwind sailing at a faster speed whereas we can take height. Trans-ocean it probably makes less difference. We have got pace upwind and I think we have pace on other points as well."

Having spent the last five years campaigning his previous Ecover, Golding says he spent much time time discovering the idiosyncracies of his latest steed compared to his old boat. To learn more during the recent 1000 Milles de Calais he sailed with designer Merfyn Owen and sailmaker Bruno Dubois. "Last year we were struggling to adjust to a different style of sailing you have to adopt over the Finot. You adopt a style and you assume when you step across that you will sail it the same way. There are things like when you load ballast - because this boat is so naturally stiff we don’t need to load ballast quite so quickly. So I was probably loading ballast prematurely. Oddly it felt right to do it but it wasn’t faster. So the boat goes from feeling very lively to feeling safe but it isn’t fast."

Over the winter the Ecover team have been carrying out considerable work to the boat as a result of the job list Golding and TJV co-skipper Brian Thompson returned with after the autumn races.

The principle change has been replacing the rig, maintaining the overall concept but refining the detail and for example modifying the pitch of the spreaders. They are keeping the first mast as a spare. Golding says he is pleased with the novel Ecover rig set-up. "The rig itself is perfect. It is a rock. It is very steady, very safe, stable, I don't have any problems with it going out of column when it’s rotated. The only problems we had were obvious ones on the TJV where we had chosen to not go with external blocks and have this sheave arrangement. So we’ve had to modify that and for our gennikers and spinnaker now we have got some rollers up there. It looks a bit cruisey but they are made out of titanium..."

Like Skandia, they have changed from fore and aft to lateral tracks for the headsail cars. "When we did the Transat we realised that there were different problems on this boat because it is a more conventional rig," recounts Golding. "With a conventional rig obviously you have a capshroud and an aft lower, and when you go outboard from the outboard track you want to always sheet through the rigging. So there was a lot of playing about with strops and snatch blocks and releading sheets. When I came back on Le Defi I ended up with every sheet on the boat led down one side of the boat, and still having to do a lot of trips to the leeward side to make adjustments. With the lateral tracks you can put the clew of the sail where you want it."

During Golding's qualifier for The Transat they broke their starboard daggerboard. While sailing in some big wave conditions they suffered a collision. The board didn't break then but waited until the sleigh ride home. "I was just reaching past Ushant and the boat took a very big wave, doing 26-27 knots, and I had a bit of daggerboard down to lift me round Ushant and it just snapped. I think it was a combination of the strike and the following day a bit of overload." Golding adds that talking later with designer Merfyn Owen he probably shouldn't have been using the board in those conditions to gain lift.

While Golding is ostensibly fully sponsored by Ecover to enter the Vendee he says they are still looking for additional funding to do the race 'properly'. "We are committed from a sporting perspective to do the Vendee, but we do need partners to come in alongside Ecover. Ecover is experiencing a massive growth but we have a contracted amount of sponsorship and we don’t go beyond that.

"It would be lovely to get a UK partner on board. It is great working for Ecover but it does seem slightly wrong that we are not supported in the UK. But we are finding it so hard. The market is improving in the sense that economic confidence is improving and people are more willing to talk. But it is very difficult turning it from talk into action. At the moment it is prime time for us. We are the top British team going into the Vendee and we do have a seriously good chance. As a property we have a lot to offer."

Outside of Mike Golding Yacht Racing, Golding has taken on some extra-curricula projects.

The academy

This spring has seen the creation of the Mike Golding Sailing Academy. While this sounds a little like 'Fame' it is a scheme Golding conjured up with Belgium sailing journalist Pit de Jong. Despite selling product in the UK Ecover is a Belgium-based company and the need was felt to put something back into the sponsor's domestic market.

"In Belgium there is very little supporting infrastructure to help people get on the ladder [of 'professional' sailing] and the sailors are really struggling. Belgium is unique marketplace - Pit was saying in Britian apparently 1 in 20 people know something about sailing and that's the same in France and Germany. In Finland it is 1 in 8 for some reason. In Belgium it is in 1 in 865, so you have a unique problem if you are trying to make the cut in pro-sailing. The idea of the Academy was to create a platform through Mike Golding Yacht Race where these sailors, who already had demonstrated tangible ability to get a project off the ground, we could give them some knowledge to jump to the next level."

The Academy was launched at the Belgium Boat Show this spring and has had little publicity outside Belgium. Despite this Golding says they have had more than 150 applications from countries as far afield as New Zealand and Japan. The original plan was to accept 10 into the Academy but ultimately they settled on 12. The sole Brit in the squad is Mini sailor Clemency Williams. A stipulation of joining the Academy was signing and adhering to a 'clean seas' charter encouraging those taking part to be environmentally aware.

The first 'module' of the Academy was held over two days in Calais prior to the start of the 1000 Milles de Calais. The time was divided in four with former Gill Marketing Manager turned sponsorship guru Liz Rushell running a session on 'getting sponsorship', while Golding gave one on 'project management' and the final two were handled by world sleep expert Dr Claudio Stampi.

The second module is to be held in October with the third after the Vendee Globe. "The idea is that these people are in contact with us and with each other. They will ask us questions and advice and they can follow our progress as a campaign as we approach and compete in the Vendee Globe," says Golding. "They perhaps know more than others about what is going on and in doing so they can hopefully pick up stuff."

Despite there clearly being a market for holding courses for bigger groups, Golding says that he wanted to keep the group small and more personal. "We’ll see how it goes and if we see some improvement then it would be encouraging to do more. Ideally I’d like to two of these guys to go on."

More photos on the following pages...