Getting the measure of the beast

Ellen MacArthur on her shake down cruise from NZ and her imminent first record attempt

Ellen MacArthur docked in Newport, Rhode Island recently having sailed her brand new 75ft trimaran B&Q Castorama half way around the world from New Zealand, a reenactment of the passage she made exactly four years ago on her then new Open 60 Kingfisher. This time she sailed three up through the Southern Ocean round Cape Horn to the Falklands and continued on from there singlehanded.

"It was cool. It was a long way, but I knew that from four years ago. The boat was great and looked after me," Ellen told thedailysail. The singlehanded passage home was frustrating at times due to the lack of breeze, but Ellen appreciated having a prolonged amount of time on board, free from the normal myriad of external pressures, to acquaint herself with her new vessel and generally shake out the wrinkles. "Although it was tiring and I was pretty exhausted, I wasn’t dying to get off," she says of her state when she arrived in Newport.

In the event the job list is relatively small. The main halyard suffered from some chafe inside the mast. There were a few glitches with the comms (so what's new?). And they are still experimenting with the size of fuse for the kick-up mechanism on the main hull rudder. Otherwise Ellen says the sails are fine, charging is fine, etc.

At thedailysail we are developing a theory that boats with big bows are the way to go in the Southern Ocean certainly for multihulls, but why not a monohull too? Witness the comments of Cheyenne's crew following their recent round the world record voyage, where they never once put the boat down the mine, despite trying hard to do so. B&Q Castorama's bows may not have the imposing freeboard of Cheyenne's, but they are long and have substantially more volume than those of a 60ft trimaran.

"We pushed it in the Southern Ocean and I pushed it on the way up the Atlantic," says Ellen. "We very easily averaged 20 knots in some pretty big wave conditions. She pushes along relatively easily. We kept trucking even with loads of sail up and she still goes with less sail up."

Aside from the big bows on B&Q Castorama enabling her to be driven harder downwind in a seaway than a 60ft trimaran could be, Ellen says that they also have made the ride much easier. "She is pretty resilient. She is completely not like a 60. In the Southern Ocean the boat was incredible. You expect to get hosed and frozen all the time but I sailed the whole Southern Ocean with only a splash top." [But with bottoms as well one hopes]. The bows do go into waves, she adds but there is no sense of planting the boat or going down the mine.

It was only on the way back up the Atlantic that Ellen decided to head left to take the boat directly to the US ready for her first record attempt rather than bringing the boat straight back to Europe. She is now on standby for an attempt on the singlehanded New York-Lizard west to east transatlantic record.

The present solo record for this course was set by Franco-Swiss skipper Laurent Bourgnon on board his 60ft trimaran Primagaz in June 1994 with the impressively quick time of 7 days 2 hours 34 minutes and 42 seconds. During that extraordinary passage Bourgnon also set a new 24 hour passage record of 540 miles - faster at that pre-G Class multihull time than any boat had ever sailed fully crewed let alone singlehanded. As the outright solo 24 hour record, Bourgnon's time remains the one to beat.

The eastbound trip across the Atlantic will also give Ellen more opportunity to see how fast her new boat is and how hard she can push her singlehanded, something she says she hasn't full established yet despite her lengthy delivery trip. To date B&Q Castorama's 24 hour record stands at 430 miles. Whether Ellen is able to add 110 or more miles to this and break Bourgnon's 24 hour record will depend upon her confidence with the boat and whether the weather conditions allow it. Certainly with the assistance of the Gulf Stream the start of the New York to Lizard run is one of the best stretches of water to attempt a 24 hour run.

The plan is to set off on the transatlantic attempt when the weather is right sometime between early and mid-May. No doubt her peers at Offshore Challenges are hoping that the attempt will culminate in her arrival in Plymouth just in time for the start of The Transat, which her and Mark Turner's company are organising for the first time this year.
Since B&Q Castorama was launched in January, Francis Joyon has dramatically raised the bar on the singlehanded non-stop around the world record, also on the B&Q Castorama hit list. Ellen says she is confident that her new boat has the performance potential to better Joyon's time, but as ever with record attempts the outcome will largely depend upon the weather and assumes there will be no horrific breakage.