Trials of the Transat

Question mark over Lombard Open 60s participation in Monday's singlehanded transatlantic race

During the 1000 Milles de Calais race two weeks ago Sill retired when skipper Roland Jourdain became concerned about the integrity of his brand new Marc Lombard design's keel.

Launched less than a week prior to the start of that race Sill was delivered to Calais arriving only hours before the gun. During the trip to Calais in brisk conditions the crew had been aware of a severe vibration from her keel. The 1000 Milles de Calais was held in much lighter conditions but sailing up the Channel the crew's concern over the keel increased. They stuck a waterproof camera in the water to check the keel and then finally skipper Roland Jourdain dived overboard to check it more thoroughly and discovered some major cracking around the keel to foil join.

While Bonduelle continued racing ultimately winning the 1000 Milles de Calais, Sill headed for her homeport of Concarneau. The boat was hauled so the crew, along with designer Marc Lombard and Herve Devaux, responsible for the engineering of the keel, could assess the problem.

While the cracking between the keel and foil indicated there to be movement between the two. Both Sill and Bonduelle are fitted with canting keels, but the cause of the vibration was the keel foil twisting. The boats are fitted with carbon keel foils. While this is lighter than steel building a carbon fibre keel results in a keel that has a fatter profile. In our interview with designer Marc Lombard he says that they had tried to develop the keels for the new boats so that it would not be fatter than a steel equivalent.

To alleviate the problem within the two week period prior to the Transat start, the Sill team have tried to solve the problem by fitting a new keel bulb mounted further aft on the foil. They cast the new bulb using the mould from the first Sill as this was a conventional lead affair while the original keel on new Sill has some tungsten in it and they would not have been able to replace this in time.

Unfortunately when they tested the new keel at the weekend the vibration remained. Back to square one. Clearly the longer term fix will be to fix a beefier or a restructured carbon foil or one made from steel to reduce the twist. Mike Golding's original Ecover (now Conrad Humphreys' Hellomoto) was fitted with a carbon foil and a lead/tungsten bulb and has not experienced these problems.

Bonduelle meanwhile is believed to have attempted to achieve the same solution by removing lead from the front of the keel bulb and sculpting it on to the back. Again, this appears not to have worked.

As a result Sill have withdrawn from The Transat, due to start from Plymouth on Monday. This solution may not be possible for Bonduelle however. While Roland Jourdain doesn't have to prove his race readiness for the Vendee Globe, having competed in the last event, Bonduelle skipper Jean le Cam is not in this fortunate situation and The Transat is the last opportunity for him to gain the obligatory race miles and thus a place on the Vendee Globe start line.

For past Vendee Globes the organisers have been quite lenient on boats in le Cam's predicament. Four years ago both Bernard Stamm and Javier Sanso were late completing their boats and missed the Europe 1 New Man STAR but were allowed to hold their own transatlantic 'race' later in order to qualify. With Denis Horeau now in charge, the new regime running the Vendee Globe is not so lenient.

If Le Cam is to take the start line on Monday then he will have to beef up his keel foil and presumably the only way to do this will be to wrap it with more carbon fibre - not the fastest solution but at least one which should enable him to reach the other side and qualify for the Vendee.

At present le Cam and his team are in negotiation with both the Vendee Globe organisation and the Open 60 class association IMOCA to see if there is a resolution.

While all this is going on the crew on Philippe Monnet’s red trimaran Sopra Group have discovered a 3sqm area of hull on the outside of her port float where the core has sheared. Most state of the art race boats are built in layers of carbon fibre and epoxy resin with a sandwich core of Nomex (a lightweight resin impregnated honeycomb material) in between. It is the Nomex core in this area which has broken. It is believed that the damage may have occurred during the 60ft trimaran’s recent Grand Prix in La Trinite, or during the qualification for The Transat when the boat was hit several times by large cross seas.

To effect a repair the Sopra shore team must cut a hole to gain access to the inside of the hull - they will cut this hole into the less visible inboard side of the hull. They will then cut away the inner layer of carbon and the broken Nomex and replace it. The crew hope to have the damaged section fixed by Sunday.