Bonduelle retires

Sill keel trouble forces le Cam to withdraw from The Transat

Following the withdrawal from The Transat yesterday of Roland Jourdain’s brand new Open 60 Sill, this afternoon her sistership Bonduelle has also been forced to pull out.

While the withdrawal of Sill was disappointing for Jourdain, the decision for Bonduelle skipper Jean le Cam has been more traumatic still. Sill was forced to pull out of The Transat after experiencing severe cavitation problems with her keel, that even the fitting of a newly cast keel bulb last week failed to solve. In contrast Bonduelle has retired despite to date having experienced no keel issues.

“We never had a problem with Bonduelle, but exactly the same boat did have a problem, so we don’t want to take the risk.” commented designer Marc Lombard. “It is something that is very nasty and which never happens on sailing boats. It is something you find on aircraft bombers and is called ‘fluttering’. But we are not even sure it is exactly this problem because it is very difficult to analyse. We have checked on other keels made by Herve Devaux [who engineered the keel] and he has had no problems. We know the problem, we don’t know the cause."

With uncertainty over their keel’s reliability, Jean le Cam in conjunction with his sponsor French tinned and frozen vegetable producer, Bonduelle, announced their retirement from the Transat in order to allow them time to find a solution without endangering skipper and boat and to focus on their primary objective - November’s Vendee Globe.

Their decision comes despite Bonduelle winning her first ever race, the 1000 Milles de Calais, just three weeks ago. The team point out that this race was held in light conditions and Bonduelle has yet to sail in the heavier conditions in which Sill experienced the severe vibration. Lombard says the "resonance vibration" taking place in Sill's keel occurs when the boat was sailing in excess of 20 knots. "We think it is something to do with hydrodynamics and something to do with the properties of the rigidity of the keel and it is something nasty between the Karman vortexes and the period of vibration in torsion of the keel."

Aside from the technical issues competing in The Transat was thought to be essential if le Cam was to comply with the qualification requirements for the Vendee Globe. Denis Horeau, the new Race Director of the Vendee Globe says that a new Notice of Race for the non-stop singlehanded round the world race will be published this coming Tuesday and will include details of the qualification procedure for his race. There is a possibility this will allow Sill and Bonduelle to qualify by sailing their own ‘race’ as was allowed for Javier Sanso and Bernard Stamm prior to the Vendee Globe four years ago.