Oryx Quest preview

We look at the form and the unusual course for Tracy Edwards' round the world race

Despite the difficulties it has had in getting itself born, the Oryx Quest is a breath of fresh air for offshore racing or more specifically round the world racing. There is an entirely new course and it is magnificent to see the new generation of G-Class maxi-multihulls, the world's fastest offshore boats, competing again rather than undertaking records, although a shame that this has caused a rift with Bruno Peyron the originator of the class and who in our opinion (and born out by his current performance in the Southern Ocean) currently has the fastest of this breed with his catamaran Orange II.

Given the 11th hour nature of how the Oryx Quest came together, the line-up is small with just four boats, but the four that have made it across the start line are all very differing designs and we should be in for a reasonably interesting race. The acid test as always was could we predict the winner before the start? And the answer is no.

Tony Bullimore - Daedelus

Tony Bullimore's Daedelus we hope will end up at some deserving museum in due course. Now 23 years old this catamaran was designed by Nigel Irens and originally built at 80ft LOA for Canadian Route du Rhum winner Mike Birch. At the time Formule TAG, as she was known, was one of the world's largest and most exotic composite structures. In Birch's hands the boat achieved mixed results - a 24 hour record in the 1984 Quebec-St Malo race, a win in the poorly attended Monaco-New York race in 1985 and perhaps most remarkably a fourth place in the 1986 Route du Rhum when Birch raced the boat singlehanded! During her career in the 1980s Formule TAG was usually underfunded and never fitted with the wingmast she so deserved.

The boat made a name for herself after Peter Blake and Robin Knox-Johnston recovered her from near abandonment in the early 1990s, refitted her and set off on the first attempt on the Jules Verne Trophy in 1993 under the colours of ENZA New Zealand. Following a collision they retired from that attempt and the boat was shipped to New Zealand for substantial modification work led by David Allan-Williams, that included lengthening her hulls to 92ft and entirely replacing the bottom of both hulls.

Back in Europe the following year, Blake and Knox-Johnston set out once again and this time succeeded in setting a new Jules Verne Trophy time of 74 days 22 hours 17mins 22 secs. The boat was then sold to Tracy Edwards in 1997, rebranded Royal & SunAlliance sailed by some of today's more familiar names - Emma Richards, Sam Davies, Miranda Merron, Emma Westmacott, Helena Darvelid, Adriene Cahalan, Sharon Ferris (now racing on Doha 2006) etc. After setting a pacey Cowes-St Malo record at an average speed of 22.7 knots, they set out on a Jules Verne Trophy attempt and were ahead of Olivier de Kersauson's record when the boat dismasted some distance short of Cape Horn.

And then Tony Bullimore bought her. Underfunded but now 102ft long and sporting, finally, a 109ft tall wingmast, the boat dogged its way around the world in The Race in 2001 and has subsequently done little to commend itself. However since funding has become available for the Oryx Quest Bullimore and his team have done an excellent job refitting the boat. Daedalus has been refaired and painted, 1.2 tons of gear removed from on board, her engines and prop shafts have been removed, all the electronics and electrics have been replaced and she has a new suit of sails from Quantum in South Africa.

When we saw her in Qatar the boat was looking better than she ever has done. However this will not be enough to put her on the pace alongside the three newer G-Class multihulls.

Daedelus crew line-up is unusual in that Bullimore is only sailing with eight ( ENZA for example had 11) and her crew includes three Mini sailors - Mike Inglis, Ian Munslow and Nick Bubb. South African Nick Leggatt, who last year was on board Cheyenne for her round the world record is a watch leader along with Portugese sailor Gonzalo O'Neill de Mello. The other two crew are boat builder and multihull sailor Simon Redding and James Dunning, son of Chris.


David Scully - Cheyenne

Steve Fossett's PlayStation was the first of the new generation G-Class maxi-multihulls to be launched. Drawn by leading US multihull designers Gino Morrelli and Pete Melvin, the boat was built by Mick Cookson in New Zealand. Soon after her launch in December 1998 this 105ft catamaran demolished the 24 hour record setting a new distance of 580 miles, the first of a legion of records that would fall to Fossett and his new big cat.

First up was the Newport-Bermuda record of 38 hours 35 minutes and 53 seconds, then during the summer of 2000 the boat made two attempts on the west to east transatlantic race arriving just outside the record on both occasions. In the autumn of 2000 PlayStation was modified extensively her hulls lengthened to 125ft mainly through the addition of two enormous bows, making her the largest racing catamaran in the world - another title she still holds. The main reason for the modifications was a tendency the crew had found for the boat to pitchpole.

In The Race in 2001 PlayStation was dogged with problems - first a broken mainsail that forced them to make a 48 hour pitstop in Gibraltar and then a broken daggerboard just south of the Equator. Fossett made the call to retire and the boat about turned and headed for the States.

Autumn 2001 and the crew appeared to have PlayStation's early teething problems ironed out when they completely demolished Jet Services V's transatlantic record time of 6 days 13 hours and 3 minutes with a new benchmark of 4 days 17 hours 28 minutes and 6 seconds (read more about this here). There followed through 2002 and 2003 a record breaking rampage around Europe setting new fastest times for the round the Isle of Wight, Cowes-St Malo, the Fastnet race course, Plymouth to La Rochelle, the Transmed from Marseilles to Carthage, Round Britain and ultimately the Route of Discovery passage from Cadiz to San Salvador before returning to Europe at the end of 2003 to prepare for the big one...the Jules Verne Trophy.

In fact when PlayStation, now called Cheyenne, set off on his round the world record bid on 7 February 2004 Fossett had been unable to reach agreement with the Jules Verne Trophy Association on the necessary fee to join their club and as a result he and the crew ended up racing to get the non-stop round the world record time in the eyes of the World Sailing Speed Record Council. Nonetheless they made it round the world in a new record time of 58 days, 9 hours, 32 mins and 45 secs significantly faster than the 64 days 8 hours 37 minutes 24 seconds of previous record holder, Bruno Peyron's Orange 1, and faster than Oliver de Kersauson's Geronimo, the present JVT holder - on a fractionally longer course than the Jules Verne Trophy (read more about this here).

At this point it was job done for Steve Fossett and his record breaking career on the high seas.

Over last summer the boat had some repair and refit work carried out to her as a result of her round the world voyage. It was only on 26 December that Cheyenne's boat captain and watch leader David Scully got the call that Fossett had finally reached agreement with Tracy Edwards to enter Cheyenne in the Oryx Quest, although due to his aviation record commitments he would not be sailing hiimself. Thus ensued some frantic phoning around to muster a crew together and with no time to sail the boat out to the Gulf, it was put on a ship from Rotterdam to Dubai.

Sailing with Scully are a mixed group of sailors from Dutch meteorologist and navigator Wouter Verbraak, to old Maiden II crew Greg Holman and the well travelled Herve Jan. Unusually the boat has some seasoned Volvo sailors - none to our knowledge with any big cat experience - in the form of Gordon Maguire, Jim Close, David Rolfe and Herve Cunningham. Then there is Gerard Navarin (who sailed across the Atlantic with Hans Bouscholte on a beach cat) and British Mini/Open 50 sailor Alex Bennett.

Fortunately there is a lot of offshore experience on board, but a majority of the crew don't know this boat well, nor will they initially know the peculiarities of sailing the world's largest racing cat.


Doha 2006 - Brian Thompson

Originally Grant Dalton's Club Med, this Gilles Ollier & Associates designed and built 110ft catamaran was the first of three sisterships to be constructed for Bruno Peyron's The Race in 2001 and sadly the only one to be competing in the Oryx Quest. During Dalton's tenure the boat set a new Route of Discovery record from Cadiz to San Salvador and also broke PlayStation's 580 mile 24 hour record, taking the new benchmark up to 625.7 miles (this seems funny now with Orange II racking up repeated 680 mile days in the Southern Ocean).

Dalton of course won The Race in her, although this was largely thanks to the boat building skills of Neal MacDonald and Jan Dekker who managed to keep her wheels from falling off.

Then in February 2002 Tracy Edwards announced that she had bought the boat and installed many of her old Royal & SunAlliance crew on board, but also this time with a smattering of blokes, including British offshore multihull virtuoso Brian Thompson.

The first real coup for the new Maiden team was to notch up the 24 hour record when over 12-13 June 2002 they sailed 697 miles (later ratified by the WSSRC to 694.78 miles) breaking Steve Fossett's 687.17 mile record. Then in September they broke the Round Britain and Ireland record setting a new time of 4 days 17 hours 3 minutes and 23 seconds, although Steve Fossett was soon to reclaim 'his' record just a month later.

Then, as Tracy Edwards' sorted out her financial woes, the boat was left to stand in Ocean Village the weed growing on her until she was delivered to Qatar in the build-up to the Oryx Quest. Maiden II, now renamed Doha 2006 has been sold to a mystery owner and in just over a month an ambitious refit was carried out to the boat. In Doha the week before the start the entire crew was hard at it still, screwing bits back on. However she has a new sail wardrobe and the replacement daggerboard made it out of customs just in time for the start. The engines and prop shafts have been whipped out and replaced with generators removing considerable weight from on board. For more information on the refit - see our interview with Brian Thompson.

Doha 2006 has the supreme team when it comes to crew. The line-up includes two 60ft trimaran skippers Thomas Coville and Karine Fauconnier, Fauconnier's loyal no2, Damian Foxall, and serial multihull round the worlder Jacques Vincent. Among the original Maiden II crew are the Antipodean double-act of Fraser Brown and Mr Sailrocket Paul Larsen, plus rigger Andy Meicklejohn, Sharon Ferris and Stan Delbarre. On the bow is former djuice dragons bowman Jonas Wackenhuth, while down at the chart table is Will Oxley who will shortly be joing Grant Wharington's Skandia Volvo team. While it is good that Thompson has kept two women in the team, it is a shame not to see his former co-skippers Adrienne Cahalan and Helena Darvelid on board.


Geronimo - Olivier de Kersauson

Geronimo is the only maxi-trimaran in existence [although at some point to be joined by Franck Cammas' new Groupama III) and the only trimaran in the Oryx Quest. Designed by Marc van Peteghem and Vincent Lauriot Prevost, the most profilic designers on the ORMA circuit and built by Multiplast, she is also the newest boat in the race, launched in July 2001.

To date the boat has predominantly been used by her enigmatic skipper Olivier de Kersauson for making attempts on the Jules Verne Trophy. His first in Geronimo was in February 2002 when she was forced to turn back with steering problems, meanwhile Bruno Peyron succeeded in getting around the world in a new record time of 64 days 8 hours 37 minutes, more than a week faster than de Kersauson's previous record and the first time the Jules Verne Trophy had been successfully sailed in one of the new generation G-Class multihulls.

11 January 2003 and Geronimo set sail again and, despite a fight with a giant squid off Gibraltar, by the time de Kersauson and his team were crossing the Pacific Ocean they were three days ahead of Peyron's record. In one of the most soul destroying moments in offshore sailing their passage up the Atlantic was dogged by light winds and she eventually finished in just over 68 days.

A year later and Geronimo set off again on 8 February 2004 and on this occasion managed to set a new Jules Verne Trophy record time of 63 days 13 hours 59 minutes, although this was surrounded in some controversy as her time was faster than Orange's, but almost five days slower than the time Steve Fossett had recorded around the world just three weeks earlier.

Since then Geronimo has been turboed with her wingmast adapted so that it can be canted by +/- 8 degrees like the ORMA 60ft trimarans. The boat also has a new suit of sails.

A rugged old sea dog, de Kersauson, known in France as L'Amiral, has probably covered more miles offshore on a sailboat than any man alive, certainly in trimarans. Traditionally he sails with his two watch leaders Didier Ragot and Yves Pouillarde, but Pouillarde has stood down on this occasion. With the exception of Mini sailor Arnaud Boissière and Rodolphe Jacq, the 2002 Transat AG2R winner, the rest of his crew are relative unknowns although many have sailed around the world with de Kersauson before and de Kersauson is big on training, thinking nothing of popping out in the Atlantic or round the British Isles for a week or ten days at a time.


So who will win?

Our money is on Geronimo, simply because the boat is the only one taking part in the Oryx Quest with a high degree of preparation and because the trimaran with lower wetted surface area should be able to hold her own in the Southern Ocean and prove less draggy in the Indian Ocean with her three hulls and particularly with her new canting wingmast.

However the race is likely to be close with Brian Thompson and his highly experienced crew on Doha 2006. Provided her crew don't break her, we can expect to see Cheyenne coming into her own as her crew get to know her.


AOB

Compared to The Race, the rules for the Oryx Quest are slightly less stringent. For example there is no requirement for the boats to have engines. Race Director Alan Green explains that this came about following a trip to see Gilles Ollier, Yann Penfornis and the team at Multiplast.

"Gilles said ‘please don’t have them’," Green told us. "So we asked why, because it seems obvious to us if you have to turn around to pick someone up you need propellers. And he said ‘what the skippers have said is that actually the propellers make the boats more dangerous' and he showed us the underbody profile of one of his boats and the slipstream from a cavitating propeller stuck down in the water and he said at the speeds these boats are going at the cavitation caused by a propeller impinging on the rudder blade makes them uncontrollable and they are difficult enough to handle as it is.

"When the boats are in heavy weather tramping along like mad if you turn them round and try and bring them up, in heavy conditions you would need huge power and essentially what the boats have got are little more than parking motors and they would be of virtually little use. They are not designed as motor vessels and therefore not surprisingly the normal sized motors in them don’t have the capability of doing anything in heavy weather. In moderate or light weather the boats are much easier to sail and all the skippers are confident they can sail to pick people up."

Aside from this there are the unique logistical headaches of organising a round the world yacht race starting and finishing in the Middle East for the first time. During Geronimo's delivery to Qatar she was stopped by an Iranian gunboat. Alan Green says that since then they have made representations to the respective embassies of the countries they pass the Gulf but the Race Committee were also considering including in the rules a contingency if a boat was to be stopped during the race. "If for example a boat was arrested by an Iranian gunboat for sailing too close to the coast when there isn’t an understood reason for that the Jury would consider redress, which doesn’t come under normal redress rule, but then a majority of what we are doing in this race doesn’t come under ISAF rules."

Writing the Notice of Race and Sailing Instructions for the Oryx Quest has proved quite a handful for Green, not least because there is a lot at stake - $1 million in prize money.
"The Jury Chairman and I and other are coming to the conclusion that we need to put together a very simple, straightforward set of racing rules for this type of event. When you look at the Notice of Race and Sailing instructions we have had to go through so many of the rules and alter them, mainly on details because the rules cover inshore round the buoys regattas and inevitably the rules set is designed for a sort of daysailing regatta series, whereas these are so different that I think that we should go back to the drawing board just like the board sailors that got their own rules."

He is specifically referring to touching marks and starting procedures, where for example a large spectator fleet comes bearing down on the race boats immediately after the gun goes and it is dangerous for a boat to return and restart.


The course

One of the delights of the Oryx Quest is the course - round the world, but not starting in the Atlantic. This is the first time an offshore race and certainly a round the world race has started in the Gulf and there are a wealth of new challenges for the crew to contend with, aside from Iranian gunboats, such as the Indian Ocean.





In the Gulf the wind tends to be northwesterly backing to the west as the boats approach the Strait of Hormuz. The course takes the boats north to avoid the bulk of the oil rigs located off the UAE coast. They then have to leave Sirri Island to port - this is in Iranian waters and according to the Global Security website in the mid-1990s was home to Silkworm anti-ship missiles as well as a cruise missile.

Once through the Straits of Hormuz there are no waypoints until rounding Cape Leeuwin. The great circle route takes the boats around 150 miles off the coast of India and riht through the middle of the Maldives lying in a north-south chain off the west cost of Africa.

A potential hazard to the south of India is wreckage - trees, houses, etc - from the Tsunami drifting out to sea.

There is also the worry of encountering hurricanes as the race passes through the Indian Ocean, both outbound and inbound, in the cyclone season. Historically the cyclone tracks in the Indian Ocean indicate they are much more prolific south of the Equator most starting exactly on the great circle to Cape Leeuwin.



South Indian Ocean cyclone tracks in 2004

"At the time they are crossing there is a statistical probability there might be one, two three or four in the whole area," says Alan Green of potential to encounter cyclones. "When we were course setting and discussing this with Tracy we could have said, like the Irishman asking for directions, 'if I was going to start sailing around the world, I wouldn’t start here'. We reasoned that nowadays there are excellent warning systems and the boats have better satcoms than many ships and their jobs is to watch the weather and they will be studying it probably more closely than most ships will and the boats are capable of high speed and they have got the speed to move sensibly with the weather whereas most monohulls wouldn’t have the capability to do anything about it."

As in the Atlantic the Indian Ocean has a Doldrums area between the northeasterly trades north of the Equator and the southeasterlies south of the Equator. How this behaves we will find out when the boats return. Tactically the crossing of the Indian Ocean is interesting because, exactly like sailing south in the Atlantic, the ideal course is southeast, but this is directly upwind so once into the southern hemisphere we can expect to see the boats hightailing it to the Southern Ocean upwind on port tack. According to Doha 2006 navigator Will Oxley some sample routing he ran before the start of the race showed that it might pay to sail due south to get to the Southern Ocean. "There is a very good chance that you come around the corner closer to the Kerguelens than to Cape Leeuwin."

Once into the Southern Ocean there are no waypoints to keep the boats north away from ice, otherwise it is business as usual until Cape Horn. Looking at past Jules Verne Trophy attempts where there are also no limitations in the Southern Ocean, boats rarely drop below 50degS until they are well into the Pacific and heading down towards Cape Horn. And this we can expect to be particularly true in this race following the large number of iceberg sightings in the Vendee Globe.

After the Horn instead of forging on towards the Cape of Good Hope across the bottom of the South Atlantic the course takes the boats some 1,250 miles north to a turning mark of Lobos Island around 5 miles off Punta del Este, Urugary. The reason for this is ice - the iceberg limit in the South Atlantic is the furthest north in the Southern Ocean with bergs aplenty calving from the Weddell Sea.

In his research for setting the course for the Oryx Quest Alan Green ended up taking the advice of the Senior Master of the British Antarctic Survey.

"There is no recent accurate decent survey available anywhere. I got the latest climactic charts from the Hydrographer and I thought good. Then I tracked down the people who originated the data and I said 'on this latest chart we have these different limits, what does it mean?' And they said 'that data is at least 20 years old.'"

Hence the visit to the BAS ship, the James Clark Ross in Portsmouth. "The Senior Master of their fleet has been running British Antarctic Survey ships for 30 years and his first and second mates who have been doing it for 10 years or so. I told them the object of the race and said we need some advice, the idea of a waypoint - perhaps South Georgia. And they said there are some whopping great bergs north of South Georgia, so you will probably want to go further north than that. We looked at Tristan da Cunha but thought that would be a bit south too. The BAS guys suggested we could come round one of the islands off the Plate or even off Urugary and then the great circle to Mauritius would take the boat north of the worst of the ice."

Once across the South Atlantic the course gets no less treacherous as in theory the boats will round the Cape of Good Hope and then head for the southern tip of Madagascar (which they must leave to port). Off South Africa the boats will negotiate one of the most hazardous sailing areas on the planet where the Agulhas Current running southwesterly down the east coast of Africa meets the strong westerlies of the Southern Ocean. This is also a notorious area of encountering major flotsam.

Then is back to cyclone dodging in the southern Indian Ocean. Once again the boats will have to round the high pressure system here and it is possible some may give Madagascar a wide berth to avoid this and the Agulhas Current. And then it is back into the Gulf and more oil rigs and gunboats.

So how will it take? On Doha 2006 they are taking food for 60 days expecting the route to take possibly 55 days.

Unfortunately with Doha at 25degN the World Sailing Speed Record Council don't count the Oryx Quest as a round the world race under their definition. The course is around 23,000-24,000 miles depending upon how far south the boats go in the Southern Ocean compared to around 26,000-26,500 miles, for the Jules Verne (actual distance sailed rather than theoretical shortest course).