Brit update

From on board Artemis approaching the Azores yesterday, Brian Thompson described to us his progress

Following Ellen MacArthur's win in the Open 60 class of the Route du Rhum four years ago where she narrowly missed beating Michel Desjoyeaux home on his 60ft trimaran, so this yeaer the sole British representation in the Open 60 class is Brian Thompson on Artemis.

While Thomson is one of the UK's most experienced offshore racers when it comes to fast boats - he was a watch leader on Steve Fossett's PlayStation for her non-stop round the world record and then steered Doha 2006 to victory in Tracy Edwards' Oryx Quest to name but a few of his accolades, Thomson admits that it has been a whie since he's sailed singlehanded. To be precise - the 2001 Mini Transat.

At present Artemis and Thompson are in good shape. not leading the race but lying in fifth place 78 miles from Virbac-Paprec, close to Dominique Wavre's new Temenos. Prior to the start Thompson had told us he would be happy to be in the top seven - the beamy new Farr and Owen Clarke boats definitely looking fast in power reaching stability kind of conditions - provided they held together due to their newness - his Owen Clarke-designed Artemis (the former Hexagon/ Pindar) narrower and more of a weapon upwind, downwind or light reaching. In the event the two Farr boats have pulled out and the race is in the hands of three of the most potent boats of the last generation. "They are all very well tried and their skippers know their boats really well and I’d put my money on one of them winning the race," Thompson said. "They know exactly how to push it in heavy air conditioins and I am still learning about the boat really, the sails, the crossovers, what settings to have on the pilot, where it feels good, etc. This is the start of the learning process of singlehanding these things for me."

As to how Artemis compares with Ecover or Kingfisher, Thompson says that it is harder to sail - through Mike Sanderson's influence a lot of Volvo features have been introduced to it - the removable forestays, the gooseneck for the boom on the mast, etc and, of course, more sails. "There is a lot of stacking to do of sails and amanging all the kit on deck and quite a lot of sail changing too. So it is a good physical work out," quips Thompson.

While Thompson is best known skippering many of the world's fastest multihulls, he has also put in considerable time on Open 60s, having sailed many miles on board Ellen's Kingfisher and Mike Golding's Ecover, both boats related to his own Artemis. "I haven’t sailed on the boat that much compared to the other guys on the second generation boats, but she is very like Skandia. It is the same designer of that and Ecover. I haven’t really worked on the polars and all that sort of thing. I am going to do it by feel, feel the boat heeling over the right amount. There are still a few things we’d like to do," Thompson said. "We have changed quite a few items of equipment, nothing major, we’ve changed the electronics and the running rigging. We upgraded the hydraulic system."

When we spoke to Thompson last night, the noise of fast moving water passing carbon fibre hull audible over the satphone link, he sounded remarkably well, as level headed and as on the ball as he always is. This seemed incredible when he told us how much sleep he'd had. "The first couple of days I didn’t get any - the first day I got zero sleep because we were going out of the Channel in the fog with a lot of shipping and there was the stress of the first day of racing. The next day I got half an hour and I’ve been slowly getting more and more sleep. Touch wood there is no shipping around here, but I have my radar on all the time with the guard alarm on. That is one thing you do worry about on the continental shelf. I am getting sleep in half an hour bursts. I guess that is two to three hours a day with all the other stuff you have to do."



Surely he must be shattered? "I was shattered and I am still shattered at times. Today I had to gybe the boat, change sails and stack it. And I was well overdue for a sleep, but I have had a half hour nap and then half an hour in the bunk as well, trying to go to sleep. So that has been really good. And I feel quite perky now. As the race progresses I’ll get more into a sleep pattern and will feel 100% in a few days."

He hasn't hallucinated on this race - he says that only happened once when he was Mini sailing on the Mini Pavois when he didn't sleep for five days. On this race he dreamed that there were some Japanese tourists on board who were rummaging through his belongings, as if he wasn't there. "There is no one here for back up, but it often feels like there is someone else here on the boat," he says.

To date Thompson has been catching up on his sleep at night on the basis that the autopilot can do a better job than he can steering in the dark. However he has been easing himself in the habit of sleeping during the day.

For routing Thompson is one of the many people using the great French guru Jean-Yves Bernot, but is also working with his regular navigtor Will Oxley, who we understand is forcing him to eat. "I haven’t been that hungry so I have been forcing myself to eat whenever I can. I have been drinking lots. Will has been reminding me to eat. He did that on the TJV as well. It is something I can neglect doing. I always put doing things on the boat first, but perhaps it would be more sensible to look after myself as well."

On Wednesday Artemis lost some ground when the steering suddenly developed a problem. "We had very heavy steering and that was giving the pilot a really hard time. I’ve balanced the boat out a bit more. The rudders seemed to want to turn the boat to port whatever tack you’re on. So now I am starboard I have got heavy lee helm. When I am on port I have really heavy weather helm."

As to what is causing this Thompson can't say. It is a problem that has occurred before but they thought they had fixed it. "We suspect there is something wrong with the rudders. Probably they are a bit twisted or something. It is a little mysterious. We’ll have to see. I don’t know how much it is affecting me. It might be a small amount or quite a bit. It has got to knock something off our speed and it makes it hard work steering the boat at high speed."

At its worst on Wednesday Thompson had been forced to slow down but yesterday he had changed pilots - an exciting exercise when you're trying to do it singlehanded - and was slowly regaining confidence in the system. "Maybe after a rest it will be okay again. It is a bit of a palava having to switch off and drive with a bit of string and change the pilots, so while this one is working, I am very happy."

Other than that there have been a few small problems, but nothing unfixable. "It has been really well sorted out. I had a little trouble getting the jib top engaged in the halyard lock at the top so I spent about 20 minutes doing that, lying on the foredeck with binoculars playing with the rope to get it engaged. So I am pretty happy to keep it up there for a while."

At the time of our conversation last night Artemis was sailing at 18-22 knots in 22 knots with a TWA of 120deg. To date there has been some tactics involved with the race, but also a considerable amount of raw boat speed drag racing. "Strategy is quite important. We are not taking the rhumb line at all. We are pinballing from one weather system to the other a bit like multihull sailing, partly because these weather systems aren’t moving very fast. This low has been staionary so we zoomed up to it, got wind off it and now we’re zooming away from it. So there is a lot of strategy and working with Will in Australia and Jean-Yves in France - they are leaving me to concentrate on keeping the show on the road, keeping the boat working and sail it as much as I can." A Route du Rhum that takes the fleet through the Azores is something of a rarity and Thompson acknowleges that the weather in the Atlantic this last week has been "topsy turvey".

So is he surprised by how well Virbac-Paprec is doing at the front of the fleet? "It may be a bit of a repeat of the Jacques Vabre last year, when Virbac won it and had an incredible race with Sill while Bonduelle [now VM Materiaux] was 60 miles back the whole time. Virbac is a very quick boat and Jean-Pierre has really got the knack of sailing it. He has so much experience on the boat now. In the Vendee he had a lot of equipment problems which didn’t allow him to put in a good result, but with his experience in the TJV he knows his boat inside out now. And I think that makes a difference. It is incredible that there is only one new boat left in the race."

Aside from the gear issues and lack of sleep Thompson says he is enjoying the Route du Rhum, an event that he reckons will be a classic, with its large fleet and records set to tumble next week. "It is tremendous. It is obviously stressful out here, but that is the nature of it. You are pushing these boats pretty hard, but it is really enjoyable managing the boat and keeping it going at as close to potential as you can. It is good. The actual sailing has been fantastic. We should be beating our brains out at times. We have only had 12 hours of beating. Downwind to Guadeloupe - that is how it should be every year!"