0 knots past Beachy Head!

James Boyd recounts part two of his delivery trip on the 60ft trimaran Gitana XI

This article follows on from yesterday's here .

19:50. The chopper is back again and the crew once again assume the position: sunglasses on, imaginary knives are clenched between teeth, sheets are held in a meaningful way despite being jammed off. Remember one hand for the bloody boat! Back down below, during one lurch I do a dramatic slow motion back flip complete with arms doing a cartoon-style backstroke. I've been tripped up by the box of safety gear - how ironic. Fortunately nothing broken and besides a loud crashing sound I don't think anyone witnessed it. I may have to own up to having snapped off a small carbon fibre flange which I later discover is a support for the removable chart table.

Once the chopper has departed Ronny sets about his job list - fix carbon flange broken by clumsy errant journalist, fix companion way door which keeps sliding across.

2000 and we are heading WNW. We are doing 20 knots in a most casual manner. It really doesn't feel like it. This is the case up to 30 knots Fred tells us later. Beyond that and you have to work hard to gain every knot. Suddenly it all sounds very quiet down below in the main hull - this, it slowly dawns on me, is because we are out of the water officially main hull flying for the helico.

2100 Darkness has fallen. Generator on charging the batteries is otherwise disturbing a perfectly peaceful night at sea. We're on port tack under solent and reefed main. Gitana XII is down to leeward. We have passed Ile de groix. There are some interesting hissing noises coming from up forward. We tack to avoid Les Glenans, the islands off Lorient famous for its sailing school. The wind is forecast to go south. The boat trembles and sheets slap the deck as we tack, the sails distinctly tugging at the hull, faster faster as she lurches back to life.

2150 we tack back towards the Glenans. The wind has dropped off as forecast prior to the shift and we are back to motor sailing. The ignomy of it! Ronny has knocked up some boil in the tin food - lardons with lentils, eaten directly out of the hot tin. There are no dog bowls here thank you. Instead I later discover small plastic storage containers are used in preference. These have lids.

2230 still motor sailing. Course 320 to get us past the Glenans. Otherwise a fabulous evening. We are steering towards a crescent shaped moon, its reflection shimmering on the water....

"Guess I picked the wrong 60ft trimaran delivery trip to give up smoking," I hear Philip Marlow say. In the high octane world of the 60ft trimaran, all the crew smoke. Most impressive is Frédéric Guilmin who rolls his own on a boat where the apparent wind across the deck is regularly 30 knots. Fred 2 is even able to roll his own while on the helm doing 28 knots - I feel a new role model taking shape.

2250 Back down below after much frustration with the satphones, Fred 1 has just successfully pulled in a GRIB file and this confirms it being a 'glass out' for the next few hours but then the wind filling in soundly from the south. The crew disappear off to different corners of the 'accommodation'. Ronny, the action man on board, is in the coffin bunk directly beneath the cockpit, Fred 2 in the top bunk by the chart table. Time to get some zzzzzs too maybe and wait for proper trimaran conditions due in the morning (20-25 knots forecast)

0100 and we're approaching Pointe de Penmarc the wind fills in from the south as forecast. TWS is something like 16 knots, and we are suddenly making 18 knots, the engine now off. This is good as it means we will make the Raz du Sein with the wind and tide.

0130 - Jeez we are hauling the mail now: flat water, big genniker, 15 knots of wind, 20 knots boat speed. Oh why is it dark? Not a lot to do other than sit around and smoke. The ride is smooth, the boat feels like she is fully pumped. It is impressiely dry on deck, the foil down to leeward doing its job. Feels vaguely like we are on a 60ft x 60ft Moth. This leeward foil is very important as both this and having the ability to cant the rig to weather helps lift the leeward float out of the water not only reducing drag but also the tendency to bury and trip over the leeward bow. It is flat water admittedly but not once do we come vaguely close to burying the bow.

0200 Due east of Point de Penmarche

0300 Suddenly from the relatively smooth ride we'e been having it becomes a bit like driving off road, fast. This would be us passing through the turbulent waters off the Raz du Sein. We gybe. We are back to 18 knots of boat speed in 14 knots.

0310 And suddenly it's all back to normal again, back on motorway slick tarmac. We gybe back on to port.

0400 Wind is still picking up. Boat speed is sitting on 27-30 knots. The volume and sense of urgency in the cockpit goes up. Flat water - what a ride! There are an odd sounds from the daggerboard, but otherwise, cool, raw effortless speed. Boat speed is now regularly 32 knots and peaks at 34 on the GPS with the tide. The boat is moving around a little more, but it is far from terrifying. One wonders what speed we would be doing if racing? The passage between Ouessant and the French mainland has never felt so effortless

0530 Passing the north coast of Brittany. Boat speed generally down to 25 knots with occasional bursts into the 30s in gusts. There is a howling gale of apparent wind on deck. Anyone sceptical about the slot effect should stand to leeward of a 60ft tri main sail at this speed - it is literally staggering. Fred 1 is again steering. A grey dawn is slowly breaking. The speedo read out, apparent wind and sound of water passing the main hull are the only indicators of how fast we are going. We are still sailing in flat water. 10 years ago the boat would have been engulfed in a ball of spray at this speed, but the advent of the curved foils in the floats means that the leeward float no longer buries its bow and tonnes of water no longer get hurled back at the crew. Saying this there is still spray and random high speed water getting thrown around.

Southerly breeze of 15 -20 knots. Sadly this is forecast to drop off the further up the Channel we go. At this speed we should arrive in the early hours of tommorrow morning but sadly I suspect it will be a lot later.

0540 engine back on again for charging. Approaching Ile de Batz.

Sleep - there is no real watch system. Crew are on hand when they need to be eg: when doing 34 knots past Ouessant and sleep when they can ie now when we are on one long long gybe diagonally all the way across the Channel to Dungeness - despite us still doing 27 knots.

0905 Guernsey off our starbard side. Still making an effortless 23 knots, under reefed main alone to quieten things down. Nice sunshine. Fred 2 steering, merrily hand rolling cigarettes because he can.

1015 passing Alderney. The off road feeling returns as we pass through the Alderney Race. Oddly, because we are not fully pressed up there seems to be more motion and noise than before. Ronny has a coffee brew on.

1130. Due north of Cap Levi (east of cherbourg). The wind is dropping. Boat speed is below 20 knots. Sacre bleu! We get the staysail up, but when that proves still too boring we furl that up and unravel the Solent.. We get the big gear out of its bag and rigged up ready to roll. The wind comes left and we find ourselves on the wind in an easterly - not forecast. Boat speed around 18-19 knots in 12 knots of wind.

1215 Woow! Speed back up again and boat speed hovering at 28-30 knots. However too much excitement, so we change down again. Wind gone back to the right SEerly

12:30 Now we are under staysail and main. Back up to 29 knots

1300-1500 Guest roast beef journalist helmsman brought in causing wind to drop steadily to single figures. Reef in main thrown out. Sun still out. What's it like to helm? Steer 060. Comfortable, relatively effortless. Like Open 60s, 60ft trimarans are set up with minimal helm so that they can be steered by an autopilot with little effort. On the tri the feel is further removed by the cables connecting the three rudders. Fred tells us that if we were racing right now the rudder on the main hull would be flipped up and we would be steering from the leeward rudder only. I am tempted to see what the trim tab control does but resist this urge. During this period once they are satisfied I can steer in a vaguely straight line and am not about to capsize the thing I find myself alone on deck able to get that true Route du Rhum experience. Then headlines start popping into my head and I start keeping a keen weather eye for semi-submerged containers. Apart from 060 the only drama is having to come up to avoid a ship at the end of the westbound lane of the traffic separation scheme.

1445 21 miles due south of brighton, entering traffic separation scheme. 10 knots of wind.

1530 wind drops off to zilch. We stick on the iron donkey yet again and graunch it into gear. How long will it last this time? This is a bit like running out of fuel in a Ferrari.

1830 - nothing changed. A nice sunny day, still zero wind. Passing all the southeast coast of the UK landmarks. Beachy Head - top suicide spot, etc.

2100. Still no wind. With night fall the crew crash out in arbitary cycles punctuated by boredom food binges in between, sausage and a range of cheese roughly hacked into with sailing knife. At 5 knots the miles are ticking off to slowly under power now the tide is against us. I am reliably informed by SMS that a Contessa 26 motors faster. So funny.

2300 - good seafarers that we are we religiously stick to the north of the westbound shipping lane with much joking about Grant Dalton on Club Med, who during a delivery trip in 2000 was chased by the coastguard on the sea and eventually with a spotter plane subsequently picking up a £10,000 fine for crossing the shipping lanes at an all too obtuse diagonal. No, I definitely wasn't on board for that delivery trip.

0100 Wednesday - Still motoring, now at 10 knots with the tide we pass Dover at this time of night looking like the 'bridge' scene from Apocalyse Now. We pick our way inside of Goodwin Sands. Former merchant mariner Fred 2 scuttles between deck and chart table reading off lights and instructing the helm. Within MaxSea the electronic chart gives the ominous warning that 'depths may change'.

0250 FINALLY. Turning NNW just before North Foreland we pick up a slight zephyr of wind and we unroll the trinquette and we're off again albeit at a modest 10 knots. And 5 minutes later after the crew has begun to stir....the wind's gone again.Instead of taking Gore Channel hugging the north Kent coast which the chart indicates is scarily shallow, Fred 2 prudently sets a waypoint off the eastern end of Margate Sand and we take the Queens Channel.One forgets how littered with shallows the entrance to the Thames Estuary is.

0430 sailing again. Up to 15 knots: hurrah. A final burn in. With dawn we pass some unusual looking towers which ressemble beach huts perched on slightly skew concrete legs. These I later learn are Maunsell Towers, clusters of seven towers that were built in 1942 as army anti-aircraft gun emplacements. Originally they were joined by walkways. During the 1960s they became home to pirate radio stations including Radio Sutch, run by Lord Sutch of the Monster Raving Looney Party. Another was occupied by Paddy Roy Bates, where he set up the Province of Sealand and lived declaring himself HRH Prince Roy of Sealand.

0630. The Thames estuary is narrowing and the French are decidedly underwhelmed by the overall dinginess and squallor of this supposed great river. I have to agree with them as we pass an enormous refuse tip on the north bank followed by a giant scrap metal heap on the south bank. We pass a small anchorage and Ronny jokes about what a nice place it would be to keep a boat here. The whole passage up the Thames is relentlessly industrial and not even modern industrial. The scene appears to have changed very little since the 1950s.

0730 Under full main and solent we sail under M25's Queen Elizabeth 2 road bridge. Up top there is of course a traffic jam.

0830 We drop the sails and put on the engine before passing through the Thames flood barrier. An impressive structure this would be if anyone bothered to clean its otherwise impressive metal cladding. Finally we get the first signs of the modern metropolis. 1960s council planned architect gives way to apartment blocks with penthouses. Eventually in the distance we can see the pyramid top of Canary Wharf and before it the Millenium Dome and what Ronny thinks are the cranes the builders forgot to remove. So funny.

We have finally arrived in 21st century London. The Gitana RIBs come out to meet us transfering mooring lines and large fenders. Fortunately Graham Tourell, Mike Golding's right hand man who is involved in the shore side operations has managed to persuade the lock keeper to let us into Canary Wharf despite the low state of the tide. Fortunately the lock was originally designed for commercial shipping and can cater for our bizarre craft with its 60ft wide beam. We have beaten home our sistership Gitana XII, which we haven't seen since our first night at sea. The only boat to arrive before us is the red hull of Sopra Group. This is currently being campaigned by Figaro and Open 60 skipper Antoine Koch, original skipper Philippe Monnet only having recently finished serving a term at Monsieur Chirac's pleasure due to numerous drink driving offences.

Since leaving on Monday early evening we have covered the best part of 500 miles. Aside from being becalmed far too much the sensation of high efficiency and effortless speed - if there is more than 5 knots of wind you are immediately sailing at double figure speeds, is, to use a Mark Turner expression - awesome. While we remain to be convinced that the MultiCup format that excludes the shorthanded races will result in a successful future for the class what is certain is that these boats are far too special simply to disappear.

I would like to thank the Gitana crew for tolerating a roast beef on board their fantastic sailing machine.

More pictures on the following pages...