5 years old today
Monday October 1st 2007, Author: James Boyd, Location: United Kingdom
Doesn't time fly? Today, 1 October marks the 5th anniversary of thedailysail.com (in fact including madforsailing, the predecessor to the present site, we are more than seven years old...) Apparently this is less in clown years.
Looking back over the last half decade, it has been a halcyon period in our sport, with seemingly every avenue, in dinghy, keelboat and multihull racing, expanding and evolving. Long may it continue!
Five years ago cunningly coincided with day one of the Louis Vuitton Cup in Auckland, a time when we had high hopes for Peter Harrison's GBR Challenge to place Blighty back on the stage as an America's Cup superpower. Unfortunately despite the best efforts of Ian Walker and the lads in Auckland, GBR Challenge didn't continue for 2007, but five years on, there is a stronger, wiser initiative in Sir Keith Mills' and Mike Sanderson's TeamOrigin. The afterguard line-up that has Ben Ainslie steering and Iain Percy tactician, seems like a fine wine that after around 10 years or so maturing is that only now ready to be drunk and there is a bullish feeling to the campaign - a case of where, not if it will be in the semi-finals, come 2009.

In the last five years of course the America's Cup has gone through a metamorphosis, being held in Europe for the first time since we Brits put up such a poor effort, against seemingly such slight odds (ie one black American boat), back in 1851. With the Swiss defender Alinghi and their organisational body ACM at the helm of the event now, one can level all manner of criticism, except that they have expanded the size of the event, now situated in its own purpose-built homeport in Valencia, to a previously unimaginable degree. Today the scale of the America's Cup rivals many of other major international sports events and within competitive sailing is no longer just a pinnacle, it is THE pinnacle.
Development has been equally impressive in big boat fleet racing. Five years ago the prospect of 24 TP52s, each costing 1.5 million Euros apiece and sailed by most of the top names in our sport, being on a race start line was inconceivable. The only precident was the old IOR 50 class and this bearly ever managed to muster more than 10 boats. And yet the TPs are today regularly seeing 20+ strong fleets and their bubble shows no sign of bursting. In the Med, the GP42 class looks set to repeat the popularity of its big brother. But equally impressive is that while these 'box rule' classes are expanding it doesn't seem to be at the expense of the one designs, in particular the ever popular Farr 40 or the newer kids on the block like the Swan 45 and Club Swan 42.

In offshore racing the last five years have witnessed the introduction and first Volvo Ocean Race in the new generation of Volvo Open 70s, with Mike Sanderson and his Juan K-designed ABN AMRO One clear winners in the last race. Since then the race has had its own revolution and for next year has a new route, sacrificing the Southern Ocean for a foray up to India and through Asia and with the race concluding for the first time in St Petersburg, Russia.

Without anyone really driving it, the 100ft super-maxi class has also come into its own with designers Reichel-Pugh churning out first a few maxZ86s but then a series of giant monohulls, such as Alfa Romeo and Wild Oats all primarily aimed at gunning for line honours in the Rolex Sydney Hobart race. They have been joined by other non-R-P maxis like Genuine Risk, Skandia and Konica Minolta and most recently by Mike Slade's new Farr-penned Leopard and soon by a new Juan K 100 footer, currently under construction at Cooksons in New Zealand for an American owner.
But the biggest developments in offshore racing have taken place in France. The Open 60 class has gone supernova in this latest Vendee Globe cycle, with an incredible 17 new boats expected to be on the start line next year, for a mixture of old hands such as Mike Golding, Loick Peyron, Michel Desjoyeaux and Marc Guillemot and new faces such as Yann Elies, Alex Thomson and Armel le Cleac'h. The 2008 Vendee Globe is lining up to be the greatest offshore race ever. The Open 60 calendar has seen Velux sign up as sponsor of the Around Alone/BOC Challenge round the world race with stops and the introduction of the new two handed non-stop Barcelona World Race.
Like the TP52s, another class seeming to have come from nowhere is the Class 40. Over the course of just four years this stepping stone boat between the Figaro and the Open 60 classes has gone from first tentative prototypes to the 30+ boats excepted to be on the start line of this November's Transat Jacques Vabre, with a mixture of keen amateurs to seasoned Figaro sailors such as Dominique Vittet and Gildas Morvan taking part in it.
Possibly the saddest news over the last five years has been the demise of our favourite class - the 60ft trimarans in France. From an impressive fleet of 18 boats on the start line of the 2002 Route du Rhum, only four boats today remain active, those involved with the class showing a supreme lack of ability to be able to recreate themselves and thereby survive. The ORMA class now looks set to be replaced by a 70ft one design trimaran.


While it might be gloom and doom in the ORMA 60s, the last five years have seen the advent of the Decision 35 and 28ft M2 catamarans in Switzerland, the Volvo Extreme 40s (now simply Extreme 40s) and the news that Russell Coutts and Paul Cayard's World Sailing League, unveiled earlier this year will be sailed in one design 70ft catamarans.
The realm of super-large multihulls and record breaking has also been particularly buoyant. In the last five years the record for sailing non-stop around the world has gone from 64 days 8 hours 37 minutes and 24 seconds, set by Bruno Peyron and the crew of Orange 1 in spring 2002, to the present record of just 50 days 16 hours, set in the spring of 2005 again by Bruno Peyron but this time on his new Orange II maxi-catamaran. Orange II's record is set to be challenged this winter by Franck Cammas' new Groupama III maxi-trimaran and ready for launch behind her is the new Banque Populaire IV 40m long trimaran for Pascal Bidegorry.
Meanwhile over the last five years there has been similar progress among solo non-stop round the worlders. In February 2004 Francis Joyon sailed his IDEC maxi-trimaran around the world in 72 days 22 hours, more than 20 days faster than the previous record and the following year this impressive feat was bettered by Ellen MacArthur on her purpose-built B&Q Castorama trimaran with a time of 71 days 14 hours and 18 minutes (faster than the record Olivier de Kersauson and Sport Elec set for the same course with a full crew only seven years earlier). This winter this record will once again be in the headlines when Francis Joyon and Thomas Coville match race each other around the world in their new 100ft trimarans.

Perhaps the most impressive records have been made fully crewed across the north Atlantic. In October 2001 Steve Fossett and PlayStation had set an impossibly fast new record of just 4 days 17 hours between New York and the Lizard, averaging 25.4 knots, but in July last year Bruno Peyron and Orange II reduced this time to 4 days 8 hours and then this year Franck Cammas and his new Groupama III lowered it again to just 4 days 3 hours.
The record we are still waiting to see demolished is the 50 knot barrier. Interestingly this could come from any of several difference quarters - from the radical L'Hydroptere, or one of the purpose built speed machines like Macquarie Innovations or Paul Larsen's SailRocket to some impudent foil-suited sailboarder?

Back in the days when we were madforsailing, our roots were in Olympic classes racing - the site was originally set-up prior to the 2000 Games in Sydney. Since then we have obviously had the Games in Athens, where Shirley Robertson managed to become the first woman in history to win consecutive Gold medals, Torben Grael won his fifth Olympic medal and Ben Ainslie his third - during his tenure in the Finn Ainslie has won an unprecidented four World Championships, a feat never previously achieved. A fleeting success story was that of American Paige Railey who after a blistering season in the Laser Radial, became the youngest woman ever to receive the Rolex Yachtswoman of the Year Award.
We are now lining up for the Beijing Games where the sailing competition is in Qingdao. While the prospect of light winds, tide and possibly even fog may not make for the most fabulous Olympics next year, the best piece of news over the last five years was Sir Keith Mills' success woeing the International Olympic Committee to bring the Games to London in 2012. The sailing part of 2012 will be held in the familiar waters of Weymouth, a venue where there is a better chance of conditions that allow sailing to be shown off to its best on the world stage.
The format of the sailing side of the Games has seen a new development in the present cycle with the introduction of medal races, where the top 10 from the fleet racing conclude with a final supposedly TV-friendly, double-points-scoring-to-keep-it-interesting, 'medal race'. The worry among Olympic circles at present is over what classes will be used for the 2012 Games as the number of sailing disciplines must drop from 11 to ten and the decision for which might go is being made by the same people who allowed the Yngling into the Games...
Over the last five years, the biggest stories in non-Olympic dinghy sailing have been the dramatic increase in popularity of some catamaran classes, in particular the F18 that regular sees 150+ at its world championships and one of the most significant developments in all of sailing - the advent of the foiling Moth.
In January 2004 lanky Australian Rohan Veal won his Moth Nationals, in the proces becoming the first person ever to win a dinghy event in a foil-born boat. While foilers in various guises have been around forever they had previously only been used in anger on speed sailers or large ocean racing multihulls. Veal proved that not only could he get his Moth to foil, he, with the help of FastaCraft's John Ilett, had developed equipment that was effective and reliable enough to work on all points of sail around a race course. Aside from the equipment Veal also developed novel techniques for sailing the boat such as heeling the boat to windward when going to weather.
Foiling Moths have since gained popularity over all over the world, but particularly in the UK where Olympic sailors such as Paul Brotherton and Adam May have joined the class and British sailor Simon Payne won the Moth Worlds in 2006. Techniques have continued to evolved with airborne gybes now mastered.
The last year has seen Rohan Veal get involved with Bladerider, a mass produced foiling Moth, an example of which Veal used to regain his Moth World title. As a company Bladerider live with the ardent hope that their boat will be adopted as a class in a future Olympic Games.
Hopefully over this time we've had our finger on the pulse of all the latest development and been able to convey this to you, our readers, faster and in more detail than you will find in any other media. We'd like to take this opportunity to thank you for your support and all our contributors and photographers around the world for their help in allowing us to put together thedailysail.com.
Best wishes
James Boyd, Andy Nicholson, Toby Heppell (find out who we are here).
Hamble
Latest Comments
Add a comment - Members log in