From the depths of the Southern Ocean

We speak to Alex Thomson about how his Barcelona World Race

Just over a year ago Alex Thomson was enduring every singlehanded round the world skipper's worst nightmare - having to abandon his boat in the depths of the Southern Ocean. Today Thomson has bounced back and not only has a new boat in his all black Finot-Conq designed Hugo Boss (see our full technical feature on the boat here) but is currently holding second place, one of five remaining boats in the Barcelona World Race.

Perhaps more crucial than anything for the British skipper is that after a Vendee Globe that saw his boom rip from the deck just short of the Cape of Good Hope and his rescue by Mike Golding in last year's Velux 5 Oceans, on his third attempt to sail shorthanded around the world Thomson looks set to make it through the Southern Ocean (everyone please touch wood firmly at this point...)

This morning at the 0600 update Cape Horn is 1382 miles away for Thomson and his seasoned co-skipper Andrew Cape, the duo having lost miles to race leader Paprec-Virbac II over the last 48 hours as they have encountered an unusual north-south orientated ridge blocking their path that has increased their deficit to 1050 miles at the latest polling. While they have been unable to prise through the ridge, since yesterday the depression to their west has caught up with them and yesterday afternoon Thomson reported that they were sailing upwind in 16-20 knots. "Not too bad a sea. Grey, fairly cold, not very exciting really."

With Cape Horn still around five days' sail away, the depression is set to roll over them in the next 48 hours and so they are keeping Hugo Boss further north than they might otherwise, hoping not to get caught in its centre. "We are still travelling slightly south of east at the moment. I’m pretty happy with where we are for now. Our current position and where things stand we are just trying to be safe rather than sorry," says Thomson.

Oddly, ever since leaving New Zealand the weather has continually kept them north, "the tropical route" as Thomson refers to it, compared to the race leader. "The depression that Virbac’s sailing in now - at one stage the routing showed that we would meet it and get in front of it and so we had to stay north for that," explains Thomson. "But we didn’t manage to get anywhere near sailing over the top of it. But sailing south would have put us in headwinds much earlier and if we were another 100 miles further south now we’d be properly upwind and struggling to get back to the north again. Apart from that it is much warmer!"



But the principle reason for their deficit on the race leader is that they were forced to make a pitstop in Wellington primarily to fix their rudders. On the majority of modern Open 60s the weather rudder can be lifted clear of the water to reduce drag, but the boats are also fitted with a fuse to protect the rudder in the event of a collision. Typically the fuse the rudders are fitted with is a sacrificial pin or rope downhaul, but on Hugo Boss they have a gas ram to manually raise each rudder and a bungy system to act as the fuse. "It is quite elegant, but it is just imprecise," explains Thomson, adding this was one of several items on board they didn't have enough time to test and refine fully prior to the start of the race.

Shortly after setting a new 24 hour record for Open 60s (a smidge under 500 miles on 7 December) Thomson says that alarmingly the rudders began to flip up of their own accord. "I joke that we hit a langoustine and it pops up, but you need to be hitting something that is going to cause damage to the rudder before it pops up and we also need to have a system of locking it down. In some ways it is better that you damage a bit of your rudder than lose your rig in a nasty gybe." As example one of their rudders popped up when the police boat was towing them into Wellington at 5 knots...

One can only imagine the horror of trying to press hard through big conditions in the Southern Ocean with a rudder that might at any time decide it wanted out from the chilly water. According to Thomson the result was two major Chinese gybes (listen to him recount these here).



Following the work carried out on her in Wellington, Hugo Boss now has rudders that are permanently down, the blades bolted through the cassettes, but Thomson says the kicking-up problem was only part of the issue. On Hugo Boss the rudder system is very similar to that of a dinghy - although a little bigger - with a fixed part of the rudder (the cassette) transom mounted on gudgeons and pintles and the blade itself rotating up aft (as opposed to some of the other systems where the rudder pulls up vertically).

"The rudders started making this horrible noise and upon inspection we found that the blade was moving inside the cassette significantly and it was wearing and making a horrible sound. And on closer inspection the cassettes were moving on the gudgeons and the gudgeons were moving on the transom. Unfortunately the lower gudgeons where they were moving are inside our aft ballast tanks, so unfortunately I had to cut the hatch on both tanks at one stage and go in there and tighten up those gudgeons. And when we got to Wellington our guys found that the bottom of the cassettes, the front end had cracked which was why the cassette was flexing and the pin that went through the cassette to the gudgeon had worn down. So there was no way we could have fixed it properly at sea. The boat steers differently now and we can sail with a bit of confidence."

Apart from the new Juan K-designed Pindar, which has yet to feel the heat of battle, Hugo Boss is one of the beamest of the large crop of new generation Open 60s and like most Finot-Conq designs (including the past four Vendee Globe winners) is a weapon reaching. "There is no doubt that we’re a good reaching boat. Contrary to what some people think, we haven’t pushed very hard at all even in reasonable reaching conditions," says Thomson. On this occasion we believe him! "That 500 miles we did in one day was some of the easiest sailing I’ve ever done. We never saw wind above 25 knots. The average wind speed was 23.5. So the boat is clearly quick in those conditions. We went past Delta Dore off the coast of Brazil and we were 1.5-2 knots quicker than her. So we can hold our own in more than 15 knots of breeze, but I don’t think we are as good all round as the Farrs. Any wind angle under 12 knots we are struggling against probably all of them and that is something we’ll have to address when we get home."

Potentially this doesn't bode well for the return passage up the Atlantic, but Thomson says even upwind in more than 12 knots they have legs on the opposition. "Getting through the South Atlantic high is where we’ll suffer a little bit. We are 1000 miles behind Virbac now, so we are not going to beat them to the finish on pure boat speed. We need a break in the weather that allows us to get a bit closer. I’m pretty confident that over 15-18 knots of wind upwind we are pretty untouchable."

While they have set a new 24 hour record for Open 60s, Thomson says that to date the top speed they've seen on the new boat is 29.5 knots, compared to 34.5 which he had out of the previoius Hugo Boss. "The boat doesn’t seem to have such big peak speeds, but to be honest I don’t really want to be on board when its doing more than 30 knots! Maybe I was pretty blasé with the last boat, but you can’t be with this. No way." While his previous 24 hour record was set in 35 knots, his latest was set in 23 knots and Thomson reckons the boat could average more than 25 knots in 30-35 knots of wind given reasonably flat seas. "It is just very easy to get caught out. If you get 2-3 knots more wind the boat starts to become quite uncontrollable and it is not pleasant at all."

During his tenure in the Open 60 class, Thomson has developed the reputation as a speed merchant, who pushes his boats to the limit and on occasion beyond. But aside from the physical constraints of handling the new much more powerful boat, on this occasion he also has the highly experienced Andrew Cape on board to restrain him. One of the yacht racing world's most seasoned navigators, Cape is a veteran of three Whitbreads/Volvos on Tokio, Toshiba and movistar and was a navigator with Alinghi for the 2003 America's Cup. He has competed in the Mini Transat and is also a yacht designer - in short the Lymington-based Aussie is a useful hand on anything that floats.



"I do believe that his place in the world is on a boat," says Thomson of his co-skipper. "We have a really good laugh - which is important I think. He’s been really good at tempering me. There have been times I’ve wanted to push harder and he hasn’t and it has been good for me to see that there are times to push and times not to push. We’ve sailed this race more conservatively than most people have and its proved fast."

Sailing with Cape has been a huge learning experience for Thomson. While Cape carried out all the navigation initially, now Thomson says it is more of a joint venture. "I’ve learned loads off him, not just on the navigation side, but from his experience in the Volvo. He’s done this so many times that he understands what is going to happen and what the right times to push are and when they’re not. There were times in this race that Virbac were pushing hard and going fast and we could see ahead that there was going to be a big slow down so there wasn’t much point in adding to the risk of what we were doing already. On that side he’s been very very useful."

In terms of life on board, Thomson says that they have been steering a lot - in fact almost all of the first half of the race, although this was mainly due to a problem with their pilots. According to Thomson, previously they had B&G's WTP2 race processor fitted but in Wellington another modification they made was to change to B&G's latest H3000. "Suddenly we have an autopilot which works properly and for the first time one which works on true wind angle. We pretty much steered most of the way to Wellington apart from when the pilot could be run on compass."

Since leaving Wellington they have been monitoring their helming performance versus that of the pilot and when the pilot does at least as good a job, they let it steer.

Thomson also says his idea of Hugo Boss' unique twin coachroof arrangement has panned out well. "If you are going to do any driving at all to be protected in this way is brilliant. You still get absolutely drenched by full-on green water coming over the top, but there’s things like your body is out of the wind, so you feel warmer and it has been nice to be able to stand up and it is nice to have a hatch that is way out to one side. When you are sitting in the cuddy you are well outboard. I think for the next boat we could develop it further." Next boat???

While nine boats set sail on the Barcelona World Race, Hugo Boss is one of only two new boats of the five that started still racing. A particular problem in recent Open 60 races has been dismasting - to varying degrees this has occurred on Pindar (twice), Artemis, Delta Dore, PRB, Aviva, Veolia Environnementand Hugo Boss' sistership BritAir. Thomson himself lost the rig on his previous Hugo Boss as he was delivering her back from Australia through the Southern Ocean in February 2006 and was of course on board with Mike Golding when Ecover broke hers in the Velux 5 Oceans.

Thomson says he is not surprised by the carnage. "I think everyone forgets this is a development class. There always seems to be something whether it is rudders, keels or masts. In the last Vendee it was keels and I guess at the moment it is masts. I am surprised it has happened to so many boats. But one of the great things about the class is that it is not just about us going off and sailing around the world, we have the responsibility of how to spend our budgets and we all get to make our choices on masts, keels and rudders and all these things and I find that whole process immensely enjoyable. I certainly feel I have made the right choices with the mast and keel and maybe other people haven’t. But let’s see how the next crop of masts come out and how they develop. It is amazing to think that these boats have become 25-50% more powerful than the last generation and the masts haven’t gone up in weight at all."

Significant perhaps is that the mast on Hugo Boss is fixed whereas all the masts that have tumbled down or broken on the new boats recently have been rotating wingmasts. So will teams now choose a more conservative option and go fixed? Thomson doesn't think so. "I can’t see people who have wingmasts now going to fixed masts. We did that on the last boat and it is a hell of a job to change all the chainplates and you end up with a lot of weight where the old chainplates were that you don’t need. So I think people will stay with their wingmasts. Also as boats get quicker and quicker a wingmast becomes more and more interesting. I think there just needs to be a change in the engineering. If you are on one of these boats and you are sailing with some big gear up whether it is fractional or masthead and you get caught out in 30-35 knots of breeze and you steam down a wave at 25 knots and stop, the loads that go through the boats are just phenomenal and maybe those loads haven’t been taken into account."



Given that teams are taking their preparation for this year's Vendee Globe more intensively than ever before, perhaps the latest spate of destruction will see more than the usual 50% of boats finishing the singlehanded non-stop round the world race. Thomson says he is now "1000% sure" that competing in the Barcelona World Race was the right decision rather than the Transat Jacques Vabre and the subsequent BtoB race back to France. "You can’t buy this. This is a totally priceless experience. For me maybe it is a bit different, because it is the first new build we’ve done and there are some bits on here we haven’t tried before, like the kick-up rudders we’ve had problems with. For other people maybe it is slightly easier. But we are putting 30,000 miles on the clock. So far I am chuffed to bits with how the boat’s performed and how well she’s stood up considering how short a time we had to get her ready."

Thomson also says he is enjoying the doublehanded aspect of the Barcelona World Race and what a different challenge this represents from the Vendee Globe. The race is considerably more demanding not just for the crew but for the boats too - a great test prior to the Vendee Globe. "In the future this race is going to become one of the top ones. It wouldn’t surprise me that in five or six years this doesn’t have the same quality as the Vendee."

While they have been very restrained at times, Thomson reckons that Jean-Pierre Dick and Damian Foxall on Virbac Paprec 2, have pushed harder than anybody in the race, particularly in the Indian Ocean. "You are driving the boat as hard as you possibly you can. You do more sail changes and you’ll push the change later than you would do normally. We were running masthead chutes up to 26-27 knots in the Atlantic and being fairly comfortable. You just wouldn’t dream of that on your own. Just having that extra person means that you can drive to the limit and if you have a problem you can get out of it. As soon as you go solo your thinking has to be completely different in that if you change too late you are in trouble."

Still with more than 8000 miles to sail before they reach the finish in Barcelona there is a long way to go for Thomson, but if he can get his steed safely back to port it will not only have proved a phenomenal test for himself and his new boat prior to the Vendee Globe, the psychological barrier of having finished a major shorthanded round the world race will be crossed for the British skipper. Again, we touch wood...

More photos on page 2...