Wheels fall off Pindar

Mike Sanderson and Emma Richards describe how flooding and ocean racing aren't comfortable bedmates

It all sounded like a good idea: If you have an Open 60 and don't want to do the Vendee Globe, set up your boat for Atlantic racing and if you're going to do a doublehanded race, optimise the boat so it can be sailed by two rather than one crew.

Unfortunately a number of issues have conspired against the highly rated new Pindar Open 60 and her crew Emma Richards and Mike Sanderson.

The problems began in the build-up to last weekend's start of the Transat Jacques Vabre when the boat was accidently run aground resulting in her having to be hauled and checked for keel damage. Worse was to come when they discovered midway through last week that there were serious problems with their newly delivered carbon 3DL mainsail forcing the team's sailmaker David Duff into the loft for three days of round the clock rebuilding work.

"We worked so hard to get to the start line we were all exhausted before we started," admits Richards.

On Saturday off Le Havre Pindar got off to a flying start, away from the crowded end of the line and were able to port tack the fleet. "We got a good start and our aim was just to try and ride it out through the storm and try and stay within striking distance," says Sanderson.

Into the race the drama began the first night when the masthead wind direction impeller and anemometer for the Raymarine instruments at the top of the mast broke as they were passing the Cherbourg peninsula.

"It made it a pretty tough first night - very black, very windy," says Sanderson. "We had a few little dramas - the Solent [jib] came unfurled and we had to deal with that and that’s why we lost a chunk of time on the first night. And then the second day it was fine - we were ticking along. We had our fair share of problems, but all within the realms of normality for that much wind." In the 30-50 knot conditions they were down to three reefs and a storm jib as among the breakages the dead end had pulled out of the boom for the second reef, leaving only first and third reefs usable.

Worse was to come. Sometime during Sunday night Sanderson recalls that the feel on the helm changed. "Suddenly the boat felt really strange and we opened the two watertight doors [down below], the ones just aft of the cockpit, and through it came - a torrent of water."

The large bore pipe used to expell water from the cockpit drain out to the transom, had broken away effectively leaving a large hole in the cockpit floor. In the conditions with the cockpit regularly awash, the aft compartment was simply filling up with water.

Sanderson guesses that around three tonnes of water was down below at the time. "We had a major on our hands. At that stage we were trying to deal with the water and the pilot got wet and crash tacked the boat. So suddenly the water went from one side of the boat to the other - three tonnes of water decided it was going to change sides. And that proceeded to take out the rest of everything - the pilot, the gyrocompass and everything electronic."

They then had to tack back to get back on course, causing the water to crash back again. "It was so rough the water was sloshing around in the back. I opened the stern hatch in the cockpit and water came gushing out - it was crashing around so much out back there."

They could have made running repairs to the cockpit drain, pumped the boat dry and got underway again, but they still would have been without a pilot. "We took spare pilot parts, all the necessary stuff to fix it if we’d had a control panel or a ram failure - all the normal stuff. We weren’t planning on half sinking..." says Sanderson.

As mentioned in our article last week, the new Pindar has been set up to be sailed two-handed but Sanderson says that assumed the pilot was working. "We were unable to do sail changes or anything, because we are not set up as a singlehanded boat. We’re set up for two of us to sail it."

With an imperfect mainsail, no second reef, a damaged Solent, no pilot or wind instruments, a boat full of water and with only 200 miles of a 4,500 mile race complete, the decision was made in conjunction with sponsor Andrew Pindar to turn about and sail the 30 miles back to Brest, where they arrived yesterday.

Although they could have sorted out the damaged gear in 24 hours or so, Sanderson and Richards agree that there was little point. "We could set off again and just deliver the boat to Brazil, but why would you?" says Richards. "You could decide 'okay we can replace the pilot system within a day', and accept that we’re going to have problems with the wind instruments and that the lights go off on the instruments, but this isn’t what we are out here to do…"

The idea behind the new Pindar was that after a training run in the Open 60 class in Around Alone, the new boat would allow Richards to compete rather be an also-ran. "It wasn’t just about competing and finishing. Andrew [Pindar] wants results and wants to make sure we’re putting our best foot forward," explains Sanderson.

"We are very disappointed. We were always going to do it a bit tough against those other guys who were set up Vendee-style, for the first couple of days going through this bad weather. But we were pretty confident that as long as we were still in the pack, when we got through it we would be just fine. We just couldn’t tough it out for long enough. If it had been anything under 30 knots from any direction I think the tables could have been very different right now. Anyway it was just not to be."

Conditions over the first 48 hours were atrocious says Sanderson. "You saw the pictures of us finishing in Mari Cha in 1998. That is what it was like. It was worse than anything I’ve seen going upwind. It was like going upwind in the Southern Ocean. We are incredibly beaten up physically. We didn’t sleep at all. The waves were so bad going upwind that we had to hand steer for 2.5 days. I don’t know if that is what everyone did or if they let it go under pilot..."

Sanderson feels angry that the race organisers let the Open 60s go but held the 60ft trimarans back. "What are we? The poor cousins that have to go out and suffer the storm? They can say all they like. The boats [the other Open 60s] are for the Vendee Globe, but some dropped rigs and one snapped a keel. Does someone have to die? Maybe that is just my reaction because of sour grapes. I did say before the start that I thought it was 50/50 whether we’d make it through the start. Emma’s boat isn’t a Vendee Globe boat. So I think it was rubbish: They had the option to delay it and they just didn’t take it."

Plans for the new Pindar now are sketchy. The boat was to sail north after the finish of the race to the States. Her next event is to be the Transat (the former OSTAR) but this is not until next summer and ironically for this the boat will have to revert back to her singlehanded configuration. It is likely in the meantime they will use the boat to do some promotion for their Volvo Ocean Race campaign.

So why did the boat experience so many problems? The team have had 3.5 months to refit her since it arrived rigless in Europe, which should have been more than enough to get the boat re-rigged and race ready. One theory is that the boat may have been transformed too far towards being a Volvo Ocean Race training boat, compromising its Open 60-ness in the process.

Pindar's current technical team are all highly seasoned and successful in the preparation of Volvo Ocean Race and America's Cup boats and despite working all hours to get the boat prepared for the race, may have lacked apreciation of the nuances in Open 60 technology. Open 60s are uniquely quirky boats, with their wide beam, complex rigs and movable ballast systems. In addition they are then sailed shorthanded and unlike AC or Volvo boats are not driven to the max - if you like, they are optimised to be sailed inefficently: a concept utterly foreign to other fully crewed schools of yacht racing.