Volvo Round the world race
 

I don't know if many of you are interested in ocean racing but I have the photos of all the competitors in my Gallery. I have added info on their placings for each leg so far. They have just finished leg 4 in Hong Kong.
I visited the ocean village in Alicante back in October which is the start port now.

At GKA we always handled all the comms for what was originally the Whitbread Round the World Race using HF RT and in the early days Sat C for weather etc. There used to be several classes but some years back they changed to a one class yacht. This years somewhat smaller as Ocean 65's.

There is a very good web site - which you can view and follow the action on a daily basis when they are racing. They even have a media member of the crew and use
drones to film the action. I will attach link. Next leg start Feb 1st.

http://www.volvooceanrace.com/en/boat.html

Neville

Volvo Ocean Race: Man dies after collision with Vestas team

Link here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/sailing/42758034

David,

Thanks for the link. I have already made a post under the photo of Vestas about this incident. Sad that there was loss of life. The fishing boat must have been of wooden construction as sank after the collision. No further info available yet and it is under investigation by CG and Maritime authorities/police.

Neville

When it was 'The Whitbread' anyone with an ocean-going yacht could participate; it was possible for the enthusiastic amateur to compete against professionals and have a chance, if not of being the outright winner, at least of being well-placed. The Southern Ocean was a great equaliser and astute navigation could allow the amateur to gain a worthwhile advantage.

Now it's just like the Americas Cup; boring!

Whilst serving in RFA Wave Chief I was presented with this tie by Col Whitbread in Rio de Janeiro for services rendered to many of the Round the World Race yachts. Many had radio snags which I managed to fix. The Wave Chief carried quite a lot of spare parts for use by any participants. This included Eastern Bloc entries. The yachts all finished up in Rio and were there in time for Mardi Gras. At the request of Whitbread, Wave Chief hosted an onboard reception for the yotties and various others. Whitbread supplied much booze much of which was left over after the function. Because customs duty would have to been levied on taking it back ashore in Rio, Whitbread said the ship could keep it. Great efforts were made by chief off and purser to put this legacy into the bond but not before a lot of it had vanished into cabin portholes and other hidey holes.

I agree with Naytikos in his post #4.

When I was crossing oceans under sail in the '70's, there were some proper yachts to be seen in most ports and marinas. One of our crew had been in the crew of Sayula II that won the first Whitbread Round the World race. I later saw Sayula II in Acapulco moored at the yacht club.
The owner of the yacht I skippered had taken part in the TransPac a couple of times, and had sailed the Baltic, the Med, North and South Atlantic coasts of North and Central America, and most of the West coast as well. I met several well known characters, but won't do any name dropping!
One particularly impressive ocean racer was Kialoa III owned by Jim Kilroy. Another older vessel was Windward Passage. When we crossed the Atlantic, we weren't too far away from another old classic, Voortrekker.
Now they all look rather extreme and hard work compared to my memories.

I seem to remember Windard Passage competing in the Swiftsure Classic our of Victoria some years ago. Basically had the lines of a big dinghy.

Not the Whitbread Race but I remember visiting Plymouth representing GKA at the start of one of the Single-Handed Transatlantic Yacht Races (around 1995 or so) - my job was to speak to the yachtsmen and advise them on how to use their HF radio equipment to contact GKA. We had OTF guides and RT information sheets made up for the competing yachts which I duly passed around. Entertaining day, the French yachts weren't interested (there was a chap from FFL going around doing the same thing).


One of the UK entries was an ex-army chap who had a yacht which seemed to be held together with bits of string and wood offcuts - his HF equipment was a vintage piece of military equipment incapable of operating on any of GKA's duplex RT channels, and I was seriously advised by the race organisers to gently "put him off" competing. I managed to let him have a list of GKA's simplex aero frequencies and despite my best efforts he was determined to participate.


Amazingly enough he not only managed to complete the race but made regular contact via GKA - the only yacht using the aero frequencies rather than the maritime ones. Can't recall the name of the chap or the yacht, but it was an experience nonetheless.


Plenty of other stories about Yacht comms through GKA. Will try to post some in due course.


Larry +

The owner of Orcella, (designed by Frans Maas and basically a very luxurious ocean racer) also owned a PJ37, called Elixir. She was a Swan 37 hull, with a Palmer Johnson cabin top. I remember towing her up to Victoria one very blustery weekend in 1975. I think it was for the Swiftsure race, it took two days out and back. He used to campaign Elixir in the One Ton class, and had some decent results in the S.O.R.C.

Very sad news from the Volvo yesterday.

One of the crew of Scallywag has been lost overboard in the Southern Ocean about 1800 miles from Cape Horn. They are in bad weather and have made a extensive search without finding him. MRCC have contacted a large vessel which is heading to the area but is some 400 miles away. The yacht has now had to head for the nearest land - South America - which is some 1200 miles away. The other yachts were too far ahead to be turned around and weather conditions did not make it even feasible.

RIP.

Neville

Sad indeed. Poor man. RIP.

Every sailor's worst nightmare. A very sad loss. One wonders if a safety line was used, or if it failed.

R.I.P.

The boats have been taking a real hammering and suffering mast damage on this last leg across the Southern Ocean.
Mapfre has had to take a 13 hour stop in a bay around Cape Horn to fix mast damage.
Vestas - has been dis masted - luckily with no injuries or loss of life and is now under power heading for the Falklands.
Turn the Tide on Plastic - had mast problems and had to reduce speed for safety and checking stays
to make sure they are secure etc. Seem to be up and running again at around 18 kts.

Yachts hitting very fast speeds at 20 plus knots and even above.

Neville