I was lucky enough to go sailing with Steve White last week. Fresh from his triumph in finishing the Vendée Globe, the modest and quietly talented Dorset sailor has big plans for the next race in 2012.
Meanwhile he has been doing some sailing days for BluQube, one of his sponsors, getting his boat back in full working order and pounding the speaking circuit to bring in some much-needed money.
He's also on the hunt for a major sponsor for next time. Steve wants to raise £10 million to build a new boat for the solo round the race - and he knows exactly what he wants. He'd like to join a group from the Port La Forêt base in Brittany building from the moulds of new VPLP/Guillaume Verdier design to compete next time at the highest level.
The word is that the race winner, Michel Desjoyeaux is moving away from Farr Yacht Designs (about which his team was quite critical) to the combination of former Groupe Finot designer Guillaume Verdier and the multihull partnership VPLP.
Desjoyeaux worked closely with VPLP when he built the ORMA 60 Géant. With Verdier, they were responsible for Marc Guillemot's Safran, which was enviously admired for its light winds speed, good looks and innovation.
Joining him in building from the moulds will, hopefully, be Jean Le Cam, who hopes to hang on to sponsors VM Matériaux. The idea is that the boats would be built at Mich Desj's brother Hubert's yard CDK in Port La Forêt.
In an ideal world, this is the jump Steve White would like to make. While his shoestring Toe in the Water campaign inevitably painted him as a plucky competitor somewhat from the Corinthian mould, White is anything but. He more than proved his competitiveness, and the practical abilities that are fundamental to seamanship.
As part of his plan, he would relocate to Brittany and follow in the footsteps of the top French solo sailors (and Sam Davies) by training in the Pôle France offshore training group.
Steve seems quietly confident that he could raise £10 million, and I hope he's right. That's roughly the sum all those who want to build anew are hoping for, but honestly, I do wonder if solo sailors quite grasp how tough it is commercially; their experience of business is of spending money not generating it. It's really rather a lot, £10 million. And it's a huge amount when all the rest of us hear is cost-cutting, redundancies, profit warnings, losses….
Nonetheless, my money is on Steve White being on the start line in 2012. He's single-minded and adaptable. The acid test, I think, is that he is in a position to be able to step down from a top line boat to a more modest Plan B if necessary, and if he must, he still has an excellent chance of improving his performance and return for a sponsor.
Another press release, this for a new event called the 2011 Around Australia Ocean Race and Rally.
It sounds like a great idea, but the writers should have checked out some basic stuff before launching into the USPs.
'Sailing around Australia is one of those things every sailor wants to do during their life,' it opens. No it's not. That's the reason why, as they say, its been done only by 'a small band of yachtsmen'.
'Australia is the largest island continent to sail around,' it continues. No, it's not - that's Antarctica, which is twice the size.
Incidentally, the Antartica Cup circumnavigation race was planned by Bob Williams, organiser of this event, and was to have taken place in 2002. It never did happen. Let's hope this one does.
This excellent idea for a promotion at Cowes Week presents a good reason to try to wear your wedge heels aboard - well, for women anyway.
G. H. Mumm will have this 'Water Butler' (or similar) out on the water on Ladies Day, Tuesday 4 August. He will cruise around in this - phwaor! - extremely handsome looking classic Riva serving chilled bottles of champagne to the most stylish crews.
Talking about competitors in the OSTAR, there are quite a few promising names to keep an eye on, besides the great performance of Hannah White.
Young Katie Miller (pictured right) is a determined competitor with her sights on doing the Vendée Globe in 2016. That's a long way off, but she says she's being realistic about a proper apprencticeship and the time it will take to raise sponsorship.
The OSTAR began days after the last exam of her university finals - she has been studying yacht production and surveying at the Southampton Solent University. It's been an incredibly hectic year for her trying to fit everything in, including buying and working up her Figaro 2 (she has to pay friends and family back in five years) and winning her first solo race, the BluQube 1000.
Then there's Oscar Mead, who's only 18. He and Katie are friends - Oscar is at the same university but in his first year, and he likewise finished his last exam a few days before the start. Oscar is sailing his father's J 105 King of Shaves and his upbeat blogs clearly show someone who has the right attitude to do really well in solo sailing.
And of course there's Pip Hildesley, who has been writing regular blogs on the Yachting World website. An erstwhile cruiser with tens of thousands of miles experience, she's taken to solo sailing (and writing) like a natural. She, too, has said she'd like to do a round the world race, and with determination like hers I'm sure we will see her on a start line in a few years.
Have you seen how well Hannah White is doing in the OSTAR? By sailing a very steady and tidy race from Plymouth she's lying 4th in the fleet of 25. She's doing fantastically on her first solo transatlantic race.
Hannah, 26, from Lymington is sailing a chartered Figaro 2 and right now she's a good margin ahead of Katie Miller in the same one-design, having come through quite a nasty gale this weekend.
What's nice about this is that while Katie, the up-and-coming 21-year-old whose career has mirrored Ellen MacArthur's and is, I'm sure rightly, being hailed as another female star in the making, Hannah has had been excoriated by armchair critics.
I spoke to her in Plymouth before the start and was incredulous to hear of some of the malicious and undeserved personal comments that have been posted about her on forums by people who she says have never met her.
It hurt, but Hannah has been tough enough to brush them aside. Still, I cringed when she told me the effect of such poisonously hurtful remarks on her very supportive parents.
The simple reasons seem to be that Hannah has long aspired to be a successful professional sailor and her previous attempts to sail round Britain and finish the OSTAR four years ago failed. She also happens to be pretty, feminine, well-spoken and confident.
But if Hannah's previous plans failed, so what? Her ambitions, her life and her job is her business. It doesn't harm anyone and apart from private arrangements with backers or sponsors, she doesn't owe anyone anything. If she's pretty and gets sponsorship more easily because of being female, great - it will never balance out all the other areas of sailing where women don't get a look in.
So I'm really delighted that things seem to be working out for Hannah, and that she's proving what she is capable of. She's tougher than her critics. Go Hannah!
Five months after seriously fracturing his femur and pelvis during the Vendée Globe and being rescued in agony by the Australian Navy, French sailor Yann Eliès is back on the water and winning.
Eliés was still in poor shape and on crutches in March when he welcomed home his other saviour, solo sailor Marc Guillemot. But this week he took part in - and won - his first major solo race since the accident: the Transmanche Race from Aber Wrac'h in Brittany to Plymouth and back.
The race is fiercely contested in Bénéteau Figaro 2s by some of the top French sailors, including fellow Vendée Globe skippers Jérémie Beyou and Armel Le Cléac'h.
Eliés who, like many of the French sailing greats, rose up through the ranks of Figaro racing, won in the last few miles of the race. He commented: "It's like riding a bike - you never forget how."
The victory makes him one of the favourites to win the 40th Solitaire du Figaro, which is being contested by some of the best-known names in solo sailing, including Michel Desjoyeaux. Britain's Sam Davies is also planning to take part.
Yann Eliés's express rehabilitation includes being part of the crew of the giant maxi trimaran Banque Populaire for the team's attempt this summer on the North Atlantic record.
Alex Thomson's been wakeboarding behind Hugo Boss. Mike Golding's been doing the iShares Cup. Dee Caffari and Sam Davies are about to have a crack at the Round Britain and Ireland record.
In the absence of any big organised event for IMOCA 60s until the Transat Jacques Vabre in November, the teams have been scratching their heads to think of other ways to create publicity for themselves and their sponsors. I like this simple idea from the Groupe Bel team: skipper Kito de Pavant at the helm and the cheery 'La Vache Qui Rit' up the mast.
This is a fretful time for all the teams as most of the sponsorship contracts that took them to the Vendée Globe run out later this year. The prospects for many look pretty shaky, and Britain's solo sailors are all facing uncertain times. Mike Golding and Dee Caffari, to take just two, are coming to the end of their big sponsorship deals.
The only confirmed continuation among all the IMOCA teams is Jean-Pierre Dick's Paprec-Virbac. The veterinary medicines company is family owned and will be funding a new IMOCA 60 design by VPLP/Guillaume Verdier for next year's Barcelona World Race.
Closer to home, the vinyls are off Mike Golding's IMOCA 60. He is racing in the iShares Cup under Ecover colours but he tells me that long-running deal with them for the 60 is at an end.
However, Golding confirms that he is aiming for the 2012 Vendée Globe and is looking for a new sponsor. He might even do the two-handed Barcelona World Race next year if it fits in with a company's objectives.
Sadly, too, the word going round is that Dee Caffari's sponsor Aviva, the rebranded insurance and savings company that declared a big loss earlier this year, has said it is not going to be renewing her sponsorship when it runs out this autumn.
Meanwhile, the hoped for deal to get Bahrain to take over the Pindar sailing team stumbled after the Vendée Globe. The shore and support team were all laid off, the boat is on the hard and skipper Brian Thompson is busily trying to revive an arrangement with Bahrain to continue.
The management of the Artemis campaign was taken away from designer Simon Rogers's company and is now in the hands of Mark Turner's OC Group. The project will continue until the Transat Jacques Vabre two-hander in November.
There is no word of what will happen after that but if anyone can inveigle the fund management company to stay in sailing in one shape or another, and provide a less embarrassing return for them, surely it will be Turner's gang.
Nothing quite captures the magic of summer sailing like the sight of a classic yacht ghosting across the bay or upriver on a summer's evening.
To get in the mood, take a look at this gallery of photos of last week's Semaine du Golfe in the Morbihan, France. The 1,200-strong fleet that gathered for the celebrations included over 20 boats from Wales.
Could we seeing the first signs of a resurgence of the round the world racing in multihulls? Yes, just maybe, especially if it receives a shot in the arm from a high-speed multihull America's Cup.
These photos show the latest fledgling multihull masterplan. It's the so-called Arabian 100 being assembled in Oman, and it's part of a Mark Turner/OC Group orchestrated project. The boat is a modification of the 105ft Nigel Irens-designed Sodeb'O, built for Thomas Coville's so far unsuccessful solo round the world attempt. It will be simpler - no rotating wingmast, for example - and have a bigger cockpit so it can be crewed by between five and seven people.
The parts of the Oman 100 were built at Boatspeed in Australia and are being assembled in the Omani port of Salalah in the shed that the Sultan of Oman uses to maintain his fleet of boats. The project is ultimately funded by the Sultan of Oman and a cohort of 18 Omanis will be recruited and trained to sail on board.
The long-term plan is to encourage like-minded countries to build the one-design trimaran and create a long-distance circuit. "We have some expressions of interest," Ingmar Jense from Oman Sail tells me, "some in the Middle East and a couple in Asia. Europe is not our focus."
He adds: "Possibly we could enable a non-stop round the world race like The Race [the defunct round the world event in multihulls that ran in 2000] - there's no reason why that wouldn't be an option."
A second boat could be available in any case after Thomas Coville has another crack at the solo record this winter. Sodeb'O is capable of racing on an equal one-design footing with a new rig and some deck modifications.
A sight of impressive raw power as the 104ft maxi trimaran Groupama 3 heads out from Marseille to Carthage to try to break the Mediterranean crossing record.
For skipper Franck Cammas and his crew this is the first big outing after the trimaran was rebuilt and strengthened at Multiplast last year following the break up of the boat off New Zealand during her outright round the world record attempt.
The Mediterranean record, like the Discovery Route record from Cadiz to San Salvador in the Bahamas, is a recently concocted and unimportant feeder in my book, unconvincingly adding flesh to the bare few that actually matter. But they are set-ups for what ought to be bumper summer for New York-Lizard scorchers.
The revamped Groupama 3 is a fair bet to shave time off her own crewed record of 4 days, 3 hours, though that would mean setting a 3,000-mile average of more than 30 knots.
In another corner, Thomas Coville will be back on the 105ft trimaran Sodeb'O, a similar size but less powerful as she was designed for the solo round the world record.
I spoke to Coville yesterday and he was quietly confident that he, too, could smash his own record last year of 5 days 19 hours. "It's quite tough now but I think I can improve the time with a better weather window at the end. With idea conditions, I could expect to be 12 hours faster," he says.
Nothing to do with sailing, of course, but who could resist?
Andy Dare emails from Peru, where he is travelling, to say: 'Oh, I am so enjoying reading about the naughty MPs.
'I have just written to my accountant to ask him for the "MPs Tax Return" for this year, as I am fed up with the "General Public - Suckers" version… Seems you can claim for everything.
For years it's seemed an anachronism that the headquarters of the Volvo Ocean Race was based in the UK, and in Whiteley of all places, a nondescript inland conurbation development of the south coast sprawl. It was an odd hangover from the Whitbread of yore (excuse the pun), days of warm beer and Navy blazers when the race started and ended in the Solent.
That all died out long ago and it's been obvious for ages that the nerve centre of a changing event was ludicrously out of place in Britain, a country that can no longer muster a single entry.
The news that the HQ of the VOR is re-locating to Alicante is significant in many ways. Spain has taken on yacht racing with a vengeance, scooping one after the other major events on a flood tide of public cash and/or support: the America's Cup, the Barcelona World Race, the Audi MedCup, the last Velux 5 Oceans.
There are some encouraging signs a similar appetite could build in the Middle East. Oman is building a 105ft catamaran (more on that anon) with hopes of kick-starting a one-design ocean racing fleet to be raced between Middle Eastern and Asian countries.
The tide of money into sailing from such countries, which see yacht races as exciting and prestigious assets, is changing how and by whom racing is followed. History and heredity has a value if deployed carefully, but it's only part of the commercial and marketing mix.
A point that was eloquently made by Volvo Race CEO Knut Frostad to this blog was that big events such as the VOR are globalising what has always tended to be a specialist taste in a few countries. In the process they are creating simultaneously different narratives for a wider variety of discrete national markets and demand for it in their own languages.
These changes have not been especially good for the British sailing industry, though, which has taken for granted the benefits that came from a historic perception of special oceangoing expertise and English language predominance. The move from Whiteley is another cheery wave goodbye to that long-outdated image and advantaged position.
There is no home to sailing any more; it's more a case of rented accommodation and rolling leases. Spain, France and maybe the Middle East: these are the places where power in global sailing is increasingly shifting - for the time being. But France, where sponsorship is horribly thin, had better be wary and look at what has happened across the Channel.
The growing number of round the world races and record attempts is also fragmenting interest, breaking it into many more disparate pieces. We are all becoming picky eaters with different tastes.
Those who seek to form a co-ordinated calendar, an overarching structure, an organising body, a nice monolithic, uniform demand for events or a simple readership pattern and demographic are wasting their time. They (and we in the meeja) need to cotton on fast and be equally ready to wave old, outdated ideas farewell.
Did you read the one about the Carbon Neutral Expedition that had to be rescued by an oil tanker?
Ben Stoddart, Richard Spink and Raoul Surcouf were rescued last Friday when their Island Packet 38 Fleur was rolled 440 miles west of Co Mayo in Ireland while on passage from the UK to Greenland, where they were planning a return ski traverse of the ice cap.
Mark Thomas from Falmouth Coastguard tells me that the crew first reported they had been knocked down at 0500 on 1st May and after further capsizes Stoddart decided he wanted to abandon the boat.
Falmouth MRCC asked the nearest vessel to go to their aid. That happened to be Overseas Yellowstone, a 250m LOA, 113,000 ton oil tanker en route from Antwerp to Portland, Maine.
They diverted some 55 miles to the yacht's position to lift off the crew at 2023GMT. Conditions were then easing but reported by the master of Overseas Yellowstone as SW Force 9.
Anyway, the irony of the rescue is that the diversion alone would have emitted somewhere around 57,000kg of CO2, working on the shipping industry's calculations of 9.25kg per ton per nautical mile for a supertanker. That's the equivalent of 95 people each taking a transatlantic flight.
Asked if the crew had scuttled the boat, the Coastguard said no, they didn't think so. If that's the case, there's another hazard to navigation, a big lump of oil-based glassfibre drifting around the North Atlantic. Tsk.
All in all the least polluting and most carbon efficient thing they could have done was stay at home. I hope some enterprising Irish fisherman salvages the boat - or should I say recycles it for cash?
This is an impression of Plastiki, a 60ft catamaran that is currently being built in the US for a voyage this summer from San Francisco to Sydney.
It's the brainchild of British banking heir and adventurer David de Rothschild, who has founded Adventure Ecology to promote smarter ways of using recycled resources. He calls it 'a better Planet 2.0 way of living'.
Plastiki, so-named because it was partly inspired by Thor Heyderdahl's Kon-Tiki expedition, is being made of 12,000 two-litre plastic water bottles bound together in a retaining net and fitted over a plywood frame. Each bottle is filled with 12 grammes of dry ice to make the structure stronger.
The boat will be fully fitted out below and I'm told that it will include - get this - a composting toilet and sustainable vegetable garden.
Joining someone else's yacht for a passage is like travelling to a country with a different culture. Things are invariably done differently there, and you need to observe the customs carefully if you want to fit in.
In March I interviewed skippers and crews taking part in the World ARC round the world rally in Grenada. They were on the last leg of their 18-month circumnavigation, and it was no surprise that crew changes (and problems) were one of the most common topics of conversation.
An ocean passage anticipated as an easy and relaxing holiday is likely be a disappointment. Even a leisurely passage can be surprising tiring and hard.
Even small dissatisfactions can stack up: if you think you'll get a shower every day when you won't, or you expect to arrive at a certain time and you don't. These gripes are are surprisingly common. The list goes on.
On top of that, a yacht allows almost no privacy, and there is no escaping from your own, or other people's, foibles.
So what makes successful yacht rules and customs? As an example of some, below is the list Paul and Andy Atkinson sent to the many friends and family who joined them for legs of the World ARC on their Jeanneau 49DS Tallulah Ruby.
I'd be interested to know what advice or rules you set down for crew joining your boat. Do you have joining instructions or a tried-and-tested recipe for harmony on board?
Conversely, do you have a tale of conflict on board and an opinion about how it could have been avoided?
If you do, please email me using the link at the bottom. Basic rules on Talullah Ruby
• Small amounts of alcohol will be permitted at Happy Hour and on special occasions • No smoking below decks. If you must smoke please consider other crew and make sure all ash and smoke goes overboard • Drugs on board: none, thank you • Please keep heads, showers and yourself clean. Smelly loos and crew are not welcome • Watchkeepers: steer at least half of your watch to conserve valuable energy • Try to save power by turning off all unnecessary lights, appliances, instruments, etc • Water will not be rationed but when showering please turn off shower head when washing body and hair and rinse off with minimum amount of water • Please make as little noise at night as possible so as not to disturb others. No speakers on deck • Lifejackets must be worn and harnesses attached to jackstays on all night watches. Person coming off watch must check new watchkeeper is wearing lifejacket, Life Tag and harness is clipped on • Please be on watch at least 5 minutes early. The previous watchkeeper will be tired and ready for bed. He also has to discuss developments through his watch • Do not pee over the side or stern - use the toilets • Do not leave the cockpit to go forward without telling someone • Under no circumstances leave the cockpit at night to go forward unless another crewmember is there to keep an eye on you • Do not turn on generator or watermaker unless asked to by skipper • Do not run engine except in emergency unless asked to by skipper • If you are to tired to stay awake on watch, call the skipper • In an emergency or bad weather, or if you are worried at all, always wake the skipper
A very amusing little scoop from the Guardian today: Morrisons supermarket has had to withdraw its alphabet building blocks for babies because of spelling mistakes. The toys went out to 382 stores before a customer pointed out that Y is not for Yahct nor U for Umberlla.
And let's not get started on X, which is not for X'mas Tree and certainly not with that apostrophe.
In ye olden days, we used regularly to receive letters addressed to Yahcting World. Email servers are unforgiving recipients, schoolmarmishly refusing to deliver until the sender gets the address absolutely right.
To help writers and sub-editors avoid yahct moments, YW has its own handed-down house style book setting out the correct spelling and usage of various nautical terms.
For example, an anchor may be weighed with the assistance of a gipsy, as distinct from the strapping Romany on the foredeck spelt with a second 'y'. Foc's'le must be apostrophised thus. Reefing lines are to be referred to and spelt pendant, though pronounced pennant. (The YW style book was not above a few elocution hints as well.)
There was no arguing with the style book, it was like a tablet of stone delivered from the very hands of Moses. Variance in custom and habit eventually creep in along the edges, however, so some of the dictates now seem fustily out of date and read like peevish judgements of rectitude.
How many people say afterpeak while decrying lazarette or aft locker? Or prefer aft pulpit to pushpit? Does anyone still insist joiner work is correct but joinery infra dig?
Did sheer plans quietly die out? When did team-work and up-date and sea-level lose their hyphens? Why was keelband one word but keel bolt two? Who decided that sail plan should be two words when referring to drawings but one 'in physical aspect'?
The internet has make a bit of nonsense of these nettlesome distinctions. If you get even the basics wrong Google will just ask: 'Did you mean yacht?' Ooh yes, I did. 'Did you mean Yachting World?' ;) TYVM, gr8, LOL.
The warning is oddly timed because many hundreds of yachts are currently doing this safely in growing confidence that the zone is becoming safer than it has been for years. Meanwhile, the evidence is that areas of gravest threat are shifting towards Kenya and into the Indian Ocean as far south as the Seychelles and Madagascar.
These are areas that are not patrolled, as is the Gulf of Aden, by the coalition forces of the US Navy's Combined Task Force 151 and the EU's Op ATALANTA.
When I was researching a special feature on piracy in our June issue (out on May 14th, by the way) Peter Seymour, a founder of Blue Water Rallies and its specialist adviser on security and piracy, told me: "My impression is that the incidence of piracy against yachts [in the Gulf of Aden] has fallen dramatically in the last six months."
Peter has safely taken seven round the world rallies through the Gulf of Aden in the last 14 years, including a group of 29 cruisers earlier this year, routeing for maximum protection through the centre buffer zone between the east-west and west-east Internationally Recommended Transit Corridors (IRTC). See the co-ordinates of the corridors here.
That view is supported by other sailors who have cruised through this area. The Vasco da Gama rally also transited the Gulf of Aden without incident this year. Organiser Lo Brust has been through five times and his tactic is to sail within 10 miles of the coast of Oman and Yemen. You can read his advice here.
It is not just yacht rallies that have been safely transiting. There is a steady flow of independent cruisers. The trend is towards starting from Salalah in Oman and forming groups for safe passage; cruisers hook up at the western-style Oasis Club.
The port captain of Salalah confirms today that in the last three months 144 yachts have left for Aden and the Red Sea. As far as I can determine, there have been no incidents.
Another indicator of the relative risks is that it is possible to get yacht insurance through Lloyds underwriters to go through the Gulf of Aden.
ISAF's sailing instruction style advice bothers me and I hope it's not the first of more directives for cruisers. For while cruising sailors can make their own minds up, there is always a risk that its self-appointed authority could make life difficult in bureaucratic ways.
As I say, the risky areas appear to be shifting into the Indian Ocean, which they mention only in passing. There were four yacht hijackings last month around the Seychelles. It's important to emphasise that these are not random opportunistic thefts by rogue fishermen but well-organised businesses hijacking for ransom.
Statistically, there are much greater danger areas nearer to home. Melodye and John Pompa run the Caribbean Safety and Security Net. They tell me that there were 90 reported attacks in the Eastern Caribbean and Venezuela on yachts in 2008, including six injuries and four deaths. Up to March this year there were 15 reported attacks and one death (that does not include the widely reported murder of superyacht skipper Drew Gollan ashore in Antigua).
Parts of Venezuela are now seriously dangerous and have a dire track record of armed attacks and assaults. But statistics show that attacks are a low-level threat through the Caribbean: there were 110 recorded on yachts in the Southern Windward islands between 2005 and 2008.
When evaluating the actual risks of cruising or passagemaking, I think the key thing is to ensure the information you have is the most up to date possible. I wouldn't look to ISAF for that. Keep in touch with other cruisers as you go, check into the various nets (such as the Caribbean Safety net) and email groups and keep abreast of the excellent cruising website Noonsite.
And if you are interested in finding out more about piracy, the reported statistics and threats in various parts of the world, and advice on security from a panel of cruising experts….did I recommend buying our June issue?
Eliés who, like many of the French sailing greats, rose up through the ranks of Figaro racing, won in the last few miles of the race. He commented: "It's like riding a bike - you never forget how."
