Preface: The recently launched International Space Station
Alpha
orbits the earth at an altitude of 249.5. For Captain Cook, a distance
of 1000 miles from land was common. So too for the sailors of The
Race.
This is the final installment of this series. In this concluding segment we
will review themes from previous issues. We will use a historical perspective,
providing a preview of The Race different from a normal preview article. The six
entrants in The Race will start from Barcelona Spain, on December 31.
Part 1 began the series with a look at why Cook explored and why The Race
will take place. One of the goals of The Race is to combine different sailing
cultures.
This is similar to Cook's diverse crew that shipped with him on Endeavour.
One of The Race's more diverse crews will sail the Ollier designed Innovation
Explorer. The afterguard of this cat is: Loick Peyrn from France, skipper,
Skip Novak USA, co-skipper, and Roger Nilson Sweden, Navigator.
Peyron brings a background in high-speed offshore multi hulls. Peyron has
over a year at sea on fast multi hulls.
Novak has experience in several Whitbread Around the World races, several
record attempts on the Maxi cat Explorer and a decade sailing his expedition vessel
Pelagic between Cape Horn and Antarctica. Novak is a diverse sailor of both mono and
multi hulls in the fields of racing and exploring.
Nilsson has navigated for several Whitbread Round the World teams. His
multi hull experience is not a great.
Innovation Explorer will likely need all the skills and experience of their
tri-part afterguard to make it around the globe in winning fashion.
The vessels of The Race are different from most other sailing craft. They are
thousands of times faster than the ships of canonized explorers such as Cook and Columbus.
It seems clear that The Race has created a new class of vessel. As The Race
carries a simple name so should its vessels: Race Class catamarans.
The 4 boats purpose built for The Race all measure over 100 feet. Team Legato
was also stretched to 100 feet. Clearly, then a Race Class catamaran must be over
100 feet long, built with racing and record breaking in mind.
The 6th entry in The Race is Warpha Polamata, which is 85 feet in length.
It would seem that such a vessel should be called a Maxi Cat as mono hull racing
vessels of this size have been traditionally known as Maxi's.
Although there may not have been faster sailing vessels than Race Class Cat's,
there have been larger ones. Currently there is the 439 Star Clipper. Early in this
century there were the 482 foot German Flagged Preussen, and 419 foot 5 masted France II.
France II's working career was only 11 years. The end came when she sank
during World War II.
Will The Race Class catamarans show up only as an obscure interlude in sailing
history? Are they just another step to sailing in the form of space lifeboats with
7,500 square foot sails for steering. Will their development help make thin carbon
sails for space sailing?
In part 5, calculations showed that a 59-day circling of the globe could happen
for Race class cats. This would be 20 days less than Explorer in 1993.
The three holders of the Jules Verne trophy all sailed outside of a race.
The 6 boats in The Race would seem to have 2 goals: setting the record, and winning
the race. To win the Race a record might not be necessary.
Record setting is more difficult than race winning. A race can be won in
whatever conditions are present. Records, after a certain standard is met, require
favorable conditions. Perhaps the teams will eventually have to decide, whether it will
be a race won or a record set.
During the series we showed the Clipper ships as an intermediate stage between
Cook and The Race. Historian Carl Cutler defined a Clipper this way: "First she was
'sharp built'- designed as to hull for speed rather than cargo space- and in the
second place, she was extremely heavily sparred, in order to spread a far larger area
of canvas than ships of equal size were accustomed to spread."
According to skipper Cam Lewis describing Team Adventure: "This boat is a wind
generator. It sails doubles the speed of the wind. If it is blowing ten knots the boat
does 20 knots." With this ability the Race Class cats will outsail the wind.
This weekend the Race Class catamarans, which weigh approximately what the keel
of an America's Cup boat does, will try to shatter sailing's previous speed standards.
One of the main seamanship exercises the crews will face will be how to slow
their vessels down. Catamarans are made to go not to stop.
Our historical review shows that no matter fast or slow, sailing is a sport of
people and how they overcome and adapt while at sea.