Vendée Globe

A chilly, late autumn day on the pontoons on Les Sables d’Olonne may be a far cry from the warmth of  Bahrain but the British solo skipper is convinced that this will be a great chance for his new partners to really get an insight into the sheer magnitude and the passion that is instilled into this magical Vendée Globe.

Multiple speed record holder Thompson is no stranger to 600 mile days, confined so far to maxi cat action, he firmly believes that mix of science and magic that the Argentine designer has suffused into his Volvo Open 70 design which has just broken the monohull 24 hours speed record, is suffused with the same record breaking potential. 

Thompson has no qualms about the boat’s background but is slightly frustrated by the limited time he has had to sail the boat: “ I have always been a big believer in the boat, ever since sailing on ABN AMRO and seeing how Moose (Mike Sanderson) and Juan K collaborated, and the ABN team on ABN AMRO 2 and subsequently 1, and the same level of collaboration and effort went in to this boat.”

“I joined the programme in August 2007, and really have not been able to sail the boat properly until the end of June this year. Of course that is frustrating, six months or even a year earlier would have been great, but I have done enough miles 6,000 miles, not racing miles, but the boat has been faultless.” 

And the stability and security are noticeable:

“ It feels very secure. The rig is very solid and the boat is very wide, and so you do feel very safe in the cockpit and because it is stable, when a gust hits, it does not fall over on to its ear straight away, it just powers up and accelerates. So it feels quite multi-hull like.” 

The extra stability and the wing foil mast are designed to reduce the need for the skipper to make sail changes:  

“ Yes, the theory is you do less sail changes, you don’t need a genoa and a jibtop, the genoa is long in the foot so it works well as a jibtop as well, so that straight away is less sail changes, and with your Number 2, the J2, it works the same way.”

Over the last few days he will make a final call on what sails to take, the detail may be technical, but the simple principle is do you take spare sails you may never use?  

“ I have not totally decided how many sails to take. I think probably 11 including the main, but the question is on kites. Do you take a spare A2 kite. I am tempted by the ‘no spares’ theory because I have a Cuben Fibre A3 which is almost as fast. So you think ‘what are the odds of breaking the A2 spinnaker early in the race, so that carrying a spare one would gain you enough to carry it all the way around the world?...and it is just another thing to stack. Another question is whether to take an A6 which is a fractional spinnaker, but that is maybe it’s better suited to fully crewed. I am just not so sure that in 25 knots singlehanded you are going to want a spinnaker, unless of course you know that you have say 48 hours of 25 knots and you are going to want to sail ‘deep’, then that might save you gybing.”

 He repeats the consideration that this is going to be a close, tight race, not just because the relative speeds of the top IMOCA Open 60’s are proven to be similar, but because of the jump in the accuracy of the routing software and the supply of accurate meteo info:

“ The met and routing software is so advanced that yes, it will be more like the Volvo Race in terms of how close it becomes, than previous Vendée Globes when there was a leading group of three or four boats, now obviously there are different boat speeds, so I think the fleet will get split into two fairly soon, but that top group of say 15 boats might be together for a very long time.”

 The response from the French skippers to the first Juan K IMOCA Open 60 has been interesting:

“ It has been very positive. I had a really nice chat with Mich Desj and showed him around the boat, and he showed me round his boat. We are both very happy with our boats. His is very clean, like a giant 505 dinghy or something, just white painted carbon everywhere, and ours is like a more complex cave down below. His ballast tanks are all covered over, and ours are exposed. But I really liked it, but I know that upwind, or on a close reach the beam is going to help.”

 How will Brian Thompson cope with and enjoy start day and the first few days of this Vendée Globe:  

 “I think I have to think of it as another step, up from The Race. I was quite calm before the start but then I got quite emotional when I saw the other boats go, and I was thinking ‘my god that boat’s is going round the world, watching 11 Polish guys go off round the world, I hope they get there OK. I think the hard thing this time is I have family, and that will be hard, something I have not done before. And there is all the hype, and that in some way wants you to feel it is this massive, massive thing, but you have to retrench from that and think ‘I am just going sailing, I am just heading to Cape Finisterre, and the Equator, it is in stages.”

 “The first few days the adrenaline will be pumping because you need to be up near the front, and there is obviously a lot of shipping, fishing boats, tactics have to be spot on and there is more of that, because you are not in a steady weather system. To Cape Finisterre there is land and so you really have to be on the top of your game. But probably the Southern Ocean would be a worry, because I have not been in the Southern Ocean with this boat, but I have a really good feeling that it will be great, but it one area where I have not done race testing, downwind in heavy airs.”

 The designer has provided Brian with a great deal of accurate feedback and tuning suggestions. How close has it been in terms of actual handling and characteristics to what Juan K has proposed? And would he be the man to add a solo monohull record?

“ The boat has been really close. And a lot of the suggestions about how to sail it, he gets absolutely spot on. He gets a lot of feed back from the Ericsson programme, and he spends a lot of time in the tank testing, looking at various things, different permutations that I probably would never go through. Having feedback from Juan is just great.

The Ericsson record is just astounding. I have done quite a few 600 miles days, 15 or 20 on a maxi cat, but that is still a pretty big day on a maxi cat, 600 miles, a 25 knots average, and the wake is just streaming off the boat. I suspect the solo record will go in this race, even though everyone is saying they won’t be pushing that hard, but with 15 boats together and the same weather as the Volvo, with a cold front coming up behind you, someone would put the hammer down…..he might be called Thom(p)son, but whether it is A or B….”

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