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Author Archives: Joe Cooper
Solo sailing with 2 (more boats)
And yes I understand these are “fully crewed” boats but I am fascinated by the level of seamanship professionalism and prepareadness of these sailors. I will be doing more posts on this aspect of these adventures as we progress watching these men, and one woman on these voyages
Two other boats that is, albeit not solo but shanded none the less. The two Maxi Tri’s Spindrift 2 and IDEC are on green alert as of this morning, 1000z.
Both boats are loaded with the necessaries for the next 40 days or so at sea in a high-speed lap of the planet. The time to beat is 43 days and change and so they need to average over 20 knots. Both boats are in Brest close to the stating line off Ushant. As the following press release and interview reports it will be a windy start for the 105-foot tri and her 6-man (yes ladies in fact 6 guys) crew.
Remarkably this VPLP designed boat is pushing 10 years old having been launched as Groupama in 2006. Since then she has a checkered albeit fast career. As Groupama it took Franck Cammas and his crew three tries to set a record in the Jules Verne Trophy.
First a capsize of NZL, then a broken beam slowed them up, Third times a charm though
In last years Route du Rhumb sailing as Banque Populaire and in the very capable hand of Loic Peyron she won the Maxi class in this solo race. Yup, solo transatlantic in a 103 foot tri AND beating Yann Guichard on Spindrift which is 132 feet….
1400 z. CODE GREEN
JUST ANOUNCED IDEC WILL START TONIGHT
AND SPINDRIFT 2 RACIING WITHIN 24 HOURS
IDEC REPORTS:
This time, it’s certain. IDEC SPORT will be tackling the Jules Verne Trophy from today, Saturday 21st November. Francis Joyon has just given the green light, meaning the start is imminent. The big red trimaran will be leaving the port of Brest this afternoon to cross the start line off Ushant this evening. A few hours before the start, which looks like being very rough, Francis Joyon explained the situation.
Francis, this time it’s a green light? Will IDEC SPORT be setting off around the world today?
“Yes! We just decided to set off, as we could see there was the possibility of taking advantage of an area of low pressure in the South Atlantic, so we’ll be setting off today with that in mind. We shall be setting off on a very windy day: 30 to 35 knots of wind in Brest, a lot more over Ushant. The conditions at the start aren’t going to be easy…”
No time to sit back and look at the situation, you’re diving straight in?
WX forecast from Passage Weather (dot com) for Ushant and the Bay of Biscay for 1800 z on Saturday 21 11 15. Breeze on. Equator in 5.5 days, or less.
“Yes, we’ll be setting off with one or two reefs. We are going to have to be cautious in the Bay of Biscay where the seas is very rough with a 4-5m swell forecast and the sea may remain cross, because we had a SW’ly gale the day before yesterday and now we are in a northerly air flow. We will immediately be into the heart of the action.”
The record to the Equator is possible, does that mean you are hoping for a good time to the Equator?
“Yes indeed. We hope to beat the reference time to the Equator and it could take us fewer then five and a half days, if everything fits into place.”
How do you feel with just a few hours to go?
“We’re giving the boat one final check-up. To ensure we haven’t forgotten anything and that all the supplies are in place, that everyone has put their passport in the safety locker, lots of little details like that. The crew is happy. They are all used to such starts and are happy when they are at sea…”
Can you tell us about the weather situation?
“The trip to the Equator looks relatively simple. The weather seems settled and we don’t have any questions, apart from what happens tonight with a small area of low pressure, which could cause the wind to drop off in the Bay of Biscay. We mustn’t get caught up in that. But more importantly, we are looking further ahead down to the position of the St Helena High, the pattern of low pressure areas leaving Brazil for the Cape of Good Hope. It’s a mixture of all that that led us to take the decision to set off today.”
Are the doubts you had over the past few days, in particular concerning the situation in the South Atlantic now behind you?
“50% of the doubts have gone, and it’s still a bit of a gamble. We can’t be certain of everything, but we are gambling on a very strong likelihood. In the past, some projects had to wait for months and months to find the right weather opportunity. We have said we have to grab this opportunity.
At what time will you be casting off on IDEC SPORT to head for the start line off Ushant?
“Mid or late afternoon…”
The crew of IDEC SPORT
Francis Joyon (FRA)- Bernard Stamm (SUI)- Gwénolé Gahinet (FRA)- Alex Pella (ESP)- Clément Surtel (FRA)- Borris Herrmann (GER)
The Jules Verne Trophy in short:
The crewed voyage around the world via the three capes (Good Hope, Leeuwin, Horn). 26,400 miles on the theoretical route. The time to beat (Loïck Peyron’s crew: 45 days, 13 hours, 42 minutes and 53 seconds). Average speed required: 20 knots on the Great Circle Route.
Gryphon Solo 2: sailing solo, with two
Apparently Joe Harris was not fully briefed on the presence on the North Atlantic of, would you believe another sailor in a Class 40 making an attempt on the 137 day record Gryphon Solo 2 is working on.
This report and challenge arrived from Gryphon Solo 2 earlier today. This is a cut and paste in italics
BEGIN
Joe aboard GS2- 28’21 N X 56′ 14 W on 11/20/15
Hello folks-
Today I became aware of a new competitor out here on the great Atlantic race course and that is a gentleman named Henrik Masekowitz. Henrik is from Germany and is attempting to break the same record as I am- 137 days around the world, solo, non-stop, unassisted for a monohull boat 40′ or less. Henrik started from France two days before I did and is sailing a Class 40 Akilaria RC 1 named “Croix du Sud”, whereas as I am sailing an Akilaria RC2. Both boats were designed by naval architect Marc Lombard in France and built in Tunisia by MC-Tech- Henrik’s in 2007 and GS2 in 2011. Pretty darn similar boats. I believe Henrik’s web site is:http://www.soloceans.de and he is also on YB tracker at
http://yb.tl/hmsailing
(Cooper inserts YB tracker for HM-my comments at end)
Yellow Brick tracking position for Henrik Masekowitz, Croix du Sud, at 0500z Sat 21-11-15
So it is “Game On” sports fans… we have a race on our hands, which is I think is what both Henrik and I were hoping for in both originally trying to do the Global Ocean Race, which is no longer happening.
So here we are- completely unexpectedly- joined on the race course around the world- but he coming from France and me coming from Newport. I think the mileages are pretty similar and we will meet up at the equator and then sail the same course around the bottom of the globe- leaving the five great capes to port and Antarctica to starboard- and ultimately around Cape Horn at the southern tip of South America and then back up to the equator and then splitting paths, with Henrik back to France and me to Newport.
Henrik’s weather for 0900z on Sat.
Wx chart from Passage Weather for Henrik’s area for 0900z Sat. 221-11-15. Henrik is at 33 degrees 46 mins north and 16 degrees 21 minutes west.
Henrik’s record attempt is also being reviewed by the World Speed Sailing Records Council in England as my attempt is. It’s quite ironic, isn’t it?
Upon reflection, I do think it’s pretty cool… as long as I win smile emoticon However, if I break the old record but lose to Henrik, that could potentially suck… but let’s not go there girlfriend.
AND:
The Wx chart from Passage Weather for Henrik’s area for 1200z Sat. 221-11-15
I know for a fact that this will sharpen my competitive instincts and cause me to push even harder, while remembering that you can’t win unless you finish safely.
So, Henrik- I wish you safe and fast passage… just not too fast pal… and for the first leg… I’ll wager you a bottle of fine French champagne I get to the Equator first- even with your two-day head start!
Best to all-
ENDS:
Henrik is, as of 0400 Saturday, 21-11-15 about 60 miles north of Maderia in modest trades making 7 knots. In 2 hours he will have been going for 8 days . His DMG from last Friday at 0600z to present is on the order of 1100 miles. Based on eight days, his average speed has been around 5.7 Kts.
Next up, the two maxi tris on standby for a shot at the Jules Vern Trophy. That is apart from the boats returning from the TYJV and the Mini Transat…(well those not going by ship anyway). Sheesh going to need a traffic cop out there pretty soon.
Cheers
Coop
Solo sailing with Gryphon Solo 2
Joe Harris is closing on his first week at sea on his quest to circumnavigate inside 137 days. He has said he needs to average 8.0 kts on his trip to beat this record. Based on my calculations from his position relative to Newport, he has sailed 1981 miles over 160 hours roughly so averaging a bit over 10 kts over roughly 160 hours.
Joe Harris walking aft on GS 2 at his departure last Sunday 15 November 15
The last couple of days he has managed to get a few pictures off the boat and sent an update indicating a new speed record for GS2, 24.5 kts. Building up a time buffer when you can is always a good idea.…
This is the inside of a Class 40. Not Joe’s but they are all basically very similar. In this image, you see the “chart” table across the top of the “galley”. Lap of luxury they are not but they are great boats to be at sea on, especially for this kind of voyage.
Below is a cut and paste of his update from Thursday afternoon.
Hello Friends-
It continues to be wet and woolly out here in the North Atlantic as the Northeast wind from 20-45 knots continued unabated. Squally, rainy, gusty conditions prevail, as we navigate around a low-pressure system just to the East.
Last night it really blew hard- but I had prepared well and had three reefs in the Mainsail and the ORC#4 heavy weather jib and we were able to withstand even the gusts up to 46 knots without a problem.
(What is not mentioned here is the loud racket aboard the boat in these conditions. The noise of the wind whistling around the rigging, the waves landing on deck and the swoosh as the boat speeds thru the water.–Coop
This is a blow I was on a while ago. This is NOT Gryphon Solo 2. This is intended to give a sense of what 45 knots looks like. It is blowing about 50 with higher gusts in this picture. We were bringing this 50 foot boat from HI to SFO–this is in the North Pacific in August I think.
With confidence in my sail plan, I was able to get some pretty good sleep, which is really important for continued good reasoning and functionality. I am also eating more now that my body has grown accustomed to the motion of the boat, and had a great Beef Stroganoff freeze dried meal before going to sleep last night. This morning it was a delicious Apple Crisp (apples, cinnamon and granola) for breakfast and I am feeling pretty good. I am also taking these Juice Plus vitamins that my friend Cyndee Novitch got me just before departure that are meant to replace all the fresh fruits and vegetables I was not able to bring along. Should be a pretty good balanced diet once I get settled in.
A screen shot of the Yellow Brick Tracker aboard Gryphon Solo 2 time stamed 1600 EST 20- 11-15. He is roughly 48 miles SE of Bermuda and 1870 miles SE of Newport
So the short-term weather is another two days of the heavy stuff and then a few days of light stuff before breaking through into the Southeast trade winds which, looking longer term, will propel me down towards our Leg One waypoint at 10N x 35W, just north of the equator.
Weather map by Predict Wind for Gryphon Solo 2’s position, 28n x 56 w roughly for 0000z Friday evening 20-11-15. He is basically at the southern tip of the green area in the upper left of the map.
This will set me up for the passage though the Doldrums and then out into the South Atlantic trade winds. That is the Ken Campbell/ Commanders Weather plan as adopted by yours truly and I am excited to have gotten off to a good start and my hope is to get to that first waypoint in less than the 15 -17 days we had estimated for Leg One of the 10 Leg RTW journey. I show 1,862 miles to go- which at 8 knots would be about 10 days- so fingers crossed I am able to keep up the speed.
GryphonSolo2 is holding up well to the pounding. I am experiencing some problems with the water maker that seems to have some air in its system, and is producing fresh water only very anemically and not close to its specified 1.5 Gallons per hour. However, I may need to wait for more settled conditions to really address it.
Screen shot from theYellow BRick tracker showing Gryphoin Solo 2’s metrics at 1600 EST 20-11-15
So that is the Day 4 report- hopefully the level of drama will decline as the weather chills out and I settle into onboard routines. I was able to (painfully) send the first photo back yesterday and will attempt to send more.
Happy 9th birthday to my daughter Sophie Grace- a big day for my special girl- (Just think on this too for a minute.) Coop
Love to all-
Joe
(and the other Joe-Coop…)
Solo sailing, with two
Solo circumnavigations in a crowded Atlantic
The are perhaps a couple of hundred people following Joe Harris aboard Gryphon Solo 2 after his departure from Newport last week outbound on his circumnavigation. For those of us watching Joe sail off towards the sparking blue, distant S.E. horizon on Sunday it is unlikely anyone was thinking that the North Atlantic could, in late November, be a somewhat crowded place. Relatively speaking.
I discovered a few days later via a comment on Scuttlebutt (small world eh?) that there is in fact a German fellow outbound, presently off Portugal attempting precisely the same voyage. What do you think would be the odds of two guys taking off within 27 hours of each other in the same (class of) boats on a solo, non-stop circumnavigation via The Great Capes? Slim would be an understatement I reckon.
A Yellow Brick Tracker screen shot of Gryphon Solo 2’s position taken at 1915 EST Wednesday Nov 18.
Based on my very rough interpretation of a piece on a Yacht magazine, in Germany, one Henrik Masekowitz, a 49 year old German, departed at 0600 GMT on Friday 13 (yup) November, crossing a “starting line” between The Lizard and le d’Ouessant, at the SW corner of Brittany. This historic transit is the favored start/finish line for all manner of circumnavigations, in particular those of the French maxi multihulls engaging on the same voyage, commonly the Trophy Jules Verne. Henrik’s avowed plan is, like Joe Harris’s an attempt on the present 137 day’s and change record for 40 footers..
Masekowitz seems to be lacking his own web site although he has a face book page that connects back to Yacht magazine. His Linkedin page shows him as having since 2000 moved on from being a freelance IT computer guy to professional sailor . This might be the mid-life crisis more of us wished we had acted on…… In the intervening years he sailed in two Mini Transats-2007 and 2013 and the British based Azores and back, aka, AZAB.
Screen shot taken at 1930 EST of Henrik Masekowitz’s position. The date on the tracker indicates that it is about 25 minutes old at 1930 EST
The boat of choice for HIS circumnavigation is a first generation Akilaria. Henrik’s Akilaria is of the same class & make of boat that the Chinese sailor Guo Chuan used to establish the present record (137 days and change) in 2013. Akilaria is also the builder of the boat under Joe Harris although Gryphon Solo 2 is the Mk.2 version. Masekowitz’s boat “Croix du Sud” is number 64 (Vs. #106 for Joe) built in 2008.
A third Akilaria has made this voyage albeit double handed with stops. Italian Marco Nannini circumnavigated in the Global Ocean Race in 2011/12
The North Atlantic has indeed been an even more crowded place in the past month or so. Excluding the “run of the mill” vessels making the voyage from Europe to the Caribbean and beyond, there have been two major short-handed races, both of which are just wrapping up. (And just think, a Trans-Atlantic passage used to be such an achievement too…Think Sopranino….)
Screen shot of the Class 40 fleet tracking as they close in on the finish of the Transat Jacque Vabre.
The Transat Jacque Vabre, a double-handed race from Le Harve, France to Itajai in Brazil, over a course of some 5500 miles is close to being complete. FOURTY boats were entered including: 20 IMOCA 60’s and in what must be a record rate of attrition, 11 abandoned the race, 4 fifty foot multihulls plus two of the Maxi tris., and 14 Class 40’s. The tail-enders of whom are still 1800 miles out.
Metaphorically speaking there has been a crossing the “T” of the TJV (a north-south race) by the Mini Transat, sailing east to west. The Mini Class chose to stay in the Northern Hemisphere for this year’s event and so the Mini 650’s are flooding into Guadeloupe having sailed across the mid-latitudes from the Canaries starting 18 days ago.
The remains of the Mini Transat fleet, largely the production “series” boats heading for the finish at Guadeloupe, ideally in time for the party….
Not to be left out of a nice mid-fall lap of the planet are two Maxi Trimarians, Spindrift 2 and IDEC Sport.
Maxi Trimarian Spindrift 2 in Newport preparing for an attempt on the West to East Trans-Atlantic record in 2014. They were very gracious in hosting members of the Prout School Sailing Team
These two behemoths are in the starting blocks in Brest warming up for a departure, possibly this weekend, for the latest crack at winning the Trophy Jules Verne. The current record is 45 days, 13 hours, 42 minutes and 53 seconds established in fact by Spindrift 2 sailing as Groupama under the command of French sailing legend, Loick Peyron. This pace indicates then that one or the other or perhaps even both monster tri’s are going to have to sail around the world averaging over 20 knots. It is rather intimidating to consider that if these guys and one woman depart in the next day or so they may well be back for New Years Eve celebrations. Think about THAT for a minute.
This is a tad more then the 8.0 kts. Joe and Henrik need to average for them to claim the new record for the 40 foot class.
Spindrift tracking page showing her in Brest with the engine ticking over waiting for the green light….
And a screen shot of the tracking page for IDEC and Francis Joyon, showing them also on stand by in Brest. The blue boat is Loic Peyrons boat, as a reference I think. This traking seervicec can show the tracks of both boats so you can easily tell who is ahead.
Lastly, one hope’s that the tri’s, and probably the 40’s too, do not simply run over Bristol RI sailor Donna Lange as she, comparatively speaking, crawls along in her Southern Cross 28. And while not exacly in the North Atlantic rignt now, she was a bit earlier on in the season. Her position, on Tuesday 17 November in the middle of the Indian Ocean at 41 30’s x 68.00e.
For those of us who grew up watching long distance offshore solo sailing, all this is somewhat mind boggling. Reading about the exploits of the pioneers of the genre is a more accurate statement. At very long intervals their reports wafted in from static laden short wave conversations and were molded into newspaper stories devoured by the lilkes of the 12,13,14 year old me. Those stories of especially of Sir Robin Knox Johnson, Sir Francis Chichester and the rest of the pioneering solo circumnavigators were the stories of my youth and have shaped my own seamanship. These men might well be impressed: Ms. Lange is on her second lap in a “small boat”.
One last thought: Ms. Lange is one of ony 4 sailors from the US in this entire squadron of solo or otherewise remakable sailors and boats out sailing on the waters of the world.
She is joined by: Joe Harris, Andy Able, sailing a mini and Ryan Breyaimer who had to abandon the TJV.
Regardless, Bon Courage all.