60′ Carkeek and MOD 70’s

The brand new 60′ Carkeek-designed Ichi Ban goes sailing. Looks pretty nice.

 

MOD 70’s
The smallest fleet in the TJV this year, as expected, was the MOD 70’s. The class has been a flop due to hard economic times in France, lack of promotion and piss-poor management, but the boats that it has created are awe-inspiring and the racing top notch. The TJV was the first shorthanded race, and longest course, that the MOD 70’s have ever campaigned and was therefore as much of an experiment as a yacht race. Despite just two boats actually taking to the start, the experiment was an overwhelming success.

Though there wasn’t the excitement of constant lead changes, tons of boats, passing lanes and drama, the racing was actually very close. In a drag race to Cape Finisterre, Seb Josse’s Edmond de Rothschild pulled out to a 50-mile lead after what Oman Air-Musandam skipper Sidney Gavignet called “the toughest conditions i’ve seen on this boat”, including gusts of 40-50 knots and sustained breeze in the mid-30’s with “a huge seaway”. The Omani boat was more deeply reefed, slower and generally more conservative in the rough stuff, allowing EdR to gain this crucial advantage.

With Edmond de Rothschild maintaining their fragile 50 mile lead, the two MOD’s were barely even slowed by the doldrums, averaging 16 knots across the dreaded light-air zone. The pair of 70-foot tri’s continued their match race towards the Brazilian coast at breakneck speed with the Omani boat reaching up slightly higher to try and catch their competitors on Edmond de Rothschild, and nearly succeeding at that, before falling off the back of a cold front and getting trapped in the light air behind it. Mix in a few technical challenges, a hydraulic failure and the aforementioned slowing at Finisterre and it’s amazing that the race came down to just 5 hours. But that’s the beauty of one-design; close racing.

Josse and co-skipper Charles Caudrellier on EdR collaborated to create something incredible, masterfully sailing the course at an average of more than 22 knots. Establishing a new course reference time of 11 days, 5 hours and 3 minutes from Le Havre to Itajal, the duo came in well quicker than the expected 12-14 days. A phenomenal performance by both teams. After this TJV, we can only hope that Virbac-Paprec 70, Spindrift and the others in the MOD fleet will engage in next year’s Krys Ocean Race!