The Hatch

Putting things into perspective

29 March 2008

Parts for the repairs and replacements to the rigging of the Clipper 68 fleet that we feel are necessary have arrived in Los Angeles now but the freight forwarders were unable to get the masts from the aircraft from Luxembourg to the flight to Hawaii in the six hours available to them despite calls and pleas, so we have a delay we could have done without. We are applying all the pressure we can to ensure they are on the next flight. This is a great disappointment to Clipper Ventures Finance Director Jeremy Knight, who has been arranging the flights and the transhipments for some ten days, and been made promises that have not been honoured, and also to our Maintenance Manager John Farndell who moved heaven and earth to get things collected in time for the flight. Still the catastrophic opening of London Heathrow’s Terminal 5 should show us that to place too great a reliance on the airline industry is probably unwise!

Some other issues appear to be causing a certain amount of uninformed chatter, so let me try and put them into perspective.

People have asked why westernaustralia2011.com retired and not Durban 2010 and Beyond. The answer is that a yacht does not automatically retire just because it has equipment failure. If a yacht breaches one of the racing rules they can either take a penalty or retire. In this case westernaustralia2011.com used their engine which is against the racing rules and their only real option was then to retire. It should be noted that they sailed a considerable distance with a jury rig and clocked a top speed of 22kts without their full mast and without engine and could in theory have finished the race legally if they wished.

It should also be noted that we do not yet have the westernaustralia2011.com skipper’s declaration form so have no idea what this will state and so cannot make a finite judgement until this has been received.

Someone else has asked why no boats were diverted to support wesernaustralia2011.com. The answer is that the fleet was put on standby, but westernaustralia2011.com sorted out their problem, built a good jury rig, and got moving pretty quickly and we knew that she had enough fuel to reach Midway combined with her speed under sail. Since there was no other boat threatening damage, in effect westernaustralia2011.com had become a perfectly safe auxiliary power boat; there was no need for another yacht to be diverted. Durban 2010 and Beyond on the other hand, did not have enough bits of
mast available for a good jury rig and was running into headwinds which meant she had insufficient fuel to reach Hawaii hence we diverted boats to re-supply her with fuel. It was all pretty obvious really.

Why has the race not been abandoned and no points awarded? Shortening the course is always an option open to a race committee. In the case of the leg from Qingdao, the decision was made to shorten the course because it seemed to us that, after two rigging failures, it was not wise to allow the boats to continue to race and put pressure on their rigs, especially as we had no idea at the time what was causing the failures. Safety had to be our priority.

Race control polls the fleet every six hours using a satellite system. The only fair way to conclude the leg race was to choose a moment when we had all the positions from the satellite polling system at the same time. The time was arbitrary out of necessity; the positions were what they were. Both Durban 2010 and Beyond and westernaustralia2011.com had failures that were not down to crew actions. They are down to equipment failures, not abuse by crews. This could happen to any boat. In order to allow the teams to avoid being penalised for something outside their control we have awarded points for the leg race as appropriate.

People have asked why Clipper finished the race because there had been two dismastings and suggested that this would not happen in other sailing events such as the Volvo Ocean Race. I think the answer to this is pretty obvious to any thinking person. In the Volvo Ocean Race the boats are owned, managed and sailed by the sponsors. They are not identical and are entered in someone else’s race. The sponsors are responsible for their boats not the Volvo organisation. Clipper owns the identical boats in the Clipper Race with identical equipment and rigs and when we can see a fault developing in one boat we pay attention, if it happens aboard two we take action as responsible operators. Not to take action could put lives at risk, always our primary concern.

We are now focused on getting all the parts in from Los Angeles and getting the race underway again. We will sail the eight boats that did not lose their masts as soon as they are ready, and will then decide what to do about westernaustralia2011.com and Durban 2010 and Beyond. Our concern is to get them back into the race as speedily as we can and we are considering a number of options that are fair to them and the rest of the fleet. As ever, we will keep everyone advised as and when things develop.

RKJ