Friday 23rd January 2009
Temenos II bound for Europe
Over three weeks have passed since Temenos II’s arrival in Fremantle after
Dominique suffered serious problems with the keel during the Vendée Globe.
Barely had he set foot on Australian soil when the skipper set to work in an
overpowering heat bordering on 40° in the shade. On site the three Imoca 60
teams, Temenos II, Gitana Eighty and Ecover opted to team up and thus "Team
Gitanover" was born, with each team working on each of the monohulls in
turn.
Contacted yesterday as he prepared to take off for Malaysia, Dominique
described his Australian stopover: “Together with Mike and Loick’s teams, we
opted to team up to get the job done. As such Gitanover saw the light of
day! All of us were then able to work on each boat, one at a time, which
enabled us to be a lot more efficient. We put a lot of work into the
dismantling and preparation with a view to loading the boats. The
Australians gave us a great welcome and were extremely helpful. This was
especially true of the Fremantle Sailing Club, and even though the
infrastructure in Fremantle isn’t specially designed for boats of this size,
they had a great attitude and really helped us out.”
Once out on the hard, Temenos II’s hull was positioned on some huge bags
filled with polystyrene and then loaded onto the container ship, which cast
off for Malaysia on Sunday. It’s there that Dominique will join up with his
monohull again, which should be placed in a transit zone in the immense
commercial port of Tanjung Pelepas for 5 days, prior to being loaded onto
another cargo ship on 30th January. The latter will be bound for Le Havre in
north-east France, where she is expected around 15th February 2009.
“The boats will perform half a circumnavigation of the globe. As such we’ve
tried to protect them as much as possible with protective covers, tarpaulin
and foam. The loading onto the Maersk Garonne went very well and the
Australian dockers took really great care of our boats. Luck would have it
that we ended up with one of only two French registered container ships
belonging to the shipowner. We were allowed to go aboard and the ship was
really impressive. The Maersk Garonne measures 292 m long and can transport
something like 4,300 containers. Temenos ended up perched 25 metres up. It’s
not the usual position you’d expect to find a 60 footer in. She’ll really
roll around up there during the trip so we had to ensure she was lashed down
firmly. The partially French crew were very nice and the guys on deck send
us news everyday. It was an emotional moment to see Temenos leaving.”
Really caught up in the preparation of his boat, Dominique hasn’t yet been
able to get some real respite. In a certain way though, these past three
weeks of intense physical work have proven to be beneficial to the skipper
as they’ve enabled him to evacuate his feelings of disappointment.
“Having to set to work straightaway wasn’t such a bad thing in the end.
There was so much to do that it kept my mind from wandering. Despite all
that you can’t stop yourself from continuing to follow the race. It reindexs
in a corner of your brain and I reckon it’ll reindex like that until the
first arrivals make port. Even after a retirement you feel like you’re still
part of the race. It’s a strange feeling that of not finishing off the
story. You can’t stop going over the race and imagining yourself still at
sea with the rest of the fleet. The huge number of messages of support
helped me out a great deal; it was a difficult time for the entire Temenos
project.”
For the time being the breakage of the monohull’s keel head, which was the
root of the skipper’s retirement and disillusion, still reindexs unexplained.
This is something the experts will begin to tackle on the boat’s return to
Europe. Dominique will be joined in this by the British skipper Mike
Golding, who chose the same keel with a view to its reliability.
“The boat will arrive in Le Havre on 15th February. The mast and hull will
be loaded onto two lorries and will head down to La Rochelle as a wide load.
On zone, we’ll begin our investigations and schedule in the analysts. The
aim is not to point a finger at a guilty party but above all, to understand
why the breakage occurred so as to avoid such a thing happening again. Mike
and I realised on examining the two keels in Fremantle, that though mine had
actually broken, his was also heading that way. In all likelihood we both
have the same type of problem and we strongly suspect that it was the same
causes which resulted in the same effects. We’re just waiting for the
scientific analysis to confirm that and at that stage we’ll work on finding
the solutions together. Depending on the results, we’ll see if it’s possible
to make repairs or if it’ll be necessary to manufacture an entirely new
keel.”
The results and conclusions of this investigation will doubtless encourage
further thought within the Imoca Class, so as to prevent this type of
serious damage from putting the sailors’ safety in danger again in the
future.
“As we sensed prior to the start, there are already a vast number of
lessons to be learnt from the boats that were forced to retire from this
Vendée Globe, but the experiences from those who are able to get all the way
around the globe will also be extremely beneficial to the class. From the
safety to the reliability to the solidity of the boats, not to mention the
evolutions in the class measurement for the future, we certainly won’t be
short of jobs. There is a serious amount of in-depth work awaiting all the
skippers. I hope we’ll be able to do it as quickly as possible whilst things
are still fresh in our minds.”
After this short stopover in Malaysia, the skipper will head back to
Switzerland on 5th February after a brief stopover in France. Expected to
arrive on 1st February, Dominique is likely to be able to see in the race
leaders as they bring this Vendée Globe story to a close and hopefully
enable the skipper to turn a page.
Translated by Kate Jennings – Expression
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