|
Vendee Globe 2008/09 - Ecover/Mike Golding
www.vendeeglobe.org - Übersicht Syndikate
05.11.2008
Like others who have launched new IMOCA Open 60’s Mike Golding has not had an easy run into this, his third Vendée Globe
In reality his new boat has spent as much time in the yard as it has on the water. But the Owen Clarke design showed ample speed on her maiden race outing, last November’s Transat Jacques Vabre, when Golding lead the highly competitive fleet into the Doldrums before making a slight tactical error.
|
Foto: Mark Lloyd/ DPPI / Vendée Globe
|
But even that race, double handed, was fraught with teething problems. The engine oil leaked consistently to an extent that Golding was forced to spend hours nursing it, and on the return race he was forced to retire to the Canaries with a chapter of annoying problems which simply rendered the boat uncompetitive.
In the early spring it was discovered that ECOVER 3 had water ingressed into the keel which had sailed less than 8,000 miles and Golding was forced to abandon his plans to do the Transat and the return leg, which he considers an essential proving and tuning ground in the lead up to the pinnacle, this Vendée Globe.
Since the boat was re-launched things have gone better, a good solid qualifying passage and a period of excellent two boat testing, with technical alliance partner AVIA and Dee Caffari.
This will be Golding’s sixth circumnavigation, his fourth time solo. Since 1999 he has done every Transat Jacques Vabre, with three podium places, took second in the Route du Rhum in 2002, and – memorably – lead the 2004 Vendée Globe into the South Atlantic until suffering repeated halyard problems.
As the ‘elder statesman’ of the Brits here, he is totally at home among the excitement and the build up, flitting between managing the shore team and official engagements, with gusto and good humour. But this race, for him, is unfinished business, and while he may be totally comfortable with his lot here, he has never compromised on standards with regard to his ECOVER programme:
“ I suppose I have grown into my shoes a little more but if you ask my shore-team they’d probably tell you I am still pretty demanding,” he admits, “ and I know what I want to achieve and I know how I am going to achieve it. The guys I have with me, and I have had a mix this year, have grown to understand that we now have a boat which is worthy of being here in amongst this Vendée Globe fleet, and they have perhaps realised that if I had not pushed in that direction then we would not have the same boat. And they can take pride in what we have achieved.”
“ It has not been my most joyous eleven months in ‘sailing’ ….I can’t call it sailing because it’s been in the yard! It has not been easy and this boat has been more problematical than any other I have been involved with, but that should not lead people to believe we are any less than we should be, because potentially the boat is fundamentally the right tool for the job.”
“ I look at us and AVIVA, we are both sister-ships, and yet we cam out the box with lots of problems, they came out the box with relatively few problems. The reality is we were always going to have these problems. The good thing is they have all happened and if there is still anything there we have not spotted, then it is not for want of trying.”
The complexity of these new generation boats has given the skipper many more speed controls, which require some time to learn how they best interact to maximise speed, to that end a period of two boat testing from Plymouth with AVIVA provided a wealth of information:
“We have the interceptors, five ballast tanks on each side of the boat, you have got the daggerboards, you have the wing mast, all those things we were able to eliminate with the two boat testing and advantage is we went along to the two boats testing with two boats which are identical, identical sails, and it was a very cool thing to do.”
Third in 2004, how does Golding rate his chances of stepping higher on the podium this time?
“I’d like to be better than that, I don’t like to not make progress. But the truth is it is easy for me to sit here and say that, but the reality is you look out the window here and see the quality and quantity and talent involved in this particular race with thirty boats. Having said all that, and I have gone through it, through the scenarios, and thought well ‘how well is that guy going to do, and I still come out pretty good in terms of if things go nominally OK for me, I still come out OK in all my scenario working. I think that the adage it is anyone’s race has never been truer than this one. But I think the usual suspects will be there in the end, and I’d like to think I’ll be one of them.”
Ecover in Fremantle 28th December 2008
|
|
|