Wednesday 10th September – 1430 UT
The countdown to the Vendée Globe begins for Gitana Eighty
Yesterday, two months to the day until the much awaited start of the Vendée
Globe, the monohull in the colours of the LCF Rothschild Group got a taste
of the ocean again during sail trials in the bay of Quiberon, Brittany. It
was a moment of enjoyment for the Gitana Team who have worked without
respite the whole summer to provide their skipper with a meticulously
prepared boat. During the six weeks between now and Gitana Eighty’s arrival
in the French port of Les Sables d’Olonne, Loïck Peyron will go for a series
of test sails to validate the final adjustments and run through the basics
again.
The traditional summer work came to an end last week in the technical base
in Saint-Philibert, SW Brittany. After a month and half’s work, Gitana
Eighty is afloat in the port of La Trinité-sur-Mer once more. Now well
grounded in the familiar manœuvres of relaunching and keel stepping, the
Gitana Team competently conducted these operations. Despite this there was a
rather ‘formal’ air to proceedings: “It’s our last launch and in particular
our last keel stepping prior to the Vendée Globe, so everything has to be
perfect!” underlined one of the members of the shore crew.
The objective of making the existing keel reliable has been the dominant
feature in all the work, as the boat captain William Fabulet confirms: “Mid
July our objective was clear. To develop Gitana Eighty in certain areas but
above all, to make those elements which had already proven their worth,
reliable. Every aspect of the boat was examined and we’ve replaced the parts
which needed changing, either as a result of wear, or as a precautionary
measure. The running and standing rigging has seen fairly radical changes,
the electronic and computer installations have been checked with a large
amount of work on the automatic pilot systems, which are especially
important during a Vendée Globe. Our composite specialists have reviewed the
appendage profiles too. Added to that we have naturally sought to improve
the comfort of our skipper by working on the interior ergonomics
(reinforcing the watertightness of the portlights, positioning of the chart
table…). Every detail is vital and nobody has been sparing of their efforts.
The outcome will be our greatest satisfaction.”
Registering in the Imoca class ruling, the 60 foot monohulls have to respect
a certain number of safety rules in order to conform with the specifications
imposed. With the monohull equipped by Baron Benjamin de Rothschild having
changed its keel over the course of the summer, some tests awaited the boat
on its relaunch.
In this way, on Monday morning, anyone out for a stroll around the port of
La Trinité-sur-Mer had front row seats to a rather atypical sight; an 18
metre monohull heeled over on its side… Indeed the Gitana Team were
performing a so-called 90° test: “this consists of heeling the boat over to
90° in order to check the vessel’s righting moment. Once the boat is canted
over with the help of a crane, we measure the traction at the masthead with
a dynamometer. The aim of all this being to check that in the event of
capsize, the weight of the keel is sufficiently high to enable Gitana Eighty
to right itself without assistance” explains Loïck Peyron. It is worth
nothing that if this test had been imposed during the first Vendée Globe, we
wouldn’t have seen the kind of incident with Philippe Poupon off South
Africa, which required an intervention by Loïck. Finally, after scoring
10/10 for this 90° manoeuvre, an equally as important but a lot less
spectacular exercise was completed in order to gain an entry ticket to the
Vendée Globe: “it was a question of completely filling the ballasts, whilst
pushing the keel over as far as it would go and ensuring that the hull
didn’t exceed a heeling angle of 10°.”
For understandably practical reasons the class measurement tests require the
boat to be as empty as possible. In this way, since last week’s launch and
keel stepping, the Gitana Team have had to wait a few days before heading
out to sea.
Now though, the coming weeks promise to be hectic for the skipper of Gitana
Eighty, with particular emphasis on the new set of sails the 60 footer will
have for its circumnavigation of the globe. The deadline for the Vendée
Globe is fast approaching and every day must be used wisely.
Gitana, a passion for sailing
Spurred on by Baron Benjamin de Rothschild, the Gitana story opened towards
multihulls in 2000 with Gitana IX. An ‘armada’ followed with Gitana X in
2002, Gitana 11 (Ex-Belgacom) in 2004, then Gitana 12 (Ex-Bonduelle) in 2006
to replace Gitana X. In 2007, a year after the arrival of Loïck Peyron at
the head of the Gitana Team, the fleet diversified: Gitana 11, the 60 foot
Orma multihull and outright winner of the Route du Rhum 2006, was then
accompanied by Gitana Eighty, a 60 foot Imoca monohull, and Gitana 13, a 33
metre maxi-catamaran was devoted to discovery. Crewed records for Gitana 13
and solo races for Gitana Eighty: this new season already promises to etch
some fine lines in the histories of the Gitana boats…
Find all the latest about the Gitana Team at www.gitana-team.com
Rights free photos and images for press use are available on request
Press contact: Zephyr Communication
Tiphaine Combot-Seta
+ 33 6 85 58 53 00 or tiphaine@zephyrcom.com
Photo credits: Yvan Zedda / Gitana SA
Translated by Kate Jennings – Expression
To update your contact details please email:
katejennings@free.fr
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