“We plan to use another rigging set to get going again quickly and the repairs to the coachroof and windows are all underway under the control of Mucky – who is never happier than when dealing with a  ’bun fight’ of carbon!. The masts spreaders are currently winging their way to Future Masts in Valencia, one to be repaired, and one possibly to be replaced. It’s a crazy jigsaw of both small and larger parts each of which has its own critical path and individual time lead. Given the amount of support we have from our expert suppliers we are confident we will be out sailing again by mid-June at the latest.

“Whilst this puts a dent in my training and preparation programme and it has meant that we have had to delay our visits to London and Leith with Gamesa, everyone is doing their utmost to recover the time. Whatever happens is was considerably better to have happened now, rather than closer to, or worse still, during The Vendée Globe which starts on the 10 November 2012.”

3 May Update: Following the failure of the furling gear and subsequent dismasting yesterday, 2 May, of Mike Golding’s 60 foot IMOCA, Gamesa, Mike, and his Boat Captain, Graham Tourell, speak candidly about the importance of the results of tomorrow’s ultrasound testing and the plan going forward ….

Mike Golding: “We were in 12 knots of breeze going upwind, nothing exceptional. It was a quiet day, flat water. You wouldn’t have expected any sort of failure like that in these conditions so it was obviously something that was latent, just sitting there waiting to break and obviously it is unfortunate it broke then.

“At least like this, the mast is unbroken and potentially undamaged, other than cosmetic damage. The bottom spreaders probably need replacing, there is a little bit of damage around the foot, but the mast itself landed on the boat quite gently, it really was quite gentle so in that regard there is a good chance the downtime won’t be as long as it might have been.

“I’m pretty gutted. It was a little too light to do proper training, but we had enough breeze to work the boat up and get some pressure on the boat and this is the result. So pretty disappointing really, but better now than later on in the year, at least we have some time to sort it out so now we just have to deal with it.

“The biggest damage is from a training perspective, it puts a big hole in that plan. We have a minimum six weeks of down time and the problem is not so much the damage, but the lead time on the components [we’ll need] as a lot of these are custom components. The rigging in particular will need looking at and we probably need to be changing it because it has been bent in bad directions, and the lead times on those components are pretty long. I think six weeks, optimistically four maybe, it just depends ….. And we are in the lap of the weather. If we are able to, we can repair the boat and the damage to the coach roof outside if the weather is clement …. but it is a completely different ball game if we have to lift the boat out of the water and inside a shed and with those things you multiple the lead times. But it is a little early to say. We need to survey the damage: we have non-destructive testing surveyors coming on Friday, the insurers have been informed, our sponsors, and we have done all the things we can do now, we just have to pick up the sticks and make sure we don’t break anything else and get ourselves going.

“In the context of the Vendée Globe, it is disappointing as we lose some training time, but on the other hand, I suppose we have learned something valuable and this could have happened at any point so in the context of the Vendée I doubt it will have a real negative effect and I’m hopeful that the rig is ok and we can get ourselves going. But it is obviously very disappointing.

“I will go home and cry about it later, but the reality is that there is nothing else you can do. We are on a mission to the Vendée, that is where we are going and this won’t stop us.”

Graham Tourell, Boat Captain, Gamesa: “It is a sorry picture behind me as you can see. The Solent drum basically exploded while we were sailing in the Solent [off the Isle of Wight], causing the rig to come down, in one piece, thankfully. You can see the aftermath of it and we are getting ready to crane it off and see what damage lies beneath.

“If there was any luck involved in the dismasting, we have probably had it today because it was perfectly flat water, luckily the rig came down straight on the back of the boat and didn’t go in the water otherwise we would have had hull damage as well, so we will wait and see what lurks beneath.

“It all seemed to run in slow motion. Obviously a big bang, then as the rig started falling backwards, it was a case of getting everyone clear. Mike and Mikey were both in the cockpit and I was just up looking up the rig and as it went bang, I had to dive out the way of it. It was very calm and controlled on board, rather than all going round and cutting lines. We all have enough experience where you don’t go into a flat spin and panic, it is just a case of letting the dust settle and see what we are dealing with.

“What happens now? The mast will be craned off the boat, then the main [sail] off, which is trapped underneath the rig, daggerboards have to come out, then the surveyors come and test the integrity of the rig to make sure it is fine, even though it is in one piece, we need to make sure there is no damage, same with the sails, everything will need to get looked at as there will have been big spike loads as the rig went. Once we have everything off the boat, that is when the work begins really.

“We’ll take it all in our stride and get Mike out sailing again as quickly as we can. Any sort of saving grace is that we have time to put the boat back together again and get Mike in tip-top shape for the Vendée Globe. If it were two months before the Vendée, we’d be in panic mode, but as it is at the moment we are fine.

“There has been a lot of talk recently about rigging partly because of what has been happening in the Volvo and we have been monitoring it closely, but what has happened today is absolutely nothing to do with the rigging, it is blatantly obvious that it was 100% one of the furling drums that exploded, which there is absolutely nothing you can do about it, to prevent it or foresee it. It is one of those bits of kit that shouldn’t be failing. As far as the whole rigging discussion goes, there is no question about what has happened here, it is not related to rigging whatsoever.”

On 2 May, at 1540, whilst training off Thorness Bay, Isle of Wight, in 12 knots of wind, Mike Golding’s IMOCA 60, Gamesa, was dismasted following a suspected failure in the furling gear. Mike Golding, and his crew of Graham Tourell (Boat Captain) and Mike Ferguson (Preparateur) were all unhurt in the incident.

The mast has been recovered to the deck, in one piece, and the team are currently returning Gamesa to her berth at Ocean Village, Southampton.

More information will be released as it becomes available.

“Even after the technical success for the modified boat on the transat races last year it’s still been a busy winter for our shore team. Many onboard systems have been revised or renewed including a completely new main engine, so the team have had lots to keep them fully occupied.

“We are now back into full sailing mode but this week are waiting for the weather (which is foul) to provide us with the opportunity to start sailing more seriously. Initially we’ll be doing a mix of day-sailing out of Southampton, then overnights, before heading out further offshore into the Atlantic. The sailing team on the boat will comprise of Gringo, Mikey and me. Mucky (our Composite Engineer) claims to be a ‘non-sailor’ but we leverage him out when we can and I have even seen him enjoying himself (even smiling at times) on board – something he would flatly deny!

“These initial trials look inwardly at the boat’s various systems and also the boat’s basic performance and setup. Later we will get into seeing if we can improve on the numbers and then into the Vendée training proper where I will sail alone or perhaps with just one other onboard for safety.

“Every sail from here on should have some solid purpose and goals attached to it. Each outing will have a clear set of objectives and a list of areas to go through, for example, drills of sail changes, manoeuvres, testing the various electrical/computer systems, the autopilots, the engine and charging systems. We are also constantly revising the boat’s performance;  this data in turn helps improve the accuracy and reliability of the weather routing software. In essence we aim to leave no stone unturned in the hunt for optimal performance and reliability.

“And so whilst the focus is on preparing Gamesa and me for performing well – we are also working on developing how to communicate and illustrate the story during the race. The boat is already equipped with a number of different satellite communications systems. Primarily ,and for simple voice communications, we use the Iridium satellite system and have both fixed and portable handsets for emergency use. We can use this same system to go online or send small attachments but faster or bigger data movements require something more sophisticated.

“Therefore for faster connections (needed to move large weather files or video or images) we currently have an Inmarsat Fleet 250 broadband. However the race organisers, in collaboration with Iridium, have recently provided a new Iridium Open Port system which should enable both the cheaper voice calls and a reasonably fast BB connection all in one package. Altogether these various systems are vital to provide the output we want to send news to those following us back home.

“Supporting this we have an onboard media system with cameras dotted around the boat, which I can switch between, to provide interesting and varied views of the action on board in either recorded files which I can transmit, after editing, or live via a link to a TV station ashore.

“This update is coming from Brazil, as I finish my tour of Gamesa plant facilities around the world. I’ve met the team in Salvador, Brazil, and then headed south to another facility in Sao Paolo. I know Salvador reasonably well having been there three or four times it used to be the end port for the Transat Jacques Vabre.

“On my return from Brazil we will reach the countdown for the first of the ‘Race Ready’ deadlines we have set during the year to keep the team focused and practiced. The goal is that the boat must be in a full race ready state as if we were heading out into the Vendée Globe race. I then aim to head out with Gamesa to validate our systems and its general readiness.

“In June we head to London for the RenewableUK Global Offshore Wind exhibition at ExCeL and then plan a trip north to Edinburgh in Scotland.

“Please join us on the journey to the Vendée Globe by following us either via our Facebook page (www.Facebook.com/mikegoldingyachtracing), my Twitter feed (@goldingmike) or on our website (www.mikegolding.com). All the team is inspired by your support.”

Getting to know ….. Mike

Favourite thing/favourite place: chilling and snorkelling in the Maldives with Andrea and Soren, away from it all.

Favourite drink: red wine, Spanish or South American.

If I wasn’t a professional sailor I’d like to have been: a pilot, flying something interesting, not the ‘bus driving’.

Favourite film, how many times have you seen it, and would you watch it again: The Crimson Tide with Gene Hackman and Denzel Washington. I’ve watched it at least five times and could and probably will watch it five more!

Gamesa is an ‘IMOCA Open 60’ which is designed to the set of measurement rules laid down by the International Monohull Open Class Association (IMOCA).

The Class is an open, development rule, one which has historically imposed only a minimum number of restraints on the design, in contrast to a ‘one design’ which sets enough measurement restrictions to ensure that boats are very near to identical.

In essence, the rules state there is to be a maximum length of 60 feet (18.28m), the boat must be a monohull, there is a maximum draught of 14.8 feet (4.5m), and the 2010 rules set a maximum mast height of 92 feet (29m).

Beyond these simple constraints there are also key regulations which have evolved to maximise the structural integrity of each boat, as well as rules which determine the required ability of the boat to right itself and to guarantee a certain stability.

The IMOCA Open 60 has evolved progressively but remains an extremely fast boat designed specifically for solo, or short handed sailing. This means the living space inside, or ‘down below’ is just a tiny pod taking up only 15 to 20% of the internal volume of the boat.

To save weight, the inside space is completely open other than some storage areas and the water ballast tanks.

Boats and Cars

“If you are looking at a car analogy, an IMOCA Open 60 in the Vendée Globe is not a F1 car in terms of top speed, nor even is it a Le Mans 24 hour race car, though there would be certain criteria common to them. It borrows from each discipline, but it is really most akin to a car for the Paris Dakar rally,” explains Merfyn Owen, from Owen Clarke Design, who heads the design team behind Gamesa.

“As a designer, you are always looking to make the boat fast, but you need to have a boat which will look after the skipper all the way to the finish, so he or she can push hard to achieve high average speeds, for long hours, as easily as possible.

High average speeds: that’s the goal.

“If you have a major problem then it is the end of a four year cycle, it’s all over in a few seconds, so reliability is everything. It’s clear that the fastest boat has historically not always won the Vendée Globe. In 2004 it was a boat which won the previous edition. Updating an existing boat is a very strong choice line to follow.

“With Gamesa we have proven that the chassis is fast enough and is now reliable, and so we have modified a number of things to make her faster while retaining the reliability.”

Splitting the course into three

IMOCA Open 60s have a fast planing hull which has been developed to be fast in the strong, downwind conditions of the Southern Ocean, but Owen reaffirms that for him the Vendée Globe is not just about the boat’s downwind speed for the fast sections through the southern seas of planet earth.

“We worked a lot on the weather modeling before the 2000 race and for every design/race since. We have a huge amount of historical weather data and in fact depending on where the ice gates are set the average wind for the race is about 12 knots from 110 degrees [off the bow]. And so the Vendée Globe is really a reaching race. It is more about tight luff gennakers and jib tops, with some key upwind sailing which can heavily influence the result.

“We split the course into three. You have to have the boat speed to get down the Atlantic in touch with the leading group, so you are in contention in the south. In the south you want a boat that is easily controlled, which determines how hard and for how long you can push. Mike is historically very strong in the south, able to drive the boat very fast, and we make sure that the boat is as easy to push and control as possible. As designers we can push the single handed sailor harder. However there are limits.

“And then the third stage is up the Atlantic. You want to be in the lead or at least in touch with the leaders, within say 100-200 miles at Cape Horn and then you want reliability because this is when the boat is getting tired, but you also need the boat speed to keep in the race north.

“There are interesting facets to designing for the Southern Ocean, the criteria are very different to the Atlantic. For example when we set up the VPP [the computer predicted velocity of the boat in prevailing wind strengths and direction] we downgrade the use of spinnakers because we know that the sailor simply won’t be able to set one in the prevalent conditions.

“We know that Mike is super fast in the south so one thing we are careful with is to design rocker (fore and aft curve) into the hull so that the bow pops up and stays up, in turn that lets the autopilots work faster, more actively and allows the boat to be pushed hard.

“So too, for example, the rudder profile and section design for the south is optimised so that there may be slightly less feel in the lighter conditions, but they feel balanced and easier at 17-25kts – at high speeds – so they are more tolerant and less susceptible to stalling, but the tax is they are a little more draggy in the lighter conditions.

“Typically, and these are rough figures, we say that each new design evolution is 3-5% faster than the last one. One of the approaches in the Open Class has been to reduce weight and oneway to do that has been to reduce structure, in the hull and in the rig. And obviously that potentially has consequences. Reducing drag is a safer option than to pull structure out of the boat and rig. We’re very careful when we do the former and work very hard to do as much of the latter as possible to get the performance improvements we’re after.”

Vendée Globe 2012-2013`

To date (1 April) there are 16 IMOCA Open 60s entered into the 2012-2103 Vendée Globe.

IMOCA Class Measurements:

Length: Maximum of 18.28 m (60 feet)

Beam range: ≈ 5.5 to 5.9m

Draught: Maximum of 4.5 m

Mast height: Maximum of 29 m

Displacement: Between 8,000 and 9,000 kg

Sail area upwind:  300m² on average

Sail area downwind: Between 570 and 620 m2

Type of keel: Canting (pendulum)

Date of Birth: 1-2-1983

Nickname: It depends, back in Ireland it is ‘Chunky’, over here, it is ‘Chubbs’. It all goes back to ten years ago when I hurt my back and spent the summer doing not very much and I put a bit of weight on. Gringo and the boys wouldn’t accept Chunky as a nickname as they hadn’t make it up, so I got called Chubbs!

What’s your role within the Gamesa Sailing Team: I am the Assistant Preparateur, I look after most of the deck gear, the sails and up the rig and rigging.

If you weren’t a sailing shore crew, what would you do: Professional Golfer because there is much more money in it!

If you were a Revel, what Revel would you be: Coffee.

When Mike is sailing in the Vendée Globe, what will you be doing: I will probably head back home to Ireland and play a lot of golf.

What’s your favourite sandwich and why: It has to be a turkey, ham and cranberry on brown bread because it reminds me of Christmas.

Tell me a secret: No!

Do you sail and to what level: Yes, I do sail and take part in National competitions and even World and Europeans in the SP3 class. When I was younger I used to do the Laser 2s again to World and European levels.

What’s your dream holiday: I think it would have to be something to do with sport, I enjoy winter skiing holidays and as for summer holiday I am not sure what my dream one would be because I never get time off in the summer to plan one!

Gamesa has been likened to looking like a Komodo dragon, what do you think it looks like: It certainly looks completely different to anything I’ve seen before. I think it just looks very futuristic!

Would you like to sail round the world non-stop: Not on my own! All the sailing I have done has been crewed and I don’t have any aspirations to do single-handed sailing. My dream was to do the Volvo Ocean Race, but I think with the economic crisis there are so few teams and such an abundance of talented sailors to choose from, I wouldn’t get a look in.

Tell me a joke: I have loads of jokes, but nothing you can publish!

Desert Island Disc of choice: Just one song? That’s a hard one. [Very long pause .......] I’m going to have to come back to you on that.

What qualifications do you have to do your job: Probably not many! I’m a Yacht Master so have done all the courses for that like sea survival, radio, navigation courses. And for the preparateur side it is just knowledge and probably a lot of common sense, hopefully!

How would you advise someone to get into the world of professional sailing: I think the best way to do it is to ask around and get good friendship with the team and you might get asked to do something and when you are asked, bend over backwards and do as much as you can to make yourself indispensable. I think getting on with the team is one of the biggest things and then being able to do your job to the standard that is required.

Golding, who was awarded the Emile Robin Award for skill and gallantry by the Shipwrecked Mariners’ Society for ‘an outstanding rescue by a British vessel’ for his rescue of Alex Thomson in the Southern Ocean during the Velux 5 Oceans in 2006, was photographed last summer in an outdoor swimming pool in Southampton. “I’ve been sailing professionally for over 20 years now, but this photoshoot was definitely a first!” commented Golding. “It’s great to support a charity so close to my heart and in such a creative way.”

The unique exhibition features celebrities and personalities including TV presenter and historian, Dan Snow, TV chef Mitch Tonks, TV wildlife presenter Ellie Harrison, world champion cliff diver Gary Hunt and UK surfing champion Tassy Swallow. The exhibition is designed to showcase Britain’s reliance on the sea and those who work within the maritime sector.

The images, which have been produced by acclaimed mairne photographer and TV Producer, Kate Westaway, who in her career has pictured everything from the rarest marine life in waters across the globe to high profile stars including Angelina Jolie.

Shipwrecked Mariners’ Society Chief Executive, Malcolm Williams added: “Celebrations of the Sea’ is a unique and tremendously creative project which aims to honour the maritime industry’s unsung heroes. These include the fishermen who brave the UK’s stormiest seas, to traditional lobster pot makers who keep precious fishing traditions alive and our most talented chefs who turn the fish caught out at sea into the nation’s favourite dishes.

“We are delighted to have worked with a photographer of Kate’s calibre on this project and are delighted to unveil the exhibition today. We’d also like to thank our sponsors and supporters, John West, CEVA Logistics and Sea Life Centres, without whom the exhibition would not have been possible.”

Over 95% of all Britain’s imports and exports are still transported by sea and the £37 billion UK maritime sector directly employs over 250,000 people – more than aerospace and agriculture combined. All donations generated from the exhibition will go to the Shipwrecked Mariners’ Society to support the UK’s retired and impoverished seafarers in times of financial hardship.

In the last 12 months alone, 2,644 former seafarers across the country benefited from grants from the Society totalling over £1.5 million but help for this vulnerable community is very much in demand, particularly in the current harsh economic environment.

Name:

Job Title: Operations and Logistics Manager

Nickname and why: I don’t have one, at least not one the team say to my face!

Role in the team and what do you do: Before Mike sets off on a trip, my role is to ensure that all the food, clothing and medical equipment that he’ll need for each race are sourced, repackaged and placed onboard. I deal with all the intricate paperwork and documents are completed and submitted to the various race organisers. I ensure all Mike’s medical certificates are up to date and he’s attended all the courses he needs like his sea survival courses, first aid etc. I’m creating a new menu for him for the Vendée Globe and working closely with our clothing partner, Musto, to ensure that Mike’s suitably kitted out for whatever the weather may throw at him. In addition, I’m the main point of contact with our sponsor, Gamesa.

What’s your background: My profession is a make-up artist, but I’ve done a myriad of different things. I’ve come from the fashion business, but worked in a hedge fund for 10 years and now work in a professional yacht racing team. It couldn’t get more diverse!

What’s your favourite Revel: The one like a Minstrel.

When Mike’s offshore racing, what do you do? During the last two races, I spent most my time preparing for the arrival and getting ready for the next race. During the Vendée Globe, I’ll support the Media & Communications Team updating the website and social media platforms and be on standby as I’m one of the main point of contacts for the race organisers.

When Mike arrives in port, what do you do? I haven’t been to one yet! But I’ve heard that Mike has a penchant for steak and chips when he finishes a race, at any time day or night, so the last few days of a race will probably be spent sweet talking a restaurant into accommodating the team!

Favourite sandwich: My favourite sandwich is cheese and tomato. How dull is that?!

Tell me a secret: I speak fluent Japanese.

Do you sail and to what level: No! Only in fair weather. Or onboard a 50foot Sunseeker with a G&T!

Dream holiday: To go to the silverback gorilla reserve in Uganda.

What do you think Gamesa looks like: A komodo dragon.

Would you like to sail around the world non-stop: No thank you!

Desert Island Disc: Counting Crows – Round Here

Qualifications to do your job: Strong interpersonal and communication skills is a must!  Proactive thinking is also key.

Name: Graham Tourell

Date of Birth: 13 September 1976

Job Title: Boat Captain

What do you do at Mike Golding Yacht Racing: As little as possible! At least that is what everyone accuses me of! I’m the Boat Captain, so in charge of running the boat in its entirety, making sure what needs to be done, gets done.

Why are you called Gringo: It’s so long ago, I can barely remember. When I was working in Cowes, myself, Johnny Malbon and another, we were the three instructors there and known as the Three Amigos, and I became ‘Gringo’.

If you weren’t shore crew, what would you do: Apart from be at home with a social life?! It’s a difficult question as I have been working on the Open 60s for about 15 years now so it would be in open sailing to some degree whether shore management or boat management, I’m not sure. That’s what draws me to the 60s as I get the best of both worlds. I’m not pigeon-holed into a shore manager or a racer. It willb e in the racing side, not the super yachts as you jsut become a hired chauffeur.

When Mike’s offshore racing, what do you do: When Mike is racing I live with my mobile phone in my pocket at all times, whether it is in the shower, going to the gym, absolutely anything, I have to be contactable 24 hours a day. If I can’t be because I’m on a flight, for example, Mike needs to know where I am and who to contact instread. Basically you are just on standby. You make the most of the boat being away to have some downtime, the boys don’t have any responsibilities, but we need to know where they are.

If you were a Revel which would you be: Malteser or raisin.

When Mike arrives in port, what do you do: If he is in good shape and he has won, we celebrate! When he arrives, we go out, meet him, bring the boat in safely then pack it up and sort it out ready for the next adventure.

Favourite sandwich: Hmmm, it would definitely have cream cheese, Primula. Primula, crispy bacon and some ketchup.

Tell me a secret: I can’t otherwise it wouldn’t be a secret.

Do you sail and to what level: I do, I do all the racing on the 60s, I have done the shorthanded stuff ont he 60s, everything bar solo.

What is your Dream Holiday: Maldives. Done it.

What do you think Gamesa looks like: Not a sheep, because that sounds dodgy, but that’s the closest I think. Let me have a look and see if I can come up with something witty and impressive …. [long pause] …. Stealth Bomber with its angular roof.

Would you like to sail round the world non-stop: Yes because I think it is an outstanding feat of man and machine.

What’s your Desert Island Disc of choice: I’ve got millions! Alistair Griffin, the F1 theme tune, Just Drive.

What qualifications do you have to do your job: Pretty much everything under the sun from medical, sea survival, radio, commercial yachtmaster, offshore, ocean anything. tHe only thing I don’t have, the easiest one, is the Class 4, which you need to sail the biggest class of yachts.

Our big challenge in 2012 and the focus for the Gamesa Sailing Team this year is the Vendée Globe:  the iconic solo, non-stop, around the world race. Every four years the ‘Everest of the Oceans’ starts from the sleepy fishing port of Les Sables d’Olonne, France. Hundreds of thousands descend on the town with the sole aim of soaking up the incredible atmosphere and tension that surrounds the start of this great human adventure.

As a skipper, the feeling as you exit the canal in Les Sables is incredible, 300,000 people are cheering and wishing all the teams a ‘bon voyage’. The atmosphere is unlike anything else that can be experienced in our sport: goose-bumps, hair standing on end, shivers down the spine – the clichés don’t even come close to describing it.

The only equal feeling is the total satisfaction and sense of achievement arriving back in Les Sables having, in around 90 days, completed a turn of the planet without support or assistance. I look forward to 10 November 2012 with both excitement, and of course some trepidation, for the challenges we may face.

Entering this New Year, we have had time to briefly reflect on the excellent work the team achieved in just six months from June – December 2011. Not only the formation of the Gamesa Sailing Team, but the modification of the boat, HRH The Princess Royal’s dedication and a few brief training sessions before two, tough transatlantic races in November and December. 2012 is the big year for us: it may for many be about the London Olympics, for many of our compatriots and friends from the diverse world of competitive sailing, but our eyes are firmly focused on the start of the Vendée Globe.

These past few weeks the technical and shoreside team has been through a detailed debrief looking at the first race, the double-handed Transat Jacques Vabre, from Le Havre, France, to Costa Rica and then December’s return leg, solo in the Transat B to B. The main conclusion is that we are in a strong position. The most important outcomes are that the boat proved reliable, and it proved competitive, in a highly talented fleet of sailors.

Both races were uncompromisingly tough and dominated by major storms. Every competitor took a ‘kicking’ in the Atlantic. But man and machine emerged intact and are better for the experience.

Gamesa returned to our base in Ocean Village, Southampton, requiring no structural work, just a few refinements.

The boat’s rig (the mast) came out as soon as we got back and we have run extensive ultrasound tests on both the Future Fibres mast and the continuous carbon rigging system. These tests showed that whilst the mast was unchanged the standing rigging was showing some signs of wear and tear. At this early stage of this innovative new product`s development, it is hard to quantify these results. As a consequence we have decided to change to a set of more proven, fully discontinuous carbon rigging for the Vendée Globe. Given our adage for the year ‘to finish first – first you must finish’ we feel this is the right choice.

We have also decided to replace the boats motive engine (a rule requirement) as whilst it is not generally used other than for getting in and out of harbour – it is essential to provide (emergency) power and in some circumstances safety. The existing engine is heavily coked up (as it is seldom loaded) and has lost more than 30% of its original power and whilst it has not caused a problem to date – when you need it – you absolutely need it!

We have also been through a series of brainstorming seminars aimed at developing our marketing and communications systems and messages. We had our extended media team together for a day in Southampton and it was really invigorating and exciting to see some of the ideas emerge, some incredibly simple, some which would be truly great if we can pull them off, but at the moment it is at the stage of refining all these great ideas into an action plan.

In addition, we have been taking a close look at how we can improve communication off the boat. Simple, fast, effective and easy is my brief! The solo skipper has to turn his or her hand to so many different daily tasks that you really need solutions which work, allowing exciting messages and action images to be shot and transmitted quickly but not detract from the competitive edge. Of course everyone is in the same boat(!) but it is like everything else, if have the most effective system then you can spend more time focusing wholly on performance!

We are also doing some pioneering work measuring the differences in my physiology before, during and after racing. Without giving too much away there is clear evidence that my reserves were more depleted than was desirable as we started the Transat Jacques Vabre but also that I optimised my reserves during the solo Transat B to B. Clearly this is not ideal and we are working on ensuring that I arrive at the start of the Vendée with more reserves on tap.

And finally, I have just returned from the USA where I spoke with Gamesa’s US Executives at a conference entitled ‘Storm Coming. Given our experiences on both the Transat Jacques Vabre and the Transat B to B it was fairly easy to work in some good anecdotes from which the trainers were able to ellicit perfect business analogies.

The next day I travelled to Philadelphia to visit the nacelle plant at Fairless Hills.  Here I met a group of Gamesa’s rising stars – ‘key collectives’, showed them images and video of our progress to date and discussed my preparations for the forthcoming Vendée Globe.

Keep in touch and let the team know more about what you would like to discover about the Gamesa Sailing Team.

Thanks once again for your support.

Yours faithfully

Mike Golding OBE

Skipper, Gamesa

Boat Captain, Gringo told us, “The rig has come out specifically to look at doing some testing, similar to what we did in St Barts.  We are doing NDT – non destructive testing – of the carbon rigging, which means that the team are here from Future Fibres using ultrasound to scan and check the strength of the rig. It’s just like scanning for a baby! We scan along the mast and can see if there are any hairline cracks, voids, damages from impact, anything like that. It’s a pretty standard thing to do on a solid carbon rig: we do it on the hull every year as part of our insurance.

“Mikey has been servicing the winches and generally tidying and maintaining the boat, Mucky’s been creating things in his container for the sat comm and the engine has come out and is going off to be bench tested to make sure that it still pumps out the horsepower it should be rated to.”

No rest for the wicked!

Dear Supporters

On schedule, we have Gamesa home in Southampton, wrapped up in time for Christmas, just as we had hoped.

It’s been a long and eventful 12 weeks since the start of the Transat Jacques Vabre in Le Havre, France. My co-skipper Bruno Dubois and I left with a storm in the Atlantic and I came back under threat from a big, bad one. In all my years of sailing, I have never seen weather in the North Atlantic quite like it.

You can see more from my race in the Transat B to B here:

We completed both races with everything intact and learned a lot about Gamesa as we look forward to next year and the build up to the Vendée Globe.  Having competed in three previous editions of solo ocean racing’s pinnacle event, we know only too well how quickly time runs by as you get closer to the race, and so getting back to England with no major problems and nothing significant to do, is a big relief. This will allow us to focus on the next stage of preparations, fine tuning from what we have learnt over the back to back transatlantic races.

I’m back in the office in Southampton with the conclusion that the boat is certainly competitive. For sure the younger generation boats, and perhaps skippers, have their edge on us at different times but we really do know that the Vendée Globe is often not won by the fastest boat in the race. There is a whole range of skill-sets and experience tested, and so validating all that we hoped to – learning about the new rig configuration, the lighter all up weight and the small changes in sail plan – are a relief to the whole team who have worked so hard since the spring to get Gamesa race ready.

For sure when Bruno and I started from Le Havre we were both a bit rusty, just as I was when I took off from St Barts on the first solo race I had competed in since December 2008 (the last Vendée Globe). Yes, it’s like riding a bike, and you don’t forget or miss out on the basics and all those things that come with experience, but it does take time to get back into race mode, the routine and intensity and to a degree the constant stress. You get used to it and that is what I love and thrive on, but in both directions – west with two and east alone – it was a bit of a rude awakening!

The Transat B to B race was a good validation too. It proved to be a long, tough test of speed rather than tactical or strategic racing. And so coming away with a fourth, only three or so hours behind one of the very top French boats (Vincent Riou and PRB), is a decent result and one which brings enough satisfaction to me and the whole team to enjoy the short break we will be having this Christmas.

It’s been an extremely busy six months since Gamesa announced its sponsorship in June. Here’s a quick look at everything that’s happened since the launch of the Gamesa Sailing Team.

2012 will be a busy year, with a World Tour for me, visiting some of Gamesa’s offices, plants and factories around the globe, before we head into the Europa Race a four stop, crewed race starting on 5 May from Istanbul to Barcelona, Spain, Portsmouth, UK and finishing in France in early June. And then it will be nose to the grindstone to prepare the boat and myself for the pinnacle of our campaign: the Vendée Globe.

This gives me the opportunity to thank the team at Mike Golding Yacht Racing for all their dedication, professionalism and support over the past six months. Gringo, Mucky, Tim, Sara, Mikey, Andrea, Ali and Emily are a great team and without them, we wouldn’t be in such a strong position as we are today.

And finally, thank you for your continued support: receiving your messages when racing means a great deal and keeps the motivation going. I look forward to racing in 2012 with you.

Yours faithfully

Mike Golding OBE

Official statistics:

Official stats for arrival of Gamesa & Mike Golding

Race time 9d 18h 58mn 0sec

Theoretical route 2620 miles

Average speed on theoretical route 11.15 knots

Distance over ground 3223 miles

Average speed over ground 13.716 knots

British solo ocean racing yachtsman Mike Golding, racing his IMOCA Open 60, Gamesa, crossed the finish line of the 2,620 miles Transat B to B solo transatlantic race off the north west corner of Spain in fourth place this morning. Completing his first major solo ocean race since December 2008, Golding was only 3h 28 mins off third place, which was taken by 2004-5 Vendée Globe winner, Vincent Riou on PRB.

Due to horrendous conditions which are anticipated for the Bay of Biscay over the coming 24hours, the Race Organisers first set a safety gate to keep the fleet south and then elected to stop the race at that gate. The oncoming weather includes winds in excess of 50 knots, gusting to 60-70 knots, a 90° rotation from south west to north west in a matter of minutes and a backdrop of crossed seas with average waves of eight metres as the fleet approaches the continental shelf. Here, the seabed suddenly rises from 4,000 metres to 150 metres and causes even more chaotic seas than usual.

“I am pretty happy with fourth place. It is a good result in this fleet and I am happy with it. And it is not just the placing that feels good, I feel like I was competitive, the boat went well and I think we finish knowing that we have speed. We were close to third and I felt like I was closing Vincent down at times over the last 24hours,” commented Golding this morning after he had snugged Gamesa down for what he expects will now be an unpleasant delivery to the race finish port of Lorient.

“Don’t get me wrong, Macif and Francois Gabart was quick as was Armel Le Cleac’h who took second on Banque Populaire and they sailed a great race, they got their key decision right when they chose to stay south and cut the corner a little, saving some miles. They got good separation and made it work. I feel like I had a similar race to PRB’s. I looked at the southern route at the time and it did not work for me, but sometimes it can be about having a faster configuration for that routing, for example, I know that we have been fast recently under the fractional gennaker.

“Certainly I am more content than I was after the Transat Jacques Vabre. That result did not reflect the work we had all done and it was down to some decisions, so this certainly feels better. I am sure all the team at home who put a lot of work in will be a bit happier to see this result. This is the first race I have done since the Vendée Globe in 2008, I felt a bit rusty to start with, but now I am just getting into my stride!” Golding remarked.

“The course [from St Barthélemy in the Caribbean to Lorient, Brittany] is not ideal. I can understand why it does what it does and the purpose of the race, but logically in the cold light of day you don’t want to be racing in the North Atlantic, off Newfoundland in December.  The Grand Banks are not a sailing destination for this time of year. I know I keep saying this but I feel I have been in this game long enough to know – the race from Brasil was better, it was much more representative of what we face in the Vendée Globe.

“As far as the boat itself goes, I am pretty happy. Reliability seems good, we have some things to look at for sure, but there are no big jobs to do. I am very happy with the configuration now. To be out in the cockpit in in 40knots in your mid layer really does make me wonder why I have been yachting around getting so wet these last years! The good thing is this new coachroof also keeps the inside of the boat drier and that works for me too.

“The steering position is the only area that does need some work. But the most important thing is that we finish this race knowing we don’t have performance issues. The boat is a lot lighter and is better for it.”

Golding and Gamesa are due to arrive into Lorient on Sunday.

Golding, who had just read the announcement from the Race Organisers, commented, “You do still gybe [once through the line] but what they are saying is that you can slow the boat right down through the bad bit and then start sailing again. That is what I’ll do, I’ll race through the line as quick as I can and then I’ll let the mainsail down, kite down and just go with the headsail.

“I have never known this to happen before. At the end of the day, I sort of understand, when you race, with the pressure of the race, you might do things that you wouldn’t normally do. This is an exceptional storm. I haven’t seen many storms quite like this one. Anything that makes things safe is good by me, but from a sailors perspective it is tough.”

When pushed on whether the sailor’s and boat’s safety should be down to the teams themselves, rather than the race organisers, Golding agreed. “It is true that the bottom line for safety comes down to each skipper, but someone’s desire to win will perhaps cause them to make a poor decision and in these sorts of conditions that would be a mistake.”

The Race Organisers have stated that the weather anticipated includes winds in excess of 50 knots, gusting to 60-70 knots, a 90° rotation from south west to north west in a matter of minutes and a backdrop of crossed seas with average waves of eight metres as the fleet approaches the continental shelf. Here, the seabed suddenly rises from 4,000 metres to 150 metres and causes even more chaotic seas than usual.

Update 18:30: The Race Organisers of the Transat B to B have shortened the course: the finish line will now be the Safety Weather Gate. More to come …….

Update 13:30 GMT: The Transat B to B Race Headquarters spoke to Mike just a short while ago:

Mike, tell us about the conditions you are experiencing.

Right now about 22-25 knots of breeze, but some very, very big rolling swells, so good surfing conditions. Not quite enough breeze to make maximum effect, but it gets us going every now and again.

I have gybed. There are two ways when you are on your own. You either tack or maybe you even gybe traditionally, pull the mainsheet on the centre line, prior to that you have to make the decision to gybe, then drop all the stack, which is quite a big job in itself, centre the mainsheet, wind away the headsail and gybe the boat through normally, or alternately wind away the headsail and pull a little jib out and tack the boat. In our situation with only four winches in the cockpit it is a little bit tricky to gybe classically. I tend to prefer the chicken gybe.

What is the sea state. Is it good for surfing or is it short so you have to manage the sped of the boat so you aren’t going into the front end of the next wave?

It is not that bad at the moment. It has been like that but the boat is quite good, she will lift her bow, she is pretty good.

What are the rules you abide by to manage yourself?

I always use the three golden rules which are sleep before you are tired, eat before you are hungry and wrap up before you get cold and that seems to work for me. But it is very dangerous if you move into any one of those three areas, hungry, tired or cold. It is quite difficult to get yourself out of that. You have to do something to get yourself physically out of it, so it isn’t ideal for a solo sailor to get overly tired. Naturally, I feel tired, right now tired, but not tired that I can’t function.

How do you know when you get to the point you are too tired?

I try not to get there, I try to sleep before I reach that point. I don’t get there, it doesn’t happen.

When it comes to eating, how do you get the necessary calories into you?

When to eat is always a problem. We have a lot of freeze dried food and pasta. The pasta is fine, but the freeze dried is pretty rancid, it is very difficult to find good supplier. On top of the pasta, I have energy drinks, hydration drinks and recovery drinks, sports drinks that just help me to completely stay alert.

Update 07:00 GMT: Gamesa is quickest in the Transat B to B fleet this morning averaging over 16kts as they pass some 280 miles to the north of the Azores with around 415 miles to the safety gate. Mike Golding, indeed most of the fleet, are now passing the track they made south and west on the outward leg of the Transat Jacques Vabre way back on the sixth of November, albeit some 120 miles further to the north at least on this return leg.

Gamesa is up to fourth at the expense of Hugo Boss which is on the opposite gybe and still heading North East. Alex Thomson has lost out a little since the gate was imposed, but Golding believes Alex will come back on the sprint from the gate to the finish.

The drag racing continues towards the mark and Gamesa has been going well. “We have a mean wind speed of around 22-23kts, it is still a bit shifty and all over the place with gusts over 40kts which has been a little weird, it remains a bit a of a balancing act, mildly scary but not very stimulating from a strategic point of view.

“It was good when we were going up north, because there was a bit of everything going on, now it is straight line stuff pretty much. Still one of the downsides of the gate is that it is now looking like my gybe will come at the worst possible time, when the GRIB’s [weather files] are showing 60 odd knots, so that is not going to be much fun.”

“I can understand Alex being a bit pee’d off but to be fair when the gate was called the lateral separation was only 20 or 30 miles, but the trouble is on the leg after the gate Alex will fly the biggest thing he can fly and I am afraid I won’t. I want to get home with a boat under me.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NB7C2Zo9bdQ&feature=g-upl

07:00 GMT: Fast downwind running conditions for Mike Golding on Gamesa this morning, 300 miles NW of the Azores,  as the British skipper still lies fifth in the Transat B to B, the race back from St Barts to Brittany, now via a safety gate off the NW of Spain.

“We are charging along downwind, we are back up to full main and gennaker and it really is OK at the moment, conditions have been pretty up and down between 22 and 30 kts but then you go through a spell of gusts of 35-36kts and that gets a bit more difficult. It does feel like you can never be on the right sail plan for long, it is hard to find the balance. So it is reasonably OK, there is nothing horrendous on the most recent GRIB [weather] files which have come in, but so far I have not looked at it very closely.

“I don’t feel like there was anything compromised for me due to the safety gate, not really. I certainly had a wobble. I guess it was a combination of things, I was tired and you are focused on doing one thing. And then you see Virbac Paprec 3 spearing across the course to the south east and wonder what is going on, so I was confused.

“I put the bow down 20 degrees, got some sleep, and that was the right thing to do. I might be a little more south than I wanted, but it’ll work out. It is pretty steady at the moment, nothing much to say, no dramas, long may it continue!”

With severe gale force winds expected and huge seas, the French race organisers have signalled a change of course, bringing in an obligatory gate off the latitude of Cape Finisterre on the North East corner of Spain, to keep the fleet south of the worst of the storm. This will add an estimated 115 miles to the course for Golding. The decision was taken after consultation with all the skippers who reached an agreement that the prudent course was preferable, given that all of them have the same schedule in preparing for next year’s Vendée Globe start.

The limited strategic options inherent in this transatlantic course means so far it has been mainly a boat speed test and a chance for the skippers to build trust in themselves and their boats in this phase of testing and trialling, looking to build the ultimate reliability in their IMOCA 60s.

With the 4,330 miles Transat Jacques Vabre two-handed race completed to Costa Rica and now nearly half of this return solo race under his belt, Golding has been in good spirits, but admitted that the choice to change the course and add miles to the route, was a temporary blow to his morale.

Golding may today have had to deal with a few extra miles added to the course distance, but he is generally pleased with the way the race has gone so far, and the performance of Gamesa which was substantially updated and only relaunched in mid September.

“So far, I think the race has gone well. It has been frustrating as we have spent so much time sailing north and not on an obvious course home. We have had to do that as there was no wind in the middle of the Atlantic. Now when we finally have turned east, the weather building up behind is severe.

“While I 100% agree with the decision, I find it frustrating. My reaction this morning was to drop the bows and get some sleep. It is no-one’s fault, it is the right thing to do, but it is frustrating.

“Otherwise, I think everything about the boat now is very positive. in the 5-25 knot mid-range, we seem to be absolutely fine. In the really tough stuff, I think we are fine too but in fact I am loathe to really go there at the moment because the last time I did that the rig came down [in the 2008 Vendée Globe]. So I don’t want to go there at all!

“Conditions last night were extremely reminiscent of conditions I had the last two times in the Southern Ocean, so you can understand my hesitancy to really push it that hard at this stage in a build-up race, which is to prove boats and equipment, not about getting a result,” he concluded.

Mike talked through the balance between the routing the computers onboard provide from the weather data versus safe sailing.

“We were expecting this route [heading North]. We have been sailing a lot of extra miles to dodge an area of light winds in the middle of the Atlantic. When our routing does the calculations it doesn’t have a conscience about sailing all those extra miles because when it gets us there it would be fast sailing. The reason we came North is because of this big system coming in, and the one we are underneath. The routing programme works on theoretical speed and theoretically if it is blowing 50 knots, we could be doing 30 knots, but realistically you just can’t do that.

“Most people’s routing will adjust, and it is always tempting to go with it, but there are some conditions when you can do 30 knots and some when you can’t even do 15 knots as it is just too dangerous.

“The minute I got the phone call last night from the race organisers, and realised we were on a different mission it was de-motivating as I had done quite a lot of preparation work for the heavy weather, so I went to bed and went to sleep for a couple of hours. I feel really refreshed now, have shaken out a reef and am back to full effort.”

Having now raced for 24-25 days in most wind and sea conditions, Golding looked back at what he has learned about the speed of Gamesa compared with the rest of the fleet.

“We aren’t slow, so despite a sense that the newer boats have a speed edge and that is clear on the polls, somehow we keep pace with them. On a race like this, where you are now very confined, the whole thing is a simple drag race as you have the confinement of going north and now the way point. What it does do is limit the tactical options, how you get over and around the actual speed differential. Having said that I wasn’t doing anything magnificent tactically, I was middle for diddle.”

“I am looking round the boat and there is very little wrong. Generally the boat is in really good shape and that is really positive. If you look around the fleet, I think we are better shape than most.”

Golding, and the rest of the Transat B to B fleet are expected into Lorient this weekend, from 16 December.

Mucky worked me today cleaning the hull and Mikey had me working on the sails again after the exhibition race.

After discussing with the crew about how they operate the boat to maximize speed and push the limits of what it is capable of it is obvious that they are attempting to do much the same as we are when we place turbines in the air, capture the power of the wind in the most optimized way.  They use different strategies to do this but some of the equivalency can be captured as such:

1. Yawing – Our turbines yaw into the wind to capture the most out of the wind and reduce the loads on the turbine.  While we use motors and a yaw ring to accomplish this Mike will use Tacking and Jibing to optimize the wind he can capture based on whether he is traveling upwind or downwind. This consists of running at an optimal angle to the prevailing winds so that the sails are capturing the maximum amount of wind at all times.  This is a tactical decision that Mike will make hundreds of times over the 90 day race acound the globe next year.
2. Pitching – Once we have aligned ourselves with the wind by yawing, tacking, or jibing we need to optimize the amount of power we can get from the wind without breaking our machine (Boat or Turbine).  In our turbines we do this by pitching the blades.  Mike does this by changing sails depending on the wind speeds being faced, shifting the center of gravity of the boat using the keel, ballasts, and physically moving all supplies and spares to the high side of the boat.  This is hard work as I found out yesterday when I took all of the sails down to the inside of the boat and stacked them.  They are very heavy and not easy to maneuver at all and yet Mike will deploy them and move them many times during a race.
3. SCADA and Controls – A main heart and soul of the Gamesa technology and innovation is what we are able to do in terms of wind turbine and wind farm control.  While Gamesa is at the top of the industry in turbine and wind farm control using our PLC’s and SCADA systems I found that Mike’s team had developed a control system using some of the very same equipment we use in the turbines.  I found 2 MOXA N-Ports being used, exactly the same as we use.  The Gamesa has a control system founded on the principle of making it easy to use, see, and alarm when necessary.
4. Weather Forecasting – We have a top of the line system developed in WebMega which allows our customers and site supervisors to predict what the wind is to optimize when to work and determine how much production can be expected.  Much of the strategy and tactics that Mike uses is based on similar studies of the weather to predict what the wind will be all along possible routes to his destination.  Various routes will be calculated and Mike will need to take this data to determine when to change course and how to maximize the speed of the Gamesa at all times.
5. Testing – Gamesa has undergone extensive prototyping before being built, and heavy testing after being manufactured.  This is the same as our Technology team has done for the machines.  During the design of an open 60 boat there will be scale models built and tested in a laboratory chamber to show the efficiency.  This will even include a 1/3 size model and multiple designs.  Once the final design is chosen and built Gamesa had to undergo extensive safety testing.
1. Inversion Test – The entire boat is flipped upside down in the water without the mast.  Mike then had to access the boat through the emergency hatch and show that he is able to flip the boat upright using the boat systems.  This proves a few things: The boat is safe and able to right itself in the case of an emergency, the boat does not have any leaks, and all of the systems and hydraulics will work even upside down.  It is a simple pass/fail test that assures the design is stable and safe.
2. AVS (Angle of vanishing stability) – The boat has to be designed so that it will always attempt to right itself even if the mast is pointing down at the floor of the ocean.  This is a way of assuring that the life of the skipper is safe even if the boat were to experience extreme conditions and attempt to roll
6. Troubleshooting – Some circuit troubleshooting was occurring on the boat and I asked the team how they approach these situations.  They use the same types of troubleshooting techniques and face the same challenges that the Gamesa technicians use in the field.  They listen for problems, watch for problems, and Mike can feel when something is not right.  This is similar to the technicians who know how a turbine should look, sound, and feel and will be able to determine a problem sometimes before the control system will even pick it up.  They also deal with the communication and remote difficulties the wind industry has.  It does not get more remote and difficult to keep communication than the middle of the ocean, similar to some of the wind farms.
7. Coupling – The drive train of the motor system used to get the turbine out of the dock area has a coupling designed to break and be easily changed out as the weakest link.  Very similar to our drive train design with a flexible coupling and torque limiter.
8. Anemometer – At the top of the rigging there are 2 wind vane and cup anemometers.  One is redundant in case of a failure, much the same as we have on the wind turbines!

To give an idea of how hard this racing is on the boats only 4/9 boats were able to participate in the exhibition race today as the other 5 were not in port or were still having major repairs done on their hulls and rigging. Gamesa is in incredibly good shape and the crew was able to turn her around very quickly to travel back across the Atlantic.  Imagine the time the boats are going to have with 90 days of travel through all the different climates.

These are the best of the best in the world and draw the toughest of skippers due to the extreme conditions that are imposed on them in a 90 day world crossing.  Mike had an incredibly good showing today at the race and came in a strong second after getting into a fight with the boat from Banque Populaire which allowed the PRB boat to take the lead.  The boat sailed very well and is more than ready to cross the Atlantic starting on Monday.

12/2/2011 Learning the Ropes

Mikey put me to work today on the sails and under the foredeck.  I learned first hand how much work it is for Mike to move the sails around and ready them for deployment.

The boats in this race are all going to attempt the Vendée Globe crossing next year and are incredible machines from a technical perspective.  As the components have been chosen and optimized they use the same criteria that we use for our turbines!

1. Performance – This makes sure the Gamesa is able to compete and sail fast enough to win the Vendée Globe.  We need to have the same criteria to make sure our technology meets IEC and the customer expectations of performance.
2. Reliability – If something breaks on the water while Mike is racing he has to fix it himself so the components must be highly reliable.  A 5 minute on-shore fix could take hours to complete out of the open sea.  The reliability of the turbine components is one of the main studies that occurs to assure we can meet 97% availability.
3. Durability – The boat undergoes incredible loading while in these races, high enough that Mike lost a mast while saving a competitor whose boat was sinking during the last Vendée Globe race.  In order to survive the races leading up to the main objective the many components of the boat must have a high durability.  This is seen especially in the work that Mikey the Splicer does by avoiding knots, which are not very durable at all.  Our turbines must last their lifetime of 20 years, which requires a whole lot of durability, especially with the incredible loading that occurs from capturing such energy from the wind.
4. Budget – The components must be optimized on cost as well so that the boat team can keep operating.  This is the same consideration that Gamesa has when building their turbines as we must as an industry meet a low COE (Cost of Energy).  This is included as one of our strategic vectors as a company.
5. Weight – The lighter a boat is the faster it can sail, simple as that.  The lighter our turbines are the easier they are to construct and the cheaper they are in raw materials.  We see these considerations in the new designs of the towers to optimize the amount of steel to what is needed.

Looking at the other boats it is obvious that the Gamesa has innovated in an incredible way to make the boat easy to operate from the cockpit.  The custom design allows Mike to spend 90% of his time in the cockpit area and has been designed with usability in mind.  He can change sails at the front of the boat without having to travel out on the foredeck at all.

While Mike is entrusting the boat preparation to his team I learned he has gone through an incredible experience to mentally and physically prepare for the race at hand.

1. Mike has studied his sleep rhythm to understand exactly when he can wake up to feel refreshed after 18-30 minutes.  This included months of monitoring and analyzing his sleep rhythms so he will set the clock to wake him at the immediate moment when he will be able to get up and feel refreshed.  Quite a power nap.
2. He is required to eat 5000 calories per day in order to offset the amount of energy he expends while piloting the boat.  The average diet according to government information is between 2000-2500 calories.  This becomes a logistical challenge to pack 17 days worth of food for 5000 calories, but imagine the challenge that Sara will have packing for a 90 day trip involving the same amount of caloric intake!
3. He has an incredible grip and is whip strong due to his years of working a sailboat competitively.
4. He has to be ready to be alone under extreme conditions for over 3 months; this includes being away from his wife Andrea and son Soren without anyone to share the hardships.

The dagger board that was broken is almost complete with the repairs and Kristie mentioned that watching the repair and work reminds her of her days in the blades factory at Ebensburg.

I learned today that Mikey learned two specialties from mentors.  He learned Splicing from Andy Mickeljohn and sail making from Simon Delial.  This made me think of my time working for Ricardo Laquidain and learning specialties from him.  We all have the opportunity to learn from each other like I see the crew doing here every day, trading best practices and skill sets.  The more we can learn from this type of attitude as a group and company the further ahead of our competition we will get.  I would say this is my biggest lesson for the day from the crew, if we trust and teach each other we can get a lot done in a short amount of time.

11/29/2011 Expectations

My expectations for the Transat B to B race are quite high.  With the research on the Mike Golding team and discussion with Chris Nolan the sailing team is one of the smoothest teams he has seen work together.  I expect to learn from the leadership that Mike must have to compete at this level, and to see how he trusts his team in making him a world contender.  The technical challenges of manning a team and a boat that will be able to sail across the world with minimal supplies and no contact will be fun to tackle with the sailing team.  In some ways it is no different than what we at Gamesa are challenged to do, optimize what we offer to provide the level of production and reliability while minimizing the cost of energy.  I expect to study the process by which Mike and the sailing team determine what is needed versus nice to have to bring that back to my team of engineers.

I also have the privilege of traveling with 2 colleagues that I have worked with for more than 4 years while building the Gamesa USA operation.  I expect that the time with the sailing team will be an opportunity to reflect on our growth individually and as a company.  I also look forward to getting to know the other members of the sailing team who will be joining us for the beginning of the journey for Mike and Gamesa.  Given the opportunity to spend time with Mike will be an added privilege and I look forward to learning how he leads a team with such a lofty objective to be the BEST in the world.  His approach to leadership will contain aspects that will be useful for me as I return to the larger Gamesa team to share the lessons learned.

1/12/2011 Meeting the team and the boat

The initial meeting of the team that is crewing the Gamesa was an experience in and of itself.  The team is comprised of a group of general sailors who have expertise in certain portions of the boat care and operation, not so different than our wind turbine technicians out in the field who all need to be able to maintain and troubleshoot the turbines while relying on different technicians for certain types of issues.  A quick overview of the crew with my initial thoughts:

1. Mike Golding – A very intense individual who has an incredible attention to detail and is very easy to talk to.  He has one single goal and that is to cross the finish line of the Vendée Globe race in 2012 in first place and communicates that clearly to his team.  Mike clearly loves sailing and is a competitor at the highest level.

2. Gringo (Graham) – Mike’s right hand man and longtime associate.  Gringo understands what Mike is going through from a mental and physical preparation side.  Mike entrusts the entire operation of the boat preparation to Gringo, who manages the rest of the crew.  Easy to talk to and very focused on anticipating what is needed before it is asked.

3. Mucky (Ian) – Mucky is the composites specialist technician for the team.  Interestingly Mucky is more interested on being shore based than on being out on the sea sailing the Gamesa.  He takes an intense pride in the boat and has an incredible responsibility in keeping the boat intact and repaired.  Mucky takes pride in his work and his work attire is very similar to our blade technicians in the factory.

4. Mikey (The Splicer) – The youngest member of the crew of Gamesa is a specialist in splicing ropes together to avoid knots.  This is important, he explained, because knots will take away significantly from the load bearing capabilities of the rope.  There are very few load bearing knots on the boat thanks to Mikey.  He takes a lot of pride in his work and will not allow for any mistakes.

5. Mikey (The Irish One) – Quiet but intense is my initial impression of this general sailor on the Gamesa crew.  Mikey is a long time friend and colleague of Mucky and Gringo who helped pilot the boat after the last race to arrive here.  He is easy to get along with and very willing to teach us Ambassadors how the boat works and the ins and outs of sailing.

6. Tim – The specialist in the controls of the boat, particularly the electronics and hydraulics.  This technician is the quietest initially but very technical and we had a good time comparing how the sailboats are operated with how wind turbines are operated.  Tim showed me that they use a set of batteries from a company called Valence that will not reduce voltage until it reaches 3% charge, incredible.

7. Sarah – Very friendly and organized, she is entrusted with the logistics for Mike.  This includes a wide array of things including preparing the correct food and spares for the boat.  She is very welcoming and organized.

Gamesa is in a class of boats referred to as the Open 60 which has very few requirements.  The boat cannot be longer than 60 feet, the keel no deeper than 4.5 m and a few other more minor requirements.

The Vendée Globe, the objective for the team to win in 2012, is by far the most difficult race for sailing in the World.  I did not appreciate this until today when I got the details that the race goes on for 90 days, Mike is alone, and he does not sleep for more than 4 hours a day in 18-30 minute increments.  It is an incredible strain on the human body for a long period of time alone.  Then there is the technical boat side of the racing which has a lot in common with our wind turbines, I plan on fleshing that out more during the trip.

The team began the day with a POD (Plan of Day) and divvied up the work amongst them and us Ambassadors.  Sarah and Emma have a smooth system to work out the logistics of the day and the boat so led this with Gringo, who knows everything that needs to be done to get the boat race ready in a very short turn-around period.

During the last race across the Atlantic Gamesa struck a large fish or shark and damaged a piece of equipment called the daggerboard.  Mucky was working on a composites repair of the daggerboard today which gave me a close up look at the piece of equipment.  This is shaped the same as one of our blades in the profile to achieve the same sort of lift to keep the boat moving straight as we require on our blades to produce power.  The shape was uncannily similar.  Mucky could very well have been in one of our blades factories with the PPE and equipment he was using and the repair reminded me of what our Gamesa blade repair technicians do on the turbines in operation.

Once on the boat I went into the enclosed portion of the boat and it was very similar to the wind turbines we operate everyday, quite hot inside.  Where a lot of the work needs to be done is in and enclosed space, like the nacelle, and was described by Mikey the Splicer as an oven that does not cool off.  I know that some of our technicians in the summer can relate to this, and like our guys in the field, they work through it as it needs to be done at the highest quality.

They even shim the mast of the boat during installation, much like we do to align our generator and set our pitch in the field.  There is a lot of overlap from what we do in our turbines to what Mike and his team have done and do on a daily basis.

Gamesa has been making good speeds overnight with Jean-Pierre Dick making a big move to the south east of the pack on Virbac-Paprec 3, crossing some 15 miles ahead of Gamesa’s course.

Mike has lost out to PRB, 2004-5 Vendee Globe winner Vincent Riou, who has got away to the north a little and made some 20 miles on Gamesa, making 410 miles in 24hrs, still a little short of the 468 miles 24hrs record, but not much.

Mike’s course is relatively moderate, the emphasis being on consistent speeds in these tough conditions and sustaining the attack for what promises to be a long, fast second week.

Mike – is it a bit more comfortable at speed or not?

No, it is pretty comfortable. It is difficult conditions, though. It is difficult to know what sail plan to run as at times we are on a gennaker and at other time we are on the white sails [genoa, solent or staysail], you are always teetering on the balance of knowing what to run as the gust range is so high. We have had gusts of near 40 knots and the boat several times has ended up stalled out and laid on its side until we eased the gennaker and got back on our feet again. As quickly as it comes it disappears again and you are back to the softer conditions.

With PRB so close, does that make you push harder, a mini race within a race?

To be honest, I am sailing my own race and keeping the boat going fast. I doubt either is doing anything different. I haven’t seen him, but I know he is close. We probably criss cross ourselves as we try different sail programmes.

So it is pedal to the mettle straight to the finish line?

Yes, it would be nice if it were steadier but it should be fairly fast now. The other thing to decide is whether to stay away from the front or go towards it. Right now we are going well, but the faster we go, the more we head towards it. I’m not liking the look of the finishing weather though, it looks pretty serious.

How’s your coachroof?

It is good in these conditions – it’s my little house! It definitely is perfect for these kind of conditions, you have reasonable visibility, no need to get wet and going downwind is fine. On deck it is quite pleasant when you are going downwind, and the coach roof has worked well. It is very noisy at high speed, when reaching and water is entering, but apart from that it works really well.

Are you in your rhythm now? Yes, I am sleeping ok. The last two times I’ve slept, I have woken up with the boat on its side. It is fraught with danger going to sleep and that is a bit nerve racking. That is one of the stressful parts of solo sailing. The boat is going nicely, going to steady, but the moment you put your head down you either break something or lose miles.

Is the autopilot is good?

It seems to be doing alright, it would have been easy to put it [boat on its side] down to pilot errors but in fact when you look at the data it is clear that we have had a big gust of wind.

Update 08:00 GMT: Mike Golding and Gamesa are currently lying in fifth position on the 0700 scheds in the Transat B to B, one of four IMOCA 60s taking the more northerly course. Just four miles astern of Vincent Riou’s PRB, Golding is pleased with his position, and the boat.

Gamesa Sailing Team Race Headquarters spoke to Mike first thing this morning. “It’s going good at the moment, pretty much sailing down the line in a good SW’ly which I think will pick up later today, it is picking up slowly. We are tracking nice and straight, there will be a little bit of a shift later on today, but I feel like I’m on good form and it is going well.

“Locally the weather model is now a bit clearer than it was, before it was not very precise, but now it is definitely clearer.  I will have to gybe later today and once I gybe it will start to get stronger. But the way it looks at the moment it will get windy, but not too windy. As long as we are downwind that is fine, I am looking forward to a bit of a blast and a sleigh ride home would be just fine. At this stage you just start to think of getting to the finish as quick as possible. Mind you, hearing about the temperatures at home…..”

With a moment spare last night, Golding sent this update report:

“At last we are able to begin to turn Gamesa eastwards towards the finish in Lorient. I don’t recall ever having to sail so far on an unfavored tack/gybe – the weather in the Atlantic is horrendous – gales in the north and no wind in the middle. Still as we reach the latitude of New York at last we are making proper progress east.

“On this short sprint northwards Gamesa has sailed on all ‘points of sail’ against and in close proximity to each of the newer boats. The good news from a longer term Vendée perspective is that I really feel the  modifications we have made since June have brought Gamesa firmly into the game with these new generation IMOCAs. It is true that on some points our speeds differ slightly (not always to our disadvantage) but that is the nature of an open class where the performance solutions chosen by each team differ so greatly. Ultimately reliability, my choices and my fitness are going to make the difference – this is where we must focus next year as we prepare for the Vendée.

“Right now Gamesa is simply flying east under a gennaker and reefed mainsail – the boat is currently perfectly balanced and even when gusts exceed 30 kts she tracks straight and true. I am constantly monitoring the autopilot’s reactions. If a large amount of helm is being used, the boat is struggling, now however now the tiller scarcely moves and the boat is charging along at speeds well in excess of 20kts. Below decks the noise is huge and surges of violent acceleration very unnerving – on deck all seems to be in control , easy miles at last.

“I am happy with Gamesa’s positioning in the fleet, but aware of the potential benefits of being north but surprised by the effectiveness of the southern choice! This is long game and what will win through remains to be seen….

“Have had a really good clean of the galley after my two hours of stomach cramps a couple of days ago, I have not felt great since –  tired and lacking appetite – perhaps in part because I have no idea what brought it on and I don’t want a repeat performance. As a precaution I have ditched everything that was opened of that could be culpable ….”

Macif has gained from their northern position, further from the lighter winds of the high pressure ridge which Golding is just to the north of. The Gamesa skipper feels he has done a good job of getting the balance right between sailing as few miles as possible on the most direct route and hunting down stronger winds to the north. At the moment he is quite content with his position in the middle of the fleet, feeling that those to his south (Safran, Banque Populaire and Macif) will have to come back on a more northerly course soon.

“I went through a bit of a quiet patch last night and yesterday afternoon and then it picked up and I saw 25kts for a bit but it’s OK now, I have some wind and we are going along nicely,” said Golding this morning. “The breeze should slowly clock round for me now and we should start to get going east a bit more, but even so it feels better, more like we are pointing closer to the mark.

“Overall I had a pretty good night, it was OK, I don’t think we lost too much to the boats around us and I do feel there should be a gain to us relative to the boats to the south who have to come up.

“Meantime I have been getting ready for the stronger stuff we are expecting, maybe a bit of an overreaction to the forecast, but I’d rather be ready. I’ve been planning this system to get the water out of the mainsail laps when it is reefed, it becomes a problem in the big seas, but the bottom line is that the lazy-jacks [the angled lines which run from the mast to the boom to contain the mainsail when it is not under tension] don’t work as they should.

“And the other thing has been what to do with the genoa when it’s down because it really is too big to fit inside the boat.

“So all this might be a bit premature, but I’m getting ready.”

Don’t forget all the ways you can follow the Transat B to B race, and Gamesa and Mike Golding’s progress:

iPhone/iPad app: http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/gamesa-sailing/id474489616?mt=8

Android app: https://market.android.com/details?id=com.mikegolding.www.ios

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/mikegoldingyachtracing
You Tube: http://www.youtube.com/user/mikegoldingyr
Online: http://www.mikegolding.com or http://www.gamesasailingteam.com

Twitter: @gamesasailing @goldingmike

Media Server : http://media.mikegolding.com

“I’m just tidying up and making sure we are ready for the stronger winds. The big problem I am having in stronger conditions is water accumulating in the mainsail when it is reefed so I had a little plan to try and use the tie points on the main. It is always very difficult to do because when the sail is down it is just like a brick and it won’t move and so planting a sail tie underneath is always a bit of a problem, but I am going to give it a go this time and see whether I can’t get the reef to stay in without gathering water.

“I do have an electric bilge pump as another method to get the water out of the main so again I can pump the water out if necessary, but normally a bucket is quite adequate in most scenarios.

“The weather is getting cooler gradually. Last night was quite chilly and I have gone from shorts to longs and starting to wear a fleece at night. It is pretty damp and although it sounds nice, the warm conditions, in fact it is one of the harder conditions, you are permanently damp, whether from sweat or rain or from salt water and your skin doesn’t really get the chance to heal so quite looking forward for some fresher conditions where you can put some dry clothing on and you can automatically wear fouls whereas at the moment, you always risk it and get soaked!

“The most important element in clothing is breathability. [Clothing Partner] Musto have been in the game for a long time, they have a lot of experience of it and we are happy with our clothing, we use a three layer system, base layer, mid layer and wet weather gear, that seems to work for us and many of the other sailors as well.

You were talking to Alex the other night on the VHF, is he in good spirits, or a bit down that he has lost his Code 3?

“That’s news to me! I didn’t know he had lost his Code 3. I knew he had had a problem. He was fine at the time, that was prior to the problem. We had a regular chat, call up on what life is like being back on the boat, we haven’t been alone on our boats since the Vendée and it is a bit of a shock to the system, to be doing a lot of sailing.

“It is just very hard work, I have just stacked the boat, a simple thing like that, I must be doing something wrong because every time I move the stack on this trip, I have moved it up[hill] which is a nightmare, I can’t be judging my turns pretty well. It is a shock to the system, but we are both getting used to it and neither of us are doing that bad in the context of the race so you have to be pleased with.”

Update 07:00 GMT: In fifth place on this fifth morning of the Transat B to B race from the Caribbean to Brittany and Gamesa’s skipper, Mike Golding is recovering from some nasty stomach cramps and getting back to form, enjoying spells of great sailing conditions.

The only down side, as it is for the fleet, is that they are still very much heading north which does not feel in any way like pointing towards the finish.

“It’s ironic I suppose, I was on the phone home last night and the conditions were just perfect, we were flying along nicely under spinnaker, making good progress, the only thing – I was telling them – was we are going almost in the wrong direction!” noted Golding this morning. “Certainly we are all kind of getting used to seeing the world’s worst VMG [velocity made good is the net speed achieved on the course to the finish].

The reason for the course is the continued investment to get north to find the low pressure systems which will drive the eight IMOCA 60s across the Atlantic during the second week of the race. Of the direct rhumb line course from start to finish of 3,300 miles, the lead boat still has 2651 miles straight line to the finish after starting Monday at 1400 GMT.

“I’m kind of in recovery mode at the moment, I had a pretty nasty period of stomach cramps which were a bit of a concern but I am feeling better. Let’s just say that whatever caused it got out of my system pretty quickly. I have been drinking lots of water and am feeling better.

“Otherwise it has been good, nice and steady. We had quite a good session last night with spells of up to 25kts of breeze with flat water and that was quite exciting and fun.”

In terms of strategy there are not many choices open to Golding on Gamesa at the moment,  “We are on the northern side of the high pressure ridge now and the more north and west you go you will just get headed, so I was kind of debating about going on the genoa and sailing a bit higher, but I have not really decided. It is still pretty tricky.”

“I am enjoying it, I feel like it is coming together OK now and I feel like I am ‘on it’ except through the transitions.

Golding saw Alex Thomson on Hugo Boss yesterday and the pair chatted on the VHF for a while, and Mike had a close encounter with Safran’s Marc Guillemot early last night.

“I chatted with Alex which was nice, just about the race and talking about what it’s like to be sailing solo again, just comparing notes about the race and stuff.

“But then last night Safran came pretty close, Marco was on the deck running around doing sail changes I think, he called me up afterwards and at that point I had my hands full, so I’m afraid I could not get back to him.”

Update 1325 GMT: 

“It was fairly easy going last night. We have steadily be going more and more downwind and now we are fully downwind. We were on genoa, full main, then we changed to code 3 and full main. I have stuck  with the Code 3 as it was quite squally and I figured the shift would come quickly and now I have gybed more out away from the light area.

How strictly do you follow the routing?

“I think you rely on the routing to give you an indicative course, but ultimately quite often the routing and the weather don’t coincide, the routing is a useful tool, but it is just that, another tool. The weather data and weather routing, they are solid data that you couldn’t possibly know with lots of experience. Where your experience comes in is when events happen outside the data.

“I have got both routes on the screen in front of me and in fact I am middle for diddle, I’m going exactly up between the two routes right now. The breeze is a little more left than I would have expected so possibly I might have to do a couple of gybes to get out of here. Right now, I’m pointing in fastest position which will get me out of the unstable conditions.

“We have had one major problem with the oil leaking into the bilge, it didn’t so much leak, as siphoned itself into the engine, so I had to recover that and put it back in to the engine and the engine is fine now, I have given it a good run. So no major issues there, no issues on deck, no issues with sails and the boat is running nicely.”

Update 0700 GMT: After what has largely been a straight line speed race since the start of the Transat B to B, in relatively similar trade winds conditions, the fleet leaders are now getting into more downwind sailing round the west side of the high pressure with a building low pressure system spinning off the coast of Virginia, on the east coast of the USA.

So the strategic decision is still playing out now, how to get towards the stronger winds off the low earliest without sailing too many extra miles away from the direct route which is still well to the east of the most easterly boat.

Armel Le Cleac’h on Banque Populaire still leads the race but his advantage in terms of the leaderboard is largely because he is the most easterly boat and therefore closest to the theoretical course, and those who were punching out more to the west, Jean Pierre Dick on Virbac-Paprec 3 and Vincent Riou on PRB have been further from the theoretical course.

Mike Golding on Gamesa was second last night and is computed to be fifth this morning, but the 23 miles deficit on Banque Populaire is mostly accounted for by Mike being 16 miles to the west of Le Cleac’h and about 12 to the west of Safran, which is second.

Gamesa is presently keeping Hugo Boss nicely covered. Alex Thomson’s British boat is only about three miles behind and so they should be in sight of each other, a nice spur for the duo who are good friends, as well as rivals. Indeed five years ago Mike rescued Alex from a previous Hugo Boss which had a badly damaged keel in the Southern Ocean, 1,000 miles south of the Cape of Good Hope.

The next ‘sched’, or position report, is due in at 1100 GMT.

Today was the last day to get everything ready for the Transat B to B.  I helped with a few of the finishing touches that needed to be done like: packing a sail, placement of the main sail/boom, and getting the fuel on-board.   I almost forgot – I cleaned the boat – from the main deck to the outside of the boat.  In Gamesa Sailing Team fashion, Mucky and I performed synchronized cannonballs into the water so that we could clean the side of the boat.  Cleaning the side of the boat sounds like an easy task, right?  Well, it pretty much is; but you have to manage to keep yourself afloat while wiping off the sea grime.  I love being in the water, so this job was a good one for me.  I also helped out with the cleaning off of the deck.   This time around, I managed only to get myself a little wet.   Practice does make you perfect.

A few Ambassadors and I had an opportunity to see a few of the weather maps that Mike will be using.   The system showed routes for where Mike will have the best winds.  It also showed where the winds will be a light.   Mike can receive weather updates every six hours.  The technology was more advanced than I expected it to be. I knew Mike would be getting weather updates, but I didn’t think it would also somewhat plot a course for him.

Brian LaMay and I were quizzed by Mikey, a member of the crew that specializes in the ropes, on our boat knowledge.  It turned into a friendly competition.   Despite, “phoning a friend” (aka shouting out to the boat next to us for help) I lost.

There was a lot of activity on the docks today.  We got to spend time speaking to the people passing by about Gamesa, the boat and the company.   I was able to explain about what the Ambassador program is and that our job doesn’t end when we leave St. Barths.  I feel like we got a lot of people excited about what we do as a Company and as a sailing team.

Day Three – December 3, 2011 (Race Around St. Barths)

Today I had the opportunity to see Mike in action during the race around St. Barths.   While I wasn’t able to be onboard Gamesa for the race, we followed Mike in a chase boat.   Mucky, a member of the crew, came with us and provided commentary during the race.

There are several warning guns shot to alert the boats that they should start sailing towards the start line.   The boats are all approaching the start line in a manner in which they are hoping to get the most wind.  To me, it seemed very similar in how our wind turbines are placed at the wind farms.   We place our turbines where we think it’s going to produce the most wind.

It was very interesting in watching the boats race and strategically maneuver themselves to get the best position with the wind.   At times this meant trying to ‘steal’ someone else’s wind.  One of my favorite moments of the day was when the Banque Populaire tried to pass Gamesa and Mike sort of cut the boat off.   Mike’s steering of the boat reminded me a little of how I drive my car.  Another favorite moment was early on in the race, the boats were lined up again and seeing Gamesa pull out into the lead.

Seeing Gamesa with her sails up is like looking at piece of art.  I find her to be beautiful.  This is very much how I feel when I see one of Gamesa’s wind turbines.

It was great watching Gamesa cross the finish line.  We were all cheering and clapping for Mike and the crew.   Gamesa came in second place.  I’m told that its bad luck to win the pre-race.   I suppose in a few weeks we will see if that holds true or not.

Day Two – December 2, 2011 (AKA Best Day Ever!)

Today was a full day on the boat.  Our first task when we arrived was to carry the sails down to the dock and then load the sails onto the boat.   Mikey, a member of the Gamesa Sailing Team, explained to us how to load the sails onto the boat.    The loading process required two Ambassadors on the dock to pass the sails onto the boat and the other two Ambassadors to grab the sails and carry them to the bow (front) of the boat.   For this task I was on the boat.  This was a pretty difficult task because you were carrying the sails which are heavy and walking across something that was swaying.  Once all of the sails were onboard, we had to stow the sails down below.  One Ambassador, Brian LaMay, went down below to grab, stow, and secure the sails that we passed through the front hatch, which is about the size of a manhole.  I stayed on deck to work with Mikey to pass the sails and in some cases shove the sails into the hatch.  We definitely used a lot of teamwork and muscle!   Keep in mind Mike will be moving all of the sails and making sail changes alone. Once he leaves the dock in St. Barths he will be sailing solo.

I was also given the task of running the ropes from the sails.   Essentially, I ran the rope from the bow (front) of the boat to the cockpit and then repeated the task on the other side.   I was completely overwhelmed by the amount of rope that was in the cockpit and the order that it was in.  I expected everything to be somewhat tidy and the rope to be gathered together.  Boy was I wrong!   To me it looked like a knot waiting to happen.   It was a mess, but an organized one.   All of the ropes are color coordinated and are placed in this organized mess for easy access when making maneuvers.  Made sense to me and who am I to question a mess?

I did a bit more exploring of the boat.  I was able to go down into the stern (back) hatch of the boat.   I was able to see the electrical and hydraulic systems for the steering system.  In the event that both the electrical and hydraulic system failed, Mike would still be able to manually steer the boat.  In this part of the boat I also learned about some safety features of the boat.   Should something happen to the boat while Mike is down below in his cabin he could crawl through either side of the boat to the back of the boat and out the safety hatch.   There is also a safety system that he could deploy as well.   I found this very much like a safety system that we would have in our wind turbines.  I did crawl through the “hallway” from Mike’s cabin to the back of the boat.    For me it was a bit like being on a slip-n-slide since I was covered in sweat and sunblock.

I also checked out the sleeping bunks.   Your feet face the front of the boat just in case the boat hits a big wave.  You want your feet hitting the wall and not your head.  Also, you can adjust how well you are tucked into the bunk based above the types of waves you are experiencing.   Best way to describe it is – it’s like being in a cocoon.   You definitely won’t be tossing and turning in your sleep, because once you find a comfortable position your stuck in that position until you wake up.

We went sailing with Mike and the crew in the afternoon.   It was my first time ever sailing and it was an absolutely amazing experience!   I think I might have caught the sailing bug.   I will be definitely going sailing again!

Brian LaMay and I hoisted the main sail using the grinder.    The grinder sort of reminds me of pedals on a bike that is on a pedestal.  Instead of using your feet you use your hands and the pedals are replaced with handlebars.  The grinder is a pretty physically demanding job on the boat; but I did all of my grinding with the biggest smile on my face!   The grinder uses the winches to pull in, haul out, take up, and take down the sails.   I was also able to do some grinding with Mike and another member of the crew.  At one point I didn’t think my arms could keep up with how fast we were grinding

For me, Friday was one of the Best Days Ever!  I was able to see firsthand what Mike will be doing during the Transit B to B and ultimately the Vendée Globe.  I was also able to see all of our hard work from the previous days come together to help make Gamesa sail.

Day 1 – December 1, 2011

My first day as a Gamesa Sailing Team Ambassador started out very much like a day when I visit one of our wind farms.  We held a morning Plan of the Day (POD) meeting to discuss what needed to accomplished.  This including items that needed completed on the boat, packing of supplies, and preparing for our clients’ visits.  Each of the ambassadors was divided up to support the different tasks.

Most of my morning was spent at the Sailing Team’s villa.  One of the team members, Mucky, was working on repairing a damaged dagger board.  The dagger board works as a wing to keep the boat straight and to prevent it from skipping along the waves.  Mucky explained how he was repairing the daggerboard which is very similar to how we would repair a damaged blade.  As he was speaking a lot of the terminology he was using was very familiar to me as I had spent some time supporting our Blade’s plant in Ebensburg, PA.

Part of my morning duties was working with Emma and Sarah in final preparations for the BBQ that we were hosting that evening.  I also did a little packing of the supplies that Mike will be taking on the Transat B to B.   All of the food, with the exception of the freeze dry food, is taken out of its original packaging and repackaged into portion sized meals.  We used reusable plastic bags to repackage the food.   We also double-bagged a lot of the items in order to ensure that the moisture stays out and the food stays fresh.  At first, I was shocked to learn that Mike will consume about 6000 calories per day.  However, after thinking about all of the work and calories that he would be burning each day, I realized that he needed those calories to fuel his body for the race.  Meals are definitely not elaborate; perhaps some cereal for breakfast, pasta for lunch, and a freeze dry meal for dinner.  I was happy to see that Mike has a sweet tooth too!

I spent a bit of time on Gamesa in the afternoon.  The first thing that I learned was how to get on the boat.   My first couple of times getting on and off the boat were anything but graceful.   I spent some time in the stern of the boat learning about some of the various safety features the boat has.   In the event the front of the boat hits something there is a safety hatch to close off and protect the boat.  Unfortunately, if this does happen the boat is no longer able to race.

I also learned about the ballast system on the boat.   Essentially it’s two separate containers that can fill up with water.  Should the boat have a high side (out of the water) he will fill up the container on the high side for more power through the waves and allow the boat to cut through the waves.   This system works in conjunction with the Keel system.  The Keel is underwater and acts a counterbalance to keep the boat from tipping over; this system is used most often in higher winds.

At the end of the day I was volunteered for cleaning the boat; I believe the official terminology is swabbing the deck.   The boat needs to be cleaned every day to remove all of the salt water to ensure that all of the mechanisms will operate properly.   I managed to not only get myself and Mucky pretty wet during the clean-up.   Sorry, Mucky!

It was a great first day and I learned a lot.  I do not have a technical background, so the hands-on lessons were a great way for me to learn about the boat.

November 30, 2011

After a day of traveling to St. Barths, we spent the evening getting to know Mike Golding, his family, his team, and the other Gamesa Sailing Team Ambassadors.  What better way to get to know someone then through a family dinner.  I had the pleasure of sitting next to Mike during dinner and chat with him a bit.   I couldn’t think of a better Skipper for Gamesa to partner with than Mike.  Mike and his crew truly embrace the values of Gamesa.

Mike has just called in to Gamesa Sailing Team Headquarters sounding much more relaxed and rested, with this update:

“I had a bit of a schoolboy error in setting up for the weather change, when the stronger winds came in, but I have made up most of what I had lost. I was actually making good ground on PRB and as the system approached, I thought it was just another rain squall. In retrospect if I had thought about the timing of its arrival compared to the forecast then I might have clicked that it was solid, sustained breeze, the arrival of the stronger winds and not just a squall. But that cost me a little. Because we had been having the squalls, fortunately for me, I brought the stay sail up on deck and plugged it in earlier in the day, but I hadn’t hoisted it.

“So what happened when the bad weather came in, I tried to muscle my way through it, it kept on going and going, I headed to Banque Populaire’s line, I was right next to them, and I really needed to reduce sail area, I bore away, went down as low as the line of PRB and by the time I had made the changes, it went on a bit longer than I thought and Hugo Boss was right behind me. I think that shows how close we are. Certainly PRB is more organised but in saying that I think Banque Populaire actually came out worse than me, so obviously I wasn’t the only one caught out.

“In terms of sleeping and eating I’ve been safe, I have eaten and slept but I was definitely on the edge. I have just had probably 3 or 4 sessions of 30 and 40 minutes, just sleeping on a timer so that is quite a long sleep for me. But prior to that since the start of the race it was snippets, here and there, so I feel a lot better for that.

Mike has a small issue with the engine which is primarily required for electrical charging, though Gamesa runs a new hydrogenerator system as do most of the IMOCA Open 60, where the passage of water over small paddlewheels create acceptable drag, but augment the electrical generation.

“A bracket with a pump on it that you use for draining the oil has snapped, whilst that in itself is not a particular problem, the oil is going to down into the bilge and it has effectively created a siphon which has drained the oil out of the engine. At the moment it is a little too violent to try and attempt the repair, I need to try to recover the oil and clean it and put it back in the engine as it will have water in it, but right now, I don’t have so much oil.” Mike hopes to make the repair over the next 24 hours.

Update 07:00 GMT: The overnight period has been quite a bit rougher than Golding expected and so he is slightly frustrated that he feels he was not well enough set up for the stronger winds that appeared, principally because they were more than were forecast.

And so it has been a wet, busy, bumpy ride for the last few hours and this morning Golding was eagerly awaiting the expected drop in breeze which should allow him to catch some rest.

On the 0630hrs UTC rankings this morning, Wednesday, Gamesa is fifth, just 11.9 miles behind Macif (Francois Gabart) who has taken over the lead since yesterday.

The British skipper is anticipating the eight boat fleet continuing to drag race north as they decide how to deal with a high pressure ahead of them which means lighter winds and a clockwise rotation of the wind direction around the centre. And the closer they sail to the centre of the high, the lighter the wind is. But the key strategy at the moment is setting up for a low pressure which will form off the US coast to their west which will give them faster downwind sailing and allow them to step north quickly.

But there is an equation to be balanced, go west to look for it and you sail more miles, stay east you sail less miles but wait for it longer. And dealing with the developing high is key just now.

“It has been a bumpy ride in a horrible sea with a lot more wind than I expected, 28-30kts and so I am a bit put out by that and I have had a few little problems, I was not as prepared as I would like to have been. But it is fine.

“A problem I have to deal with a little down the track is that I seem to have lost oil out of the engine. I am fortunate that the bilge [sump above the keel] is otherwise dry and so it is not sloshing about the boat. But at some point I am going to have to clean it and get it back in! It is not major, however.

“As far as the weather goes there is still a difference between the two models and so I just need to keep on top of their evolution as we come to make decisions. As far as I can see that will be a little bit down the track and now at the moment everything is OK, it is good to have all the boats lined up in a line.

“I maybe have a lost a little but I am pretty happy to have been able to hold on to the likes of Banque Populaire and Macif over these first couple of days, and so that is heartening, something I must admit I was a little worried about. That is very positive for me, good news. So now we have to muscle on through the next few days.

“At the moment I am looking forward to getting my head down, it’s been busy but we are generally in good shape, a bit messy in parts with little problems I could do without, but fundamentally all is good.”

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“I’m Pushing north but keeping an eye to see if we can turn to the east any earlier. This morning’s model has allowed me to stay over on the right hand side of the course which is why we are still in third place. Macif was racing her course on her routing from yesterday, but it does appear to have changed today very slightly, allowing me to turn to the east.

“Right now, I’m in a squall with 15-18 knots of breeze, it is still very doldrumy, there are steady periods when the wind settles, but it is pretty erratic, the wind comes in short bursts.

“How does it feel on my own without Bruno? It’s harder! Bruno made life much easier! He’s a very strong guy, Bruno, and I miss his strength onboard. It is a bit quiet onboard and it takes a bit of getting used to and realising that it is still 2 weeks before we get in [to Lorient], it is still daunting, even thought I have done lots of this stuff before.

“The boat does a good job of letting you know when it is not happy and that is a lot of the time at the moment! That keeps you busy most of the time. Then you are making space to view the weather and trying to make strategic decision, of course you have to do that reasonably regularly, if you miss a model, an evolution, then you can miss a strategic choice.”

Update 0600 GMT: Mike Golding and his IMOCA Open 60, Gamesa, has made a promising start to the 3,300 mile Transat B to B race from St Barthélemy in the Caribbean to Brittany, France, taking the early lead on the first morning position report after starting at 1400hrs UTC Monday 5 December.

After the fleet divided in half yesterday evening, between seven and eight hours after the start, PRB, Safran, Banque Populaire and Hugo Boss choosing to hold on to the east for longer, Golding’s tactics has paid a small reward this morning.

As the quartet broke to the north he carried on for a little longer than the other three skippers in the northerly group, Macif’s Francois Gabart, Bureau Vallee’s Nicolas Burton and Transat Jacques Vabre winner Jean Pierre Dick on Virbac-Paprec 3. The timing of his move has been decisive so far but there is just eight miles between the top five boats.

Golding on Gamesa leads by a little over 4 miles from Armel Le Clea’ch’s Banque Populaire which is now leading the group which stayed on to the east. All eight are not on a similar course and Golding has been able to rise up to the line of Banque Populaire and strengthen his hand.

“It is going OK, we are pushing north and it is going just fine. When I looked at the choice I could not really see a reason to carry on like they did, so I am glad it has worked out,” he commented this morning to the Team Headquarters.

“It has been pretty hard really, the breeze has been steadily getting stronger but it has been shifty [small changes in wind direction]. In fact it was quite horrible initially but it has got progressively better. We have a reef in now and on the Solent, but the wind is still up and down a lot. We should see it get more consistent as we get out of the light area. Now it should be much the same for all of us.

“From my point of view I have to just be careful not to stray too far to the right [east]. And the lead is largely as a result of picking the right time to tack, so I am pleased that worked.”

The Race Track can be viewed here: http://www.transatbtob-imoca.org/?mode=cartographie or follow the link from the home page.

When Mike Golding was last racing solo on his IMOCA Open 60 it was in the harsh wastes of the Southern Ocean in December 2008. He was leading the Vendée Globe after again proving himself to be one of the very best in the tough conditions.

Today, Monday, 5 December, the British skipper will put himself back to the test, racing alone and unaided onboard Gamesa, as he takes on the next key stage in a process which he hopes will see him back in the Vendée Globe vanguard in one year’s time.

As Golding starts the 3,300 miles solo Transat B to B, from St Barthélemy in the Caribbean ‘Back to Brittany’, France, the contrasts with the grey wastes and huge swells of the Big South could hardly be greater, setting off into light winds. But none of the seven solo sailors joining him on the start line will be complaining as the first few days should, at least, allow them some sunshine and trade winds to find the solo racing rhythm again.

“In many respects I probably least enjoy racing solo but at the same time it is the most rewarding. I enjoy being on the boat with other people but the reality of it is that solo is what these boats are all about, that is what we are preparing for and so in the context of the next Vendée Globe, it’s crunch time: time to find out where you are in the game,” commented Golding.

“This is still about further validations of the changes we have made and getting back into it when I have been away for so long, but I can’t wait to get started now.

“Not only is it about the race, but also you are trying to get there, to keep the wheels on the bus, and make sure that we don’t break anything major. It’s an opportunity to line up against some of the new boats in a solo configuration and see how we compare and of course I hope that we can post a better result than we did in the Transat Jacques Vabre,” he concluded.

Golding is keeping his aspirations in check. He is the only skipper in the fleet not to have raced solo at all since the Vendée Globe, whilst France’s Nicolas Burton on Bureau Vallée and Francois Gabart on Macif will both be ocean racing an IMOCA 60 footer for the first time.

As the weather is shaping up for this race across the Atlantic, Golding believes there will be many stepping points, transitions into new systems which will place a slight premium on being in the leading group but, equally, he feels there will be less tendency for the fleet to split to the north and south as the two handed outbound race did.

“If you are in the wrong place, you will miss out dreadfully,” he warns, “We’ll be pushing and pushing north. At times there will be a temptation to start creeping east. But the difficultly with that is that the routing is being very specific. You have to get north, possibly even west of north and get to the big systems that are coming out from North America, then you hook into the bottom of those, mind you some of them look pretty severe.

“I think the fleet will probably be close together as we are all pinned out to the left side of the course. I can’t see a boat trying another route, certainly not in the early stages based on the weather I have seen, so for the first third of the race, I think the boats will be well to the left side of the great circle, sailing more miles than the shortest route, all with the sole goal of reaching those strong westerly winds.”

Even after 12 days in the Caribbean, recuperating and working to have Gamesa ready once again, Golding is relishing the return home to the chilly North European winter, just in time for Christmas.

The Transat B to B starts from St Barts at 1400 GMT (1000 local), Monday 5 December and the teams are due to arrive in Lorient, France approximately 12-14 days later.

To follow Gamesa’s progress across the Atlantic as the racing develops hour by hour download the following apps:

iPhone/iPad app: http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/gamesa-sailing/id474489616?mt=8

Android app: https://market.android.com/details?id=com.mikegolding.www.ios

Or follow on:

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Online: http://www.mikegolding.com or http://www.gamesasailingteam.com

When Gamesa announced its sponsorship of the British solo sailor in June 2011, one of the fundamental components of the sponsorship – their first foray into sponsorship of any kind – was as a platform engaging and inspiring colleagues worldwide working on different projects and in many regions.

Gamesa is a global technological leader: designing manufacturing, installing and maintaining wind turbines. With manufacturing plants, wind farms and operating offices in more than 30 countries world wide, including Europe, America, South America, and Asia (India, China and Japan), Gamesa employs more than 8,000 skilled professionals.

An inspirational human, sporting and technological challenge like Golding racing solo across oceans, is a theme which Gamesa hopes will grow to become a common talking point, a shared interest, for colleagues at plants on each continent.

Joining Golding in St Barts will be Gamesa employees from Brazil, Mexico and North America, selected from across all levels and departments within the company.

While modern communication platforms theoretically link these plants as one global community, a focal point such as Gamesa’s IMOCA Open 60 project can pay dividends many times over, whether inspiring technologists, researchers or scientists to alter their thinking or approach, or simply to inspire workers to challenge themselves to develop new skills.

As the new internal communications strategy attached to Golding and Gamesa’s IMOCA Open 60 starts to roll out through the company, ambassadors of all ages and levels are being selected from across different regions, functions and plants to gain first-hand experience of the sailing project and to share their experience with colleagues.

Christopher Nolan, Health & Safety Manager, from North America was in a decidedly chilly Southampton for the dedication by HRH The Princess Royal, and also attended the build up to the start of the Transat Jacques Vabre, in Le Havre in October. Chris worked with the Boat Captain, Graham ‘Gringo’ Tourell checking the kit list prior to departure and was particularly interested in the Skippers Emergency Handbook, which relates directly to his role within Gamesa, and in particular Mike’s solution to avoid depression whilst onboard. He sent back this video blog: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irkc97b8DEo&feature=channel_video_title].

Joining Chris in Le Havre was Sanju Davis, the India Plant Manager from Chennai. Sanju was struck by the European ways of sharing a long meal, as well as the care the shore crew took to prepare Mike’s food for the crossing, commenting, “The effort could well be compared with a doting mother who packs lunch and snacks for her kid who is set out on a tour.” Read more from Sanju’s blog here: http://www.mikegolding.com/2011/10/gamesa-ambassador-blog-sanju-davis-senior-manager-production/

Brian Lamay, a Manager for the Technical Office in the Services Department for North America is one of the Gamesa Ambassadors who arrived yesterday in St Barths. “My expectations for the Transat B to B race are quite high. With the research on the Team and discussion with my colleague, Chris Nolan, the Gamesa Sailing Team is one of the smoothest teams he has seen work together. I expect to learn from the leadership that Mike must have to compete at this level, and to see how he trusts his team in making him a world contender.

“The technical challenges of manning a team and a boat that will be able to sail across the world with minimal supplies and no contact will be fun to tackle with the team. In some ways it is no different than what we at Gamesa are challenged to do: optimise what we offer to provide the level of production and reliability, while minimising the cost of energy. I expect to study the process by which Mike and the Gamesa Sailing Team determine what is needed versus ‘nice to have’ to bring that back to my team of engineers.”

Blogs from the Gamesa Ambassadors will be published over the coming weeks at www.mikegolding.com & www.gamesasailingteam.com.

It is recovery time for me, an all too short interlude in Saint Barthélemy in the Caribbean after a pretty tough Transat Jacques Vabre from Le Havre to Costa Rica. It’s also our opportunity to prepare for the imminent Transat B to B, the solo race back from here, St Barts, home to the European winter and a finish in Lorient in Brittany, France 12 days or so after the start on 5 December 2011.

Looking back …. and forward

In every respect the Transat Jacques Vabre was a tough race. The result was clearly not what we had hoped for and it is a new experience for me to come in at the back of the fleet. I am a competitive animal and don’t like to lose, so I don’t plan to get used to it.

I left the dock in Le Havre saying that I wasn’t focused on the result, that the Transat Jacques Vabre was an opportunity to test the 3 months worth of modifications we’ve made to Gamesa, but as soon as I was back on the race course, the red mist dropped and we fought all the way to the finish.

I then came ashore in Costa Rica saying we were not going to beat ourselves up about the result, but that is rather easier said than done.

However the reality is that there are many positives to be taken from the race. We probably went into this event with expectations which were coloured by our past results rather than with the cold hard fact that I have not raced 60s for two years and that Bruno and I had next to no training time on the newly configured and re-fitted Gamesa.

On the other hand we still proved to be competitive and were in 3^rd place (and in the right tactical position) at the halfway stage, when we were really just getting into our sailing stride.

Unfortunately at this point, we were facing the worst storm of the race and I made the decision to head south. This was  prompted in part by having no high resolution or far reaching weather data (due to our Fleet Broadband failure) and also the loss of our onboard wind instruments.

Above all I wanted to complete the event without a major failure and the media speculation that reached the boat following the dismasting of the VOR 70 Abu Dhabi, intimating that our mast/rigging of similar design and same supplier may also be in question, did nothing to boost my confidence.

It is easy now to see how I managed to convince myself that a more southerly route was favourable.  However, it is a shame as we were sailing much, much better than we had been at the start – so who knows how well we might have done if we had made the right routing choice

Physically I am still aching all over. It takes time to recover from this sort of physical onslaught which is like doing 10 or 12 gym sessions a day for the best part of three weeks. But the good thing is that you do build up your race fitness and I know I will be in much better shape for the race back.

The next steps …

The Gamesa Sailing Team shore crew are in the final stages of sailing Gamesa back up through the Caribbean to St Barts and have had a tough journey themselves, with some stormy weather: Caribbean sailing isn’t all picture postcard …. unfortunately!

The focus is on getting her ready for the Transat B to B race back. The job list isn’t massive – only 3 priority jobs – replacing the fleet broadband system, fixing the wind instruments and repairing the daggerboard.

Naturally we will be checking the mast and rigging and the whole boat but from our inspection in Costa Rica we expect no serious problems. We have a new Fleet Broadband arriving in a day or so, the wind gear was changed in Costa Rica and is all working  and Ian MaCabe (Mucky) has arrived with all the gear to repair our port daggerboard which was damaged through collision with a UFO (unidentified floating object).

Back to basics …

And so on Monday 5 December, it will be back to solo sailing for the first time since the Vendée Globe in 2008. The Transat B to B is another big challenge but right now I am relishing the prospect. It is a different rhythm and routine on your own. I have breakfast when the sun comes up, dinner when the sun is setting and a meal in the middle of the day, and beyond that it is snacking to make sure I am eating and drinking enough. Thereafter I sleep when I am tired and there is the opportunity to do so, but the days are longer, harder and no 24 hours is the same as the last one, or the next.

The course out of here could be a bit doldrums-y to begin with but quite quickly we should join the Altantic circulation which will speed us back towards the much colder weather as you get back to Europe and the winter….brrrrrrr!

Thank you again for your continued support: it is great to receive messages from people following the race: the team send them on to the boat and they are a great morale boost.

If you have any questions you would like to ask whilst I am racing, please don’t hesitate to send them to info@mikegolding.com.

You can also follow the racing as it develops hour by hour by downloading the following apps:

iPhone/iPad app: http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/gamesa-sailing/id474489616?mt=8

Android app: https://market.android.com/details?id=com.mikegolding.www.ios

Or follow via:

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/mikegoldingyachtracing

You Tube: http://www.youtube.com/user/mikegoldingyr

Online: http://www.mikegolding.com or http://www.gamesasailingteam.com

Thank you once again for your support.

Yours faithfully

Mike Golding

The duo finished the 4,730 miles course in a time of 17days 21h 42mn 10s and were pushing hard to make places until the very final hours of the race. After a strategic decision to break to the south of the fleet relegated them from a strong early position, third at the half way point of the course, Golding and Dubois were unable to claw their way back into contention.

A succession of small technical problems – failure of their fleet broadband internet connection which allows them to download high resolution weather files to try to outmanoeuvre their rivals, and the loss of their wind instrumentation – did nothing to enhance their challenge.

Golding commented today that his seventh edition of the race has certainly been one of the very toughest, not just because of the battering taken by the teams during an unrelenting first week, when the big, confused seas were more of a threat than the winds, but because of the universally high standard of the fleet which has been forced to push harder than ever for every small gain. The high level of intensity has been endorsed successively by each of the teams which has finished into Costa Rica.

“My overriding feeling now is one of relief: it has been a very long and tough race,” said Golding. “The weather on this one was very much like the last one with a very decisive system that caused splits and division in the fleet. It was a very hard system with potentially, actually boat breaking conditions. And when you arrive in the Caribbean you think ‘phew it is over’, but really it isn’t over, the Caribbean is tough to sail, even the last five days have been tough. It is a race with an extra 1,200 miles added on it!”

Finishing ninth is an unfortunate new experience for Golding but after two years away from big ocean races and with a boat which had just been modified with a new rig and steering system, the main goals were to finish and to learn the boat’s new characteristics in order to be competitive for the solo race, the Transat B to B, which returns across the Atlantic, starting on 5 December.

“We are disappointed of course with the result which is not what we would have wanted. But the reality is that we made a choice in the Atlantic to go south round an area of light winds partly driven by the fact we had no communications, no fleet broad band, so we couldn’t get the big weather files, partly driven by the fact we had no wind instruments, so we were thinking we would go south, get some light weather, change out our wind instruments, try to fix the fleet broadband but it didn’t work. It was not the right way to go.. But you make your choices, sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t. On this occasion they didn’t work.

“For us it was so important to finish the race because in many respects the race back is more pertinent. We have a programme which runs through next year and it must stay on track and here we are on track. I feel very sorry for Bernard Stamm [who had to be airlifted from his boat with co-skipper JF Cuzon after it was damaged].

“This result is not what either of us thought we would get, but we were in the play. And we are not going to beat ourselves up about it. It feels bad just now. We were up in third and we we were vying with Macif and Banque Populaire. But we were very shaky after the start, very green and – to be honest – making mistakes I would have made 15 years ago. So when you put it in context it is something to go forward from with a lot of positives in our minds.

“Fundamentally I am happy with the boat. Alongside other boats we are OK on most of them, I think the newer boats are a bit quicker, but the Vendée Globe is more than just having a quick boat and that is the team’s ultimate focus.”

Golding will be on the start line for the return journey, the Transat B to B, starting on 5 December from St Barths, and is expected to arrive around 18 December in Lorient, Brittany, France.

That sets an elapsed time for the theoretical course of 4730 miles from Le Havre, France, to Puerto Limon, Costa Rica of 17 days, 21 hours,42 minutes and 9 seconds, sailing at an average speed 11.01knots.

They sailed an actual distance of  5,304 milles at an average of  12,34kts.

More to come ……

Light winds, calms and occasional squalls are making the finishes into Puerto Limon, Costa Rica difficult. The closer that the duos get to the finish line then the less wind there is, especially during the night.

Gamesa had 202 miles to sail to the finish line on the 0600hrs rankings this morning and was computed to be just 28 miles behind the Swiss boat. Golding and Dubois were coming in from the NE in stronger breeze than it appears Dominique Wavre and Michèle Paret have, but there is still a significant distance to the finish and in these conditions anything can happen.

“It is getting quite light now, we have just 10kts of breeze, but we are going OK and feel like we are getting into the fight, which is at least good. We still have 200 miles to go, so hopefully can be in by the end of the day. We are really fighting to get back to Mirabaud and feel like we have done well to get to the north of them and get back at them. We are going to do the best we can to get them, they are more to the south of us and we think have less breeze,” reported Bruno Dubois early this morning