Ellen MacArthur gives her blessing

Thursday Dame Ellen MacArthur smashed the champagne bottle against the hull of NOVEDIA Group – S.E.T. environnement in Le Havre. Tanguy de Lamotte and Nick Bubb had the pleasure of having the projects three partners, Edouard Danel (president of NOVEDIA Group), Roland Sonnet (president of S.E.T. environment) and Patrice Roynette (president of the association Patronage Cardiac Surgery), at the ceremony.

The symbolic gesture will hopefully bring luck to the boat and crew, and it was also an occasion for Ellen to wish “good luck” to Tanguy and Nick Bubb for their first Transat Jacques Vabre.

- The boat is more or less ready for the start, and I will start to look at the weather forecasts on Wednesday, says Nick Bubb.

All the 30 Class 40 boats are now moored in the race village in Le Havre.

NOVEDIA GROUP / SET ENVIRONNEMENT qualify for the Transat Jacques Vabre and pick up a new sponsor

What a difference ten days can make. I’m writing this whilst waiting for my delayed flight at Rennes airport and have just been reflecting that when I arrived here, the Thursday before last, we could never have hoped to have achieved so much in such a relatively short space of time.

READY. Tanguy picked me up from the airport and after a short pitstop in La Trinite Sur Mer, to collect a new sail from the All Purpose loft, we headed south to La Rochelle where the boat had just gone back in the water after some work in a local yard. We made a few final checks before grabbing a couple of hours sleep and were ready for the lock opening at 0700. Before we could off on our 1000 mile qualification passage we had a brief photoshoot to keep the sponsors happy. With the photographer on the Ile de Re bridge, we managed to get some good aerial shots.

Once she was happy we got on with the serious business of actually qualifying for the TJV. Our route, as approved by Sylvie Viant from UNCL who govern all such things over in France for the various event organisers, was one we’d both sailed many times before. From La Rochelle we were heading south west towards Cape Finisterre on the north western Spanish coast. After just over 200 miles we would turn north towards the inhospitable island of Ushant just off the north western corner of France. Here we would have a choice of either heading to the Fastnet rock, or going east to the Needles, before heading back to Ushant and then down to Lorient in southern Brittany to finish.

EASY. The first part of the trip was very easy; a solid 10 – 15 knot easterly gave us beautiful downwind conditions under a full moon and we took the opportunity to test all of our ‘flying sails’. As we made the turn north, the wind stayed in the east and we had a fast two sail reach all the way to Ushant. Here we decided that the Needles were a much more appealing option than the Fastnet and with the wind veering to the south east and building, we knew that we were looking at more fast two sail reaching both ways.

By the time we got the Needles, the wind was gusting 30 knots and we were down to two reefs in the mainsail and a reefed solent. A good test all round and still fast! We encountered similar weather on the return to Ushant and got lucky with the spring tides to round the island and our 800 mile mark in just over 3 days.

ROAD TRIP. We then had some slightly trickier light headwinds to negotiate before we could celebrate. This proved very useful training though and we shook out our genoa and code 5 for the first time. We finally arrived at the famous old submarine base marina in Lorient at 1800 on Tuesday evening, perfect timing for a small ‘fiesta’ and rightly so; 1000 miles in just over 4 days and no major problems.

Wednesday was then spent sorting through the video and pictures from the qualifier, before we embarked on a roadtrip to Paris for the official presentation of the skippers to the media. It was a swanky affair but still followed the traditional format of long speeches from the sponsors, a brief introduction of the skippers, pictures of everyone together and then a big party with a free bar and a live band!

SHOOTING STARS. Feeling slightly tired after the excitement of the previous few days, we slowly headed back to Lorient on Thursday to start cleaning up the boat and sorting out a few of the small issues we’d had. With another photoshoot booked for Friday, we went to bed early and prayed for wind and sun. After a murky start, things brightened up and we made the best of the 10 knots we had, to go through the entire sail wardrobe, keep the photographer happy, execute all the standard manoeuvres and even line up against another new Class 40.

Yesterday was all about the rugby but we managed to fit in some more boat preparation work in between celebrating England and France’s magnificent victories. It is perhaps a good thing we have no training planned for next weekend as I’m not sure how well Tanguy would cope watching out boys crush ‘les bleus’!!

NICE AND GILL. Finally, Tanguy and I are very excited to announce that GILL have agreed to become our technical clothing partner. For me this is a development of a long standing working relationship and it’s great to be working with old friends again. Their constant drive to develop their kit is bringing big rewards for all their customers, and we now have sleek, stylish kit both onshore and offshore. Best of all, it keeps us warm and dry too. Thank you for reading all this lot, and for the ongoing support. With just over three weeks to go till the start in Le Havre on Saturday 3^rd November, things are starting to get exciting.

1st 2-handed and 2nd Overall in the RORC Solent Cherbourg Race -Clemency Williams reports

After a manic mission from Somerset; leaving work at midday, dropping dogs off,getting stuck in traffic and picking the boat up from HYS, we hit the line on the gunand were off for the last offshore race of the season.Light winds had long been forecast for the race so we knew that a good strategy was going to be necessary to secure another win in the 2-handed class. A patchy seabreeze held as we sailed east out of the Solent with the spinnaker up. As we approached Bembridge Ledge buoy we managed to fight off an attack from Diablo-J.Rounding the mark just ahead of Diablo-J, we dropped our kite and took some heighttowards the Isle of Wight. The fleet seemed to divide into two; those that headed westof the rhum line towards the Island and those that stuck closer to the direct route.

We managed to stay in the sea breeze for a while longer than the rhum line group andkept moving. As the sea breeze died we drifted west on the tide for a while whilst the gradient northerly re-established itself. However, we rarely stopped and managed tomake slow but reasonably progress towards Cherbourg and overtake some of the boats around us. It was wonderful night for offshore sailing; slipping through theinky waters under a carpet of stars. I tried to enjoy every second of it whilst also trying to keep focused on the race, which was hard especially as I grew more tired as the night wore on.

The north easterly wind held pretty much all the way to the finish albeit with somerather light patches and some tricky tidal currents. Somehow we got the maths correctand held a steady course all the way to the finish. What struck us most about the First34.7 in this race was her quick acceleration, in the smallest of puffs we were offupwind and downwind. Crossing the finish line at Cherbourg we thought we had done well as there were some much larger boats finishing after us, however, we had notseen any of the other 2-handed boats on the way over. Had they pipped us to the post? Rather cheekily, I asked the finishing boat how many 2-handers had finished when theanswer came back as none, a cheer went up from Jos. We had won!

One of our goals this season was to prove the First 34.7 as a competitive option forthe ever growing 2-handed class and I feel on reflection we have. Out of the 3offshore races we started, we got 3 wins. Even more impressively we had excellent results against the fully crewed boats too, including a 4th and a 2nd Overall. Not only is she fast in all conditions, she’s also very comfortable, a definite improvement on theMini!

Reflections on a busy few weeks!!

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you all after our retirement from the Brittany Ferries 1000 and many thanks for all your supportive messages, especially as it was a little tricky to follow the action. It was great to be able to give some real time feedback on our progress though and I can assure you that for the Transat Jacques Vabre (TJV) the coverage of the race will be significantly slicker and in general things will be a lot easier to follow!

After the obvious initial disappointment that accompanied our retirement from the Brittany Ferries 1000, I am now pretty satisfied with our work. Tanguy and I have an excellent boat which is going to give us a great chance of competing right at the front of the fleet in the TJV this November.

The next few weeks are going to be as busy as ever, we need to remove around 90 Kgs from the bulb to reduce our righting moment down to the maximum allowed. This will obviously also reduce the overall weight of the boat and for a predominantly downwind race like the TJV, we should be even more competitive!! Alongside this major job we also have to repair the starboard rudder. After further inspection it seems that the problems here all stemmed from one small weld failing. Again, although very annoying, we are pretty relieved it wasn’t anything more serious. We also have lots of small jobs to complete and a few electrical issues to iron out. All this work is being carried out down in La Rochelle and the boat should be back in the water next week.

As with the Route du Rhum and Mini Transat, it is necessary to complete a 1000 mile qualifying passage for the TJV. The only real downer of our retirement from the Brittany Ferries 1000 is that we would have ticked this box. However, looking on the bright side (as seems necessary with this sport sometimes) we need some more miles under our belt before the Transat anyway and it will be good to test the boat after the latest modifications and generally get some more ‘real’ training in.

In the meantime I’ve been back in England concluding my RORC racing with Clemency on Jos Of Hamble the Beneteau First 34.7. After two wins early in the season, we were keen to maintain our record and go for the ‘hat trick’. I’ve attached an extract from Clemency’s report but in brief we had a great race in light winds and not only managed to win the doublehanded class but also managed to finish 2nd overall and first British boat, a fantastic finish to the season.

I’ll be in touch over the next few weeks as Tanguy and I get ready for our qualifier and we also hope to announce a few technical partners who have signed up to the project, most of them will be familiar names to all be now though!!

Cheers, Nick

Another win for the First 34.7, Jos of Hamble in the Eddystone Rock Race

Exhausted, I am back behind my desk reflecting on a wonderful weekends racing. Nick and I raced for 50 hours battling calms, wind shifts and spring tides to claim victory in the 2-handed class in the RORC Eddystone Race.

Nick took us across the start line in pole position just under the Royal Squadron and we led the fleet short tacking down the Island shore. It was hard work. I think we did nearly 30 tacks in all to get out of the Solent past the Needles and there was a moment when I wished we had a few more crew!

Often offshore races just turn into drag races but not this one. There were opportunities for gains and loses throughout the race which meant we were constantly making tactical decisions. We did not manage to get much sleep in, especially on the second night when we were trying catch every zephyr to prevent us going backwards on the adverse tide.

The most exciting element of the race was the battle with Voador. As we approached Brixham, after crossing Lyme Bay, we thought that we might be leading the 2-handed class but then through the dawn Simon Curwen and Paul Peggs appeared on the their J-105, Voador. As we cracked off around Start Point they gained on us, taking a short cut through the rocks, they overtook us. By the time we reached the Eddystone Rock they were 25 minutes ahead of us. Now we were on a mission to re-gain our lead.

We followed Voador pretty much all the way to Portland Bill, where we made the decision to keep further offshore in order to try and escape the worst of the tide; Voador went inshore. This was our winning decision. During the night the wind disappeared and at one point we were going backwards. When the wind picked at dawn we headed inshore towards Anvil Point and the finish. As the sun rose we kept looking for Voador through the binoculars hoping to have over taken them. And suddenly we spotted them, we were ahead!

The race was by no means over as once again the wind died and we had to wait until the sea breeze built to get us over the finishing line. Voador were slightly further offshore by this stage and we kept a constant eye on their boat speed.

Although Voador did get the breeze before us the First 34.7 outpaced the J105 and we crossed the line, exhausted and jubilant, 20 minutes ahead of Voador.

As we motored up the western Solent amidst the race boats and cruisers out enjoying the wind and sunshine, I could not have felt more content. We had sailed a race in which we felt we made good decisions throughout, we had put ourall into it, and most importantly we had won the 2-handed class proving the First 34.7s great potential as a short-handed race boat.

Mini Transat Racing again

Earlier in the month I’d joined Tom Braidwood for some Mini racing over in France. The Open Demi-Cle saw us compete in a fleet of sixty top boats. The race started from Lorient and we made yet another fantastic start and rounded the first mark in second place. After two hundred miles of tough, close racing we had to settle for tenth place.Bearing in mind the old sails and kit we were using onboard, this was a very satisfactory outcome as well as a huge amount of fun.

Competitive debut for the new team onboard NOVEDIA GROUP/SET ENVIRONNEMENT delayed for two weeks

Well it’s a mixture of good and disappointing news this time round. On the positive side, the new Rogers designed Class 40, built in Thailand by Pom Green and his team at CMI, has finally arrived in Lymington. The owner of the boat is a close friend of mine Tanguy de Lamotte and he along with his French sponsors NOVEDIA GROUP and SET ENVIRONNEMENT have kindly asked me to be his co-skipper for the 2007 season.

After a significant delay loading the boat onto the ship in Thailand, our program was not helped by another logistical issue, when the shipping line decided they could not wait for an unloading slot in Southampton and headed off up to Felixstowe. Normally I would be only to happy to visit the east coast but this additional delay really put us up against some tough deadlines, if we were going to carry on with our original plan of racing in the Rolex Fastnet. To cut a long story short, we got the boat in the water eight days before the scheduled start and worked all hours with a big team to get her set up and ready for the compulsory 300 mile qualification passage. With four of the six race crew onboard and a photographer, we set off last Wednesday evening for our maiden sail.

After carrying out some standard checks our support RIB motored home and we headed off for the Eddystone Rock just off Plymouth. We had a variety of conditions and up to 23 knots of breeze. After completing the 300 mile loop, we returned to Lymington on Friday morning, with a shorter job list than we had expected. Further hard work was going on onboard, whilst I began to study the weather patterns for the race. As usual I was ably supported and advised by Clemency Williams and it soon became apparent, that there was a high probability that this years Fastnet race was going to see some extreme conditions. Whilst continuing our preparation as normal, Tanguy and I started to assess the benefits of racing such an unproven boat in potentially storm force conditions. Our assessment of the weather forecast was backed up when RORC decided, for the first time in the history of the race, to delay the start. With minimal sailing miles under our keel on this boat and with such a bad forecast, we consulted with the crew and decided that it would not be sensible to purposely expose ourselves to such extreme conditions so early in the boats program.

After so much hard work it is very sad to miss out but on this occasion, the head ruled the heart. With only two weeks until the start of the doublehanded Brittany Ferries 1000, which is also our qualifier for the Transat Jacques Vabre (Le Havre to Brazil doublehanded in November), it seemed prudent to ensure we are 100% prepared for these events, which are the main focus of our season. Whilst I am a little disappointed not to be writing this note from onboard NOVEDIA/SET having just set off in the Rolex Fastnet race, I am very excited about the potential of this new boat and team.

Class 40 is coming!!

As I’ve been hinting at for a while now, things have been moving forward nicely with the next Class 40 campaign and the new boat which has been built at a yard in Thailand, arrives in the UK next week. I will be the co-skipper with a French friend of mine and our first event, which we will sail with four additional crew, is the Rolex Fastnet. As usual it will be a rush to get ready but with so many great people involved in the project, I’m sure it will all come together in time. More information on the program and its sponsors will follow in the built up to the Rolex Fastnet, which starts from Cowes on Sunday 12th August.

Cervantes Trophy -Clemency Williams reports

1st 2-handed division, 2nd Class 2 and 4^th overall out of 122.After a long night finishing off last minute preparations, we started at 0840 on the Royal Yacht Squadron line off Cowes. Being one of the slowest boats in our class and with over 40 boats on the line, we really had to jostle with the bigger boats for clear air but in the end we successfully out manoeuvred the competition and hit the line at speed next to the favoured pin end. A perfect start to the race and the Jos of Hamble 2007 campaign.

With a 10 knot north easterly wind we fetched out of the Solent heading towards Selsey Bill. We knew the wind was going to be easing throughout the day and going round to the south west, so we were extremely conscious to stay focussed on the bigger picture rather than the boats around us. Initially we were passed by some of the larger boats and it took a while to find our groove as we tested Jos for the first time in anger. We sound found out what worked and what didn’t and we were pleasantly surprised by how responsive she was to our constant sail trimming. We rounded the first mark just astern of Diablo J, one of our main rivals in the 2-handed class. As forecast, the wind was already dropping and shortly afterwards the fleet was becalmed.

The next mark was Rustington, roughly ten miles to the north. With the wind expected to fill in from the south west, we decided to try to keep left of the fleet as we drifted north and hopefully benefit when the new breeze arrived.Unfortunately, although the wind did come from the south west, it spread across the course very quickly and those on the right benefited from a better angle into the mark. However this gave us a great opportunity to test our downwind speed.

Beneteau’s First 34.7 comes with a choice of either bowsprit or conventional spinnaker pole. We choose the former believing that it would be easier for short handed sailing and had great confidence that our sailmakers, Quantum UK, would be able to design us an asymmetric spinnaker that we could run deep with as well as use for tighter angles. We were not disappointed, both the boat and the sails lived up to expectations and we managed to soak low whilst keeping good speed and regain some of the ground we had lost to Diablo J who had pulled ahead.

We rounded Rustington in the middle of the afternoon and set off for Le Havre which was just under 100 miles to the south. By now the wind had filled in again and we had 13 knots from the south west. The bigger boats, most of who were sailing fully crewed, soon powered past us but again we were very pleased with the performance of Jos as she was well balanced and easy to drive.

The wind slowly dropped throughout the night and veered round to the west. As every short handed sailor knows, it is these windless nights when it’s hardest to stay awake and Nick and I operated a one hour watch system to ensure we both had a bit of rest and maintained our concentration at the helm. After some of our previous boats, we certainly both enjoyed the comfortable bunks of the First 34.7.

By 0330 the wind was down to just a couple of knots. We knew that we would be able to carry our flatter asymmetric spinnaker very close to the wind, another advantage over the boats with symmetric spinnakers. Onto this ploy early, we soon found ourselves ghosting past some masthead lights that were undoubtedly significantly taller than Jos’.

We made our final approach to Le Havre in the early hours of Sunday morning and could not believe how many bigger yachts were around us. The main worry for us though was what had happened to the other doublehanded boats. As it turned out the two top J105s, Diablo J and Juneau had a fantastic finish, crossing the line just 18 seconds apart. We followed 22 minutes later, which was just enough to give us victory on corrected time, by three minutes.

On crossing the line, we spun the boat around and headed straight for home. It was a rough ride home but we were rewarded with finding out that we’d won the 2-handed division, come 2nd in Class 2 and finished 4th overall out of 122. Not bad for a first race!

Many thanks to Ancasta, who have provided us with a great boat and to my co-skipper Nick Bubb. We look forward to our next race, RORC’s ‘Myth of Malham’ from Cowes to St. Quay Portrieux, starting on Saturday 26th May.

Plans for 2007

It has been a very long time since I’ve sat down and written one of these updates, I have so much news I don’t know where to start. I suppose the beginning is usually a good place. After a tough season in 2006; I decided that I needed to re-group and focus on exactly what I’m trying to achieve in my life rather than continuing with my blinkered approach of Vendee, Vendee, Vendee, whatever the cost.

Currently I’m developing my Project Management skills outside of the marine industry. Since February I’ve been working in the Business Improvement Service at the University of Exeter. I’m on a short term contract as a Project Manager. This is a very diverse role that involves overseeing business process reviews and running new projects. This work is coupled with helping to push the University forwards, in its aim to improve its position as one of the top twenty universities in the UK. It is currently ranked 18th by the Sunday Times league table. Throughout 2007, I will divide my time between working at the University, sailing with other teams in a variety of events and trying to raise funds for my 2008/9 Vendee Globe campaign. This is all quite a change to building boats and running racing campaigns but in this time of change for Higher Education, I’m learning about the core of a major business and helping to develop the service that it gives to its customers. These skills are all key to running Ocean Racing Ltd and servicing the project sponsors.

Aside from my nine to five commitments, I’m racing with Clemency Williams onboard the brand new First 34.7, Jos of Hamble. We will be competing doublehanded in the RORC (Royal Ocean Racing Club) offshore series throughout the season. This circuit kicked off last weekend and we made a fantastic start, first in the doublehanded division and 4th overall out of 122, see Clemency’s report attached to this mail for all the details.

I will also be doing some Mini Transat racing with Australian, Volvo Ocean Race veteran Tom Braidwood. Tom has a wildcard entry for the Transat this September and I was flattered when he asked me to join him for the Open Demi-Cle, which starts from Lorient on Friday 18th May. Having not been on a Mini since the Transat in 2005, I’m really excited about this opportunity. Hopefully the twenty odd thousand miles experience I have under my belt in this class will at least provide Tom with a couple of helpful tips for his campaign.

Looking further ahead in the season, I will also be racing the Rolex Fastnet at the end of Cowes Week. The main focus of the season though is once again the Class 40. I have a full program planned here which includes another shorthanded Trans-Atlantic race. We hope to make an announcement with all the details in the coming weeks. Thank you all for your wonderful support last year, I hope that this season I can provide you with more tales of famous victories than daring do!