Telefonica Farr designs can't take the heavy offwind?

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winchfodder

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Submarine, washing machine or sailing boat. Right now very often the first two ones. We are struggling very much in these conditions, we can't keep the bow up out of the waves, and shooting right in them and dropping then alarming boatspeed, which gives us the control issues.

 

When Jono asked this afternoon to drop the spinnaker, SiFi and myself looked at each without saying anything, as we both knew the answer… This will mean losing miles against the fleet, but Jono was right, we were on the edge the entire time.

 

From the position reports we could read that the black boat is having similar issues, as they had slowed down already before us. Feeling a bit hopeless, normally like to push the boat to the limit, but the limit is there way too quick right now. We have been battli

Looks like the Farr boats are not handling too well in the big downwind from Bouwe's comments. Certainly all the boats look to be two knots slower than the JK Erricsons in these conditions and the Tele's suffering the most.

However, the Teles have proved fast in the less marginal conditions and when you look at the overall route and no doubt the endless lightwinds into India and China, then overall I suspect that Bouwe might not be so unhappy with his Farr designs.

 
nroose

nroose

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The other boats have also reported ballistic conditions and lots of water coming over the deck.

Yes, we will see different results on different legs. It's still impressive that E3 and E4 are so fast again.

And I am pretty sure that this is the last we will see of spray rails in the VOR!

 
E

European Bloke

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Yep looks like the only way the T boats are going to get results in this leg is if people bust stuff. Unfortunately black has been the first to do proper damage. I guess ‘disappointed’ may be an overused work in their portacabin during the stopover.

Still as you point out there are plenty of races and legs still to be held in the more marginal stuff, so there’s no reason we can’t see some good results from these guys.

Certainly B fleet at the moment though.

 
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cechavar

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Sad thing chuso007 is that, that would be the best scenario because it is fixable.

But reality is that around 72-96h both Tboats were reporting to use a conservative approach to this low pressure system, that both were manifiestaly slowing down their pace, and even with all those measure still, they have had problems. This was doing around 90 nm/24h less than the leaders. I think 3-4 days ago these guys had the intuition that the boats -as currently set up, or may be inherently-, have the tendency to nose dive way too much.

I do not see problems with Santiago Lange´s hands for example yet, the boat went off around 15 times on Tuesday night... (as reported in the VOR web site), that is a bit too much, I´m sure that they had their best hands on the rudder, don´t you think. Considering that other boats could handle going 3-4 knots average faster without mayor incidents....

I´m sure that they will look for solutions to make the boats more sailable in these conditions such as more weight back, gennakers that enhance lift, or a bunch of solutions that are beyond my current knowledge. Yet, how ocean capable these boats are is in question right now (at least for me). Around 96 h ago, Tblack was only 20 nm behind the leader...

My two cents

 
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Kalumder

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I thought the strakes where supposed to help in those type of conditions. well it seems as if in the real world on sailboats they might not be as effective or?

 
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winchfodder

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cenutrio said:
Sad thing chuso007 is that, that would be the best scenario because it is fixable.
I do not see problems with Santiago Lange´s hands for example yet, the boat went off around 15 times on Tuesday night... (as reported in the VOR web site), that is a bit too much, I´m sure that they had their best hands on the rudder, don´t you think. Considering that other boats could handle going 3-4 knots average faster without mayor incidents....

I´m sure that they will look for solutions to make the boats more sailable in these conditions such as more weight back, gennakers that enhance lift, or a bunch of solutions that are beyond my current knowledge. Yet, how ocean capable these boats are is in question right now (at least for me). Around 96 h ago, Tblack was only 20 nm behind the leader...

My two cents
Click to expand...
Yes, don't think you can blame the crew on this one and I can see limited ability to change the boats in the stopovers under the rules. But I am sure that they will be fine on most of the other legs when maybe the Erics will be a little sticky in the light. Certainly the Tele's did a fair job of catching up in the light downwind before the equator after some early disastrous navigation...and Bruce and Co can blame that on the crew at least!!

 
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cechavar

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It is true that going west of the canary islands was a bad call for TBlack, there were reports of inability to get the meteo info though. TBlue didn´t have any mayor route mistake that I can recall. They were behind because a tiller broke down early in the leg, just that.

I think we can agree that the previous Farr boats (Movistar, Ericsson, Brasil and Pirates) were pretty poor boats in rough weather, still they managed to get over 540 nm/24h. Tblack or Tblue haven´t even been close to those numbers in a period of 72 h of breaking records conditions (as shown by E4).

Many on board Movistar (24 h record back in late 2004, around 540 nm) are split in the T boats, so there´s oceanic talent there. Or at least I think so.

Who knows, the whole thing is intriguing...

 
PauloAS

PauloAS

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Brazil
After seeing the result of the strakes I wonder how Vicent Riou/PRB are feeling right now. Yeah, me thinks this will be the last we'll see of strakes for some time.

 
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chuso007

chuso007

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cenutrio said:
Sad thing chuso007 is that, that would be the best scenario because it is fixable.
But reality is that around 72-96h both Tboats were reporting to use a conservative approach to this low pressure system, that both were manifiestaly slowing down their pace, and even with all those measure still, they have had problems. This was doing around 90 nm/24h less than the leaders. I think 3-4 days ago these guys had the intuition that the boats -as currently set up, or may be inherently-, have the tendency to nose dive way too much.

I do not see problems with Santiago Lange´s hands for example yet, the boat went off around 15 times on Tuesday night... (as reported in the VOR web site), that is a bit too much, I´m sure that they had their best hands on the rudder, don´t you think. Considering that other boats could handle going 3-4 knots average faster without mayor incidents....

I´m sure that they will look for solutions to make the boats more sailable in these conditions such as more weight back, gennakers that enhance lift, or a bunch of solutions that are beyond my current knowledge. Yet, how ocean capable these boats are is in question right now (at least for me). Around 96 h ago, Tblack was only 20 nm behind the leader...

My two cents
Click to expand...
Maybe I didn´t express myself right, I'm not talking only about drivers, I mean't the whole crew, Ericsson has been training for two years...

 
marian

marian

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chuso007 said:
Maybe I didn´t express myself right, I'm not talking only about drivers, I mean't the whole crew, Ericsson has been training for two years...
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I agree with you Chuso, it's teamwork that wins, not some brilliant guy on the helm and there is no substitute for training. Ericsson learned well from ABN AMRO!

That said, I think the Telefon boats could be designed for light airs and have an edge in the equator meanderings.

Anyway, u can't blame Negro for being slow with a broken rudder.

 
Buckie Lugger

Buckie Lugger

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I heard that the Ericsson team were training in the Canaries so that they could get experience of big conditions. Telefonica have been largely training in te Med, so and don't have the benefit of heavy weather experience.

If that's the case then it could well be an experience, rather than design, issue.

As for the strakes, there isn't really time for the Vendee fleet to grind them off. Let's see how they look in a few more months.

 
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hambone575

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Buckie Lugger said:
I heard that the Ericsson team were training in the Canaries so that they could get experience of big conditions. Telefonica have been largely training in te Med, so and don't have the benefit of heavy weather experience.
If that's the case then it could well be an experience, rather than design, issue.

As for the strakes, there isn't really time for the Vendee fleet to grind them off. Let's see how they look in a few more months.
Click to expand...
AMAZING VIDEO JUST POSTED on volvooceanrace.tv of the sprit ripped off!

 
A

andraz

Member
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PauloAs said:
After seeing the result of the strakes I wonder how Vicent Riou/PRB are feeling right now. Yeah, me thinks this will be the last we'll see of strakes for some time.
Click to expand...
It must be the sprayrails. Obviously.

C'mon guys you are following the race and you cleary are avare of diference in conditions between the forerunners and the trailing pack when the caught the low. Hence the difference in mileage between Tboats and Eboats.

Also training does help.

And at the end (but realy at the end) K has better track record in designing powerfull boats for masculine conditions than Farr. They (Farr) just now realised that it might be a good idea to put two rudders instead of one on the Leopard.

 
C

CARBONINIT

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Telefonica have been largely training in te Med, so and don't have the benefit of heavy weather experience.

Your joking right?

 
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