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October 25, 2009
SolOceans

Bostik put in for a week in Portugal

Friday December 21st 2007 News RSS

Charles Caudrelier, skipper of Bostik, the first Veolia Oceans® one-design specifically designed with the SolOceans 2009 in mind, Liz Wardley, Erwan Tabarly and Erwan Lebec during the round-the-world Reconnaissance Tour of the SolOceans, between Caen and Wellington, the capital of New-Zealand, will stopover this week-end, at Cascais in Portugal. After breaking a stay - one of the two cables holding laterally the mast - at the beginning of the week, this pit stop is imperative before heading back to the South.

Tests under the breeze 1 - November 19th, 2007 The Veolia Oceans® one-design has a surprising behaviour with her easiness under the breeze and her capacity to reach very high steady speed.
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Photo Jean-Marie Liot - SailingOne

"The two first days were really great, with days during which sailed 400 Miles in 24 hours and a top speed at more than twenty knots. The Bostik is really nice to sail" declared Charles Caudrelier in a video report made on board Bostik which will be broadcasted on Wednesday 26 December on Eurosport. "Liz Wardley did reach the highest speed and hold the record! Then we lived something incredible. The leeward stay broke". It is one of the two main cables linking the head of the mast to the hull. The leeward stay is the one situated under the sail, to the opposite of the one in traction and which endures the biggest effort to hold the mast. "If we had not been very vigilant, we could have tacked and the mast would have fallen as it is not hold anymore. It took us time to understand what happened. Eventually, it is the repeated rubbing of the main sail on the rear wind stay that destroyed the protection of the PBO fibres composing this cable. Without any protection, the stay’s core gave in".

"This error of design from our supplier could have had serious consequences", declared Yvan Griboval, CEO of SailingOne and designer of the Veolia Oceans® one-design. "Luckily Bostik’s crew is very attentive and takes this testing campaign very seriously, otherwise the round-the-world Reconnaissance Tour of the SolOceans could have stopped in the Bay of Biscay. The gauge and resistance of the stay are not doubted. When the rig was designed, we increased the capacity of the stay to go under a charging superior to the one we calculated at first, in meeting with Beat Wilderberg (Alucarbon), the maker of the mast. Nothing is to be questioned on the subject".

"Our supplier was very reactive", added Yvan Griboval. "A new set of stay, with reinforced shaft adapted to the constraint of the Veolia Oceans® one-design, has just been made immediately in the United-States. It will be forwarded to France at the beginning of the week, and then fitted out with the ending pieces for the head of mast and hull on Friday 28 December. Bostik will then be able to go back on its course to Wellington during the week-end of the 30th December".

This stop in Portugal will allow SailingOne’s technical team, managed by Jean-Baptiste Daramy, to make complementary works to repair and modify a few things noticed during this first sailing week offshore. This will be changing the decorative stickers on the hull, tightening the lower fixations of the rudder, draining an air bubble in the canting hydraulic circuit of the keel… The four Bostik’s crew will take advantage of this stop to spend 48 hours with their family over Christmas.

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