black-and-white television pictures of shrivelled up little men with faces like Furball XL5 stumbling off their battered yachts in Southampton having sailed round the world backwards.
Francis Chichester, Chay Blyth, Robin Knox Johnston. Grainy pictures of Cape Horn. And Raymond Baxter reminding us all that, once again, the noble island nation has tamed the savage ferocity of those southern oceans. Trafalgar, Jutland. The Armada etc. etc. etc. Britannia rules the waves. Always has, always will. The end.
Now, however, we find that pretty well every sailing record in the book is held by the French. They’ve been across the Atlantic faster than anyone else, round the world faster than anyone else and, while plucky Ellen MacArthur grabbed all the headlines by pluckily coming second in the recent Vendée Globe race, the event was actually won by a Frog. Same as it was the year before. And the year before that.
Some say the problem is sponsorship, some argue that sailing in Britain is drowning in its own gin and tonic. But the simple fact is that, these days, the only time a British sailor gets on the news is when his boat sinks.We had that bloke who turned turtle off Australia and survived by eating himself. Then there’s the Royal Navy which, these days, would struggle to gain control of a puddle. And let’s not forget Pete Goss, whose Team Phillips boat, built to go round the world, didn’t even get round Land’s End before the end came off.
Now I should make it perfectly clear at this point that I’m not a sailor. I tried it just the once on what was basically an aquatic Rover 90. It was captained by an enthusiastic Hampshire type who kept saying we were really ‘knocking on’, but I doubted this, since I was being overtaken by my cigarette smoke.
You could have steered that bloody thing through a hurricane and it would still have only done four knots. And that’s another thing. Why do people lose the ability to speak English as soon as they cast off the spring? Why is speed knots and knots reefers? And why, every time you settle back for a real reefer, do you have to get up again? To get the painters in.
Furthermore, even the most mild-mannered man acts like he’s got the painters in as soon as he grabs the wheel (helm). Why? We’re at sea, for heaven’s sake. If I don’t respond immediately to your commands or pull a sheet instead of a halyard, it really won’t matter. A two-second delay will not cause us to crash.
In fact, come to think of it, I know all there is to know about sailing, i.e. that it means spending the day at 45 degrees while moving around very slowly and being shouted at.
Understandably, then, I was a trifle reluctant when I was invited to Brest, to join the captain and crew of
Cap Gemini
, a £3-million French-built monster – the biggest, fastest trimaran the world has ever seen.
Launched just last month, it is hoped it will get round the world in 60 days and, to put that in perspective, an American nuclear submarine just made the same trip in 83 days. This is one really fast boat.
But it’s the sheer size of the thing which draws the crowds. Finding it in a port is a bit like finding a haystack in a needle. You just look for the mast which stretches up past the other masts, through the troposphere and way into the magnetosphere. This boat doesn’t need satellite navigation. You just climb up that mast and have a look.
In fact,
Cap Gemini
doesn’t really have anything. To keep the weight down, the whole boat, even the sail, is made from carbon fibre and so, having gone to all that trouble and expense, they weren’t going to undo it with internal luxuries. The ten meat machines who sail it are expected to use their clothes for mattresses. And it doesn’t even have a lavatory.
We set off and, for five glorious minutes, I think I saw the appeal of this sailing business. The sun came out, the wind picked up and the mighty yacht set off into the Bay of Biscay like a scalded cock.
Francis Chichester, Chay Blyth, Robin Knox Johnston. Grainy pictures of Cape Horn. And Raymond Baxter reminding us all that, once again, the noble island nation has tamed the savage ferocity of those southern oceans. Trafalgar, Jutland. The Armada etc. etc. etc. Britannia rules the waves. Always has, always will. The end.
Now, however, we find that pretty well every sailing record in the book is held by the French. They’ve been across the Atlantic faster than anyone else, round the world faster than anyone else and, while plucky Ellen MacArthur grabbed all the headlines by pluckily coming second in the recent Vendée Globe race, the event was actually won by a Frog. Same as it was the year before. And the year before that.
Some say the problem is sponsorship, some argue that sailing in Britain is drowning in its own gin and tonic. But the simple fact is that, these days, the only time a British sailor gets on the news is when his boat sinks.We had that bloke who turned turtle off Australia and survived by eating himself. Then there’s the Royal Navy which, these days, would struggle to gain control of a puddle. And let’s not forget Pete Goss, whose Team Phillips boat, built to go round the world, didn’t even get round Land’s End before the end came off.
Now I should make it perfectly clear at this point that I’m not a sailor. I tried it just the once on what was basically an aquatic Rover 90. It was captained by an enthusiastic Hampshire type who kept saying we were really ‘knocking on’, but I doubted this, since I was being overtaken by my cigarette smoke.
You could have steered that bloody thing through a hurricane and it would still have only done four knots. And that’s another thing. Why do people lose the ability to speak English as soon as they cast off the spring? Why is speed knots and knots reefers? And why, every time you settle back for a real reefer, do you have to get up again? To get the painters in.
Furthermore, even the most mild-mannered man acts like he’s got the painters in as soon as he grabs the wheel (helm). Why? We’re at sea, for heaven’s sake. If I don’t respond immediately to your commands or pull a sheet instead of a halyard, it really won’t matter. A two-second delay will not cause us to crash.
In fact, come to think of it, I know all there is to know about sailing, i.e. that it means spending the day at 45 degrees while moving around very slowly and being shouted at.
Understandably, then, I was a trifle reluctant when I was invited to Brest, to join the captain and crew of
Cap Gemini
, a £3-million French-built monster – the biggest, fastest trimaran the world has ever seen.
Launched just last month, it is hoped it will get round the world in 60 days and, to put that in perspective, an American nuclear submarine just made the same trip in 83 days. This is one really fast boat.
But it’s the sheer size of the thing which draws the crowds. Finding it in a port is a bit like finding a haystack in a needle. You just look for the mast which stretches up past the other masts, through the troposphere and way into the magnetosphere. This boat doesn’t need satellite navigation. You just climb up that mast and have a look.
In fact,
Cap Gemini
doesn’t really have anything. To keep the weight down, the whole boat, even the sail, is made from carbon fibre and so, having gone to all that trouble and expense, they weren’t going to undo it with internal luxuries. The ten meat machines who sail it are expected to use their clothes for mattresses. And it doesn’t even have a lavatory.
We set off and, for five glorious minutes, I think I saw the appeal of this sailing business. The sun came out, the wind picked up and the mighty yacht set off into the Bay of Biscay like a scalded cock.
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