ARC 2015

[Polux]

After the Fountain Pajot 48 come very close a big beautiful 75ft modern classic sailboat followed by an older Grand Soleil 52, a Grand Soleil 43 and a CNB 76.

The little Grand Soleil 43, at only 5 hours from the Fountain Pajot 48 is the first "small" boat with less than 45ft. Great sailing and great boat, sailing among and ahead of much bigger boats. Chapeau to the boat and crew!!

At about 4 hours distance come the next group leaded by a Oyster 575, chased by a Luffe 37!!!!! that entered about half an hour later, beating a Southern wind 72.

What to say about the magnificent performance of this performance cruiser? I would not have believed if I had not saw it...and take in consideration this is not a specially good boat downwind, but an upwind maximized boat.

Some years ago I visited the Luffe shipyard (I was interested on a Luffe 43DS) and I was very impressed not only with what I saw but also with a Luffe 4004 that I sailed (they had not a 43 available). The Luffe fans call it the X-yacht killer (another Danish fast boat) and I guess we can see here why. What a performance!!! Congratulations to the crew that made a fantastic job. Chapeau!!!

The Luffe was not only the first boat with less than 40ft but also the faster among 40ft boats (if we exclude the Pogo 40class, that is a race boat).

The next group come about 6 hours later leaded by an old Swan 441 that beat a brand new Outremer 51 (the 3rd cat). Very close arrived a Dufour 560, a Halberg Rassy 54, a Discovery 58, a Sun Odyssey 54DS, a Jeanneau 57 and the first of the Lagoon, a 52 (4th cat), followed by a Oyster 625 and a XP 44.

Next group, at about two hours was leaded by a cat, the 5th cat, a Lagoon 560, close behind come a Oyster 66, a Swan 46 MKII and the first 45ft cat, a Lagoon 450. Great sailing on that Lagoon leaving the other Lagoons 450 far behind. Close to the Lagoon come a Gib Sea 51, a Sun Fast 3600, a Wauquiez 40s and a Halberg Rassy 48.

The Sun Fast 3600 performance was not bad, but it is cruiser racer, much more than a racer than a cruiser. More impressed with the performance of the Wauquiez 40s, a very comfortable performance cruiser that not only arrived close to the first 45ft cat as it was the second true performance cruiser with 40ft or less, only beaten by the Luffe 37.

And that's it for now. the next boat is a Finngulf 46 that is at about 30nm to the finish.

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[Polux]

The Finngulf 46 that arrived next was leading a group that included 2 Hanse 575, an Oceanis 54, a Jeanneau 54DS, a More 55 and a First 44.7.

Next group arrived at about 7 hours from the Finngulf, leaded by a Discovery 55 followed by a First 40.7, an Oceanis 54, a Reflex 38, a Pronavia 42, a Lagoon 560, a Najad 415 an Oceanis 45, a Pogo 12.50, an Oceanis 54, a Dufour 40e an Oyster 56, a Hylas 54 a Hanse 530 and a First 40.

We can see arriving already many performance cruisers with about 40ft or less mingled with condo cats and main market cruisers or luxury cruisers over 50ft.

Next group was far away, at 10 hours of the Discovery 55 leaded by a Swan 65, followed by a Maestro 40, a Dufour 45e, a Beneteau Sense 50, and a Sigma 362.

The next boat is not yet arrived and is at about 60nm, a Grand Soleil 43.

Again we can see smaller performance monohulls mixed with much bigger main market or luxury monohulls.

http://www.worldcruising.com/arc/eventfleetviewer.aspx

[Polux]

That Grand Soleil 43 beat just by 6 minutes a Finngulf 46. Close come a Bowman 48, a First 47.7, a Swan 51, a Oceanis 50, a Oyster 56 a Samoa 47.

About 7 hours later another group leaded by an Oyster 53 followed by an old First 43.5 and old Swan 47, a brand new Sunfast 3600, a Skye 51, a Malo 46, a Fountain Pajot 58, the second Lagoon 450, a XC 45, a Bowman 57, a Discovery 55, a Farr 520, a GY 48DS.

At some distance another group leaded by an Oyster 56 followed by the third Lagoon 450, an old Swan 59, an Amel 54, another 40ft monohull, the 2nd Pogo 12.50, a Cigale 14, a Lagoon 52, a A Bavaria 46 cruiser, an old Swan 55, a Bruce Farr, a Lagoon 560 and a 2nd Beneteau Sense 50..... and that is all by today.

The next boat will be a Lagoon 39 that is not far from the finish and it will be the first cat with 40ft or less to arrive, ahead of several bigger cats that sail far behind.

http://yb.tl/arcplus2015#

[arsenelupiga]

things happen when you adventure...

ARC crew rescued by cargo ship

[Polux]

Originally Posted by arsenelupiga

things happen when you adventure...

ARC crew rescued by cargo ship

Yes, they can certainly happen and when you chose for a navigation a 30 year old boat they have more probabilities to happen.

[Polux]

Regarding boats that are considered slow and have made a quite reasonably fast passage, about as fast as most cats with the same size, there are two Beneteau Sense 50, boats that are very comfortable to sail downwind, with very little roll and have a huge interior, with a huge storage, very suited for living aboard permanently, even if not properly for living abroad on passage.

We could say that they are the closest that on monohull we can come to a condo cat, regarding interior size, easy passage between cockpit and saloon and huge living space outside with a monohull price. About 350 000 euros for a base price.

Anyway when you live on a sailboat passage time will be a very tiny proportion, at least for the vast majority, regarding enjoying live, that is what this boat is about. Not one designed or suited for the very few that wish to be moving all the time, out of the cruising grounds, doing almost permanently passages.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxRhJxGY0SA

[Polux]

Also Lagoons 52 making a reasonably fast passage, showing that it is possible to have lots of living space and do passage on the trade winds with ease and comfort with not much money (about 700 000 euros base price)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrFLXlHIWsg

[Polux]

Some interesting information regarding the use of engine for propulsion on the ARC+ between different types of boats (Cabo Verde-Santa Lucia):

43 monohulls and 15 multihulls.

The average engine hours on multihulls was 15 hours.

The average engine hours on monohulls was 5 hours.

I believe that if this was not a downwind passage the difference would be bigger.

If we compare the number of boats that used the engine for 3 hours or less that difference is not so big and 61% of the monohulls had done that while regarding multihulls only 40% managed that.

This means probably that there is a bigger percentage of monohull sailors that like to use very little the engine while a considerable number of cat sailors have the same will, while many others use much more the engine than monohull sailors.

Regarding engine hours, this is a friendly kind of racing and you can use the engine to charge batteries and most do so.You can also use the engine for propulsion but you have to declare those hours.

The engine hours that count are only motoring engine hours and obviously on cats you count the hours you have the engines on only on propulsion mode, independently of having one or two engines.

It is required that an engine log is maintained regarding all the use of engine with discrimination regarding the hours the engine is used in neutral to charge batteries and in gear to motor the boat.

Here there is no racing division, like on the bigger ARC. On that division the engine cannot be used at all for propulsion and I believe the gearbox is sealed.

Regarding size of the boats, more fuel carrying capacity equaling a bigger use of the engine, it has nothing to do with that, much more with the type of sailors.

Fast big performance cats made 0 hours, a Lagoon 380 made 0 hours and among the condo cats that made more hours there was a 40 and a 41, while a 67 made much less hours. The one that made more hours was a 48ft cat.

Regarding monohulls it is about the same, you have 32ft boats with 0 hours and most big boats made 0 hours. The monohulls that made more hours, like on the cats, were not big boats but a 36ft and a 41ft boat.

Both on monohulls and multihulls, performance cruisers and the boats that were better sailed tend to be the ones that make less motoring hours, or even 0.

Motoring has more to do with the sailor than with the type of boat.......but the ones that wants to motor less and sail more also tend to have faster boats that can be sailed with lighter winds and have an overall better performance on all points of sail: performance cruisers.

There are obviously exceptions on both sides and we can see on the ARC+, a sailor on a Tayana 37 and another on an Halberg Rassy 352, both slow boats, that were very well sailed and did not use the engine.

On the cats we can see that a very well sailed Lagoon 380 and a well sailed Lagoon 400 did not use the engine, while a very badly sailed Leopard 48 used the engine a lot (and took much more days than the smaller cats).

On the ARC we can have more information about that since there are a lot more boats, including more cats.

Meanwhile you can look at some very interesting information regarding the use of engine to charge batteries (hours/day), the percentage of boats that use the engine or generator and other means of producing energy, consumption and so on. All referring to 2013 ARC:

Generating power on board: Atlantic survey – Yachting World

[Polux]

Lot´s of boats arrived since the last post, on the last 24 hours and I will not be posting about all of those. We have already a good perception of what well sailed boats can do, what average sailed boats can do, lets look now to the ones that are arrived know, that, with the exception of very small or very slow boats, have been sailed very far away from their potential, the ones that come last on the fleet:

Almost arriving, a Sun Odyssey 45DS, a Fountain Pajot 43, a Leopard 44, a Sun Odyssey 45.2, a Starlight 39 and among the smaller boats, not far, a Salona 37 and a Southerly 38. More far away a Beneteau Cyclades 39.3, A Lagoon 39, a Jeanneau 40, a Bavaria 38 and an Halbergh Rassy 310. Not very far a Contessa 32 and a Najad 34.

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[donradcliffe]

I'm not sure that motoring hours mean much for cruisers on the ARC. If you have to run the propulsion engine to charge the batteries, there is a school of thought that it is better for the engine to put it in gear and load it up a bit.

I delivered a 58 ft mono on the ARC course to St Lucia and the genset crapped out on the way, so I had to charge with the main engine. I put it in gear for 8 hours over the two days it took me to tear down the genset and get it working again. If the wind had gotten light, I would have not hesitated to use the engine in that case also.

The bigger boats tend to have more fuel range than the smaller boats, but almost none have the range to make the ARC under power.

[Polux]

Originally Posted by donradcliffe

I'm not sure that motoring hours mean much for cruisers on the ARC. If you have to run the propulsion engine to charge the batteries, there is a school of thought that it is better for the engine to put it in gear and load it up a bit.
...
The bigger boats tend to have more fuel range than the smaller boats, but almost none have the range to make the ARC under power.

If that was the case it would be difficult to explain why so may use so little the engine for propulsion and why bigger boats, with much more tankage, would not utilize much more the engine for propulsion than the smaller boats.

The ones that used more the engine, in what regards monohulls, were not the bigger boats, but relatively small ones, a 36ft and a 41ft boat.

I agree that probably many when using the engine use it on propulsion mode but on most conditions on this transat that would have very little influence on the boat speed, expect on the few occasions wind was weak.

The 48ft Cat that used by far more hours the engine for propulsion was one of the last to arrive.

Anyway they cannot use it for many hours/day since the organization knows about what are the charging hours needed for each boat, assuming smaller ones, because bigger ones almost always have a genset.

[DotDun]

Originally Posted by Polux

If that was the case it would be difficult to explain why so may use so little the engine for propulsion and why bigger boats, with much more tankage, would not utilize much more the engine for propulsion than the smaller boats.

The ones that used more the engine, in what regards monohulls, were not the bigger boats, but relatively small ones, a 36ft and a 41ft boat.

I agree that probably many when using the engine use it on propulsion mode but on most conditions on this transat that would have very little influence on the boat speed, expect on the few occasions wind was weak.

The 48ft Cat that used by far more hours the engine for propulsion was one of the last to arrive.

Anyway they cannot use it for many hours/day since the organization knows about what are the charging hours needed for each boat, assuming smaller ones, because bigger ones almost always have a genset.

All conjecture!

Maybe they ran the engines while fishing!!!

[Polux]

Some interesting news regarding why that Pogo Class 40 become slower and was overtaken by the Marten 69 and the the knierim 49: The second rudder did not resist to all those improvised montage and re-montage and broke. They finished without rudder Chapeau extra to them.

By the way regarding this video with a Luffe 37 the Swedish friend that has sent me those news, points out that the Dragonfly is overtaking the Luffe and not the other way around:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0IqQ7kaDQs

and he is right, I admit my Danish is not good LOL Well he was a bit pissed about that, he owns a Dragonfly 32

[Polux]

And a Final post about the ARC, unless somebody wants to contribute with something more.

First regarding motoring hours: Contrary to what happened on the ARC+ where the difference of hours used for propulsion was huge regarding monohulls and multihulls, here, even if the monohulls motored less hours the difference was not big, an average of 16.6 hours for monohulls and 18.2 hours for multihulls.

The big difference in motoring in what concerns the difference between the two types of boats between the ARC and the ARC+ seems to indicate that on average the multihulls that do the ARC+ are sailed by sailors that like less sailing, or that don't mind to use more the engine, than the multihull that do the ARC, even if it is obviously not the case with all, as the very good performances of some multihulls on the ARC+ demonstrates.

With so much polemic about slow boats on the ARC not being badly sailed, I hesitate on the choice of words but what is true is that the ones that used more the engine were also the slower boats, and if that is not a badly sailed boat, I don't know what it is. Maybe a boats sailed in a very inefficient way, by inefficient sailors

Regarding results on compensated in what regards monohulls the professionally crewed VOR 70 won followed by a very well sailed X-562 from the cruising division,the fantastic Oyster 48 (racing division) followed by another boat from the racing division, the Carroll 60, by and old Grand Soleil 52 from the cruising division, by the Luffe 37.09 (cruising division) and only then the Knierim 49 (racing division). All very well sailed boats.

On Multihulls (there is no racing division) the winner on compensated was the Fountain Pajot Salina 48, that made a fantastic passage beating the first Outremer 51, followed by the Neil 45 and the Outremer 51, all very well sailed boats.

To finish I would like to hear some words of Barnaquiel regarding the condition of the boats that arrived. Certainly he has some interesting details about that.

[barnakiel]

Originally Posted by Polux

(...)

To finish I would like to hear some words of Barnaquiel regarding the condition of the boats that arrived. Certainly he has some interesting details about that.

I can't say how they arrived, I am in Las Palmas. I am stuck with clients sailing to the other side. It will be a while as they go to the Western part in a smaller boat (a 46' modern generic). The computer thinks Jan the 5th is their landfall, but knowing the human factor involved, I am slightly less optimistic. ;-)

What arrived here is a Paradise 60 and I am practically salivating. Maybe, should the owner be that kind, I will get a closer glimpse later on. From the dock, the boat is an absolute stunner, as close to the cruising perfection as a Bougainvillea, a Dashew and other such toys for rich boys can be.

As regards the rally, I may run the data thru an xls and fish out any relevant relationships. I did this for a couple of previous ARCs and for some Transpacs too. I like to watch how the pure laws of physics (get big to go fast) humble men looking for the cruising perfection ;-)

Well done to all the ARC crews and I hope they will enjoy their time on the other side.

Cheers,
b.