Hola..... now you all wake up after the "boss" diseaster (I no more will write it in big letters as I expext from a leader something differently) ???
Yeah... it was a nightmare this whole week.... not fun at all to watch as sailor. And as I did this job professionally I have some critical views onto the whole scenario.
Seeing floating "the boss" clearly let understand even a newbee that there must have been a real disaster on board:
Quote:
UPDATE:
Alex Thomson and Guillermo Altadill are now back on land after a successful rescue from the Spanish coast guard this afternoon. The Alex Thomson Racing Team is now heading back out to sea to bring HUGO BOSS safely ashore.
The skippers had made a second repair and were hove to (this is where the yacht is stationary and comfortably sits head to wind). The reason for slowing the racing yacht was to prevent any unnecessary damage. Whilst waiting for the weather to clear a rogue wave caught HUGO BOSS causing the yacht to turn upside down. Alex and Guillermo managed to close the hatches and secure the situation whilst inverted. Alex immediately hit the keel button, bringing the IMOCA back upright. They then alerted the rescue services and technical team of an emergency situation. The yacht had taken onboard a substantial amount of water and the rig had sustained damage requiring the skippers to leave the yacht.
Alex Thomson explains ‘It was an incredibly unusual event and we need to understand why it happened. It was a rogue wave, but we should not have inverted the way that we did. I am now going to go with the technical team and ensure a successful recovery of our new racing yacht.’
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Little bit more on Scuttlebut...
Coast Guard Rescue for HUGO BOSS >> Scuttlebutt Sailing News
I am really upset. Shocking to see a drifting wreck of 100% carbon. Such a 60 ft flipped over ???? Strange.... I cant remember, that the Team management talked about a "dismasted boat" before, right ?
All the PR sounded kind of "little damages... we tried to
repair it on the way, but for safetyness we abandon".
Hello..... what you want tell us ???? We talk about a 60 foot
boat, not about an 18 ft tinny
dinghy. Its not sailing on the lake or
wind protected bay around buyos.
I see it like this: As soon "big money" is destroying "fair play", e.g. avoiding an open and direct communication with the audience... then something is going heavily wrong.
Yes, I already mentioned it... its a PR super gau for Mercedes and Boss... a
boat less than 10 days in the
water and now a wreck !! The team has to bring the boat to land because of IMO... imagine next days a sailing yacht crashes at night into this drifting boat...
marketing chiefs of Mercedes and Boss cannot afford it to take such risks then the "brand image damage" can quickly go into some hundreds of millions.
I address my critics first to the
marketing chiefs and product managers: Guys, make your homework !!!! This has nothing to do with sail racing. That's "Russian Roulette" method.
We sailors dont want hear, see or read such mad stories.
I am not interested to experience sports in a way which let me remember the "Old Rome" and Caesar's Colloseum. Watching Gladiators living and dying. That is stupid sensation seeking...
It is high tech sailing... but there is no excuse to say: The professional skippers (I like to call them more legions as they get paid for their sail racing job) must use light weighted
boats otherwise its not modern racing and they do not have the chance to win.
That is a totally wrong argumentation.
First: it is off shore racing, and not inner lake pacing around buoys where you can take the risks of capsizing and
dismasting easily having RIBs around.
Second: A long distance trans ocean
race is still defined by old
rule: The winner is who arrives safely the finish line. Thats it.
In car racing we have lots of different
classes, where the racers are adapted (nearby) perfectly to the circuits and
environment. From king class Formula 1 to up-hill
race or Rallye Dakar and Dragster Races in a stadion... the cars are adapted to the environments.
For me the TJV2015 looks more like a Dragster race where we see steadily crashs in the stadion circuit... and not watching a "long distance trans ocean race" where a boat must go thousands of miles under heavy loads safely.
Observing the ongoing damages from beginning remembering the first abandoning by IMOCA of Gitana team I have the feeling, that some skippers used
boats which are not built for difficult conditions of 40 knots and 6-7 meter waves.
But: Hellooooo !!!! This is the Atlantic in autumn and beginning season of
winter storms. Did all the designers, boat builders, naval architects didnt make their home works to see what heavy loads such boats must handle over many days, over hundreds and thousands of miles ???
Maxi Tri Actual abandoned because of
some heavily structural damages in the segment of the system for canting the
mast. Looks really bad.
One only can imagine how heavily the loads must have been in this "bad weather" zone... or does know anybody more details about the circumstances ?
Pro Sailor/skipper Brian Thomson talks about a 10 tons load on the sheet for the canting
mast on MOD70 Phaedo3..
But all these extremes are not an excuse... as seamanship exists over hundreds of years... its not a scenario human man can enters into first time full of unexpected surprises.
Another bad news yesterday evening:
What kind of skippers, boat builders, designers, naval architects, rig masters, sail makers we have in 21st century who are involved in such huge expensive
regatta projects ? - Feels like "spoilt little kids" gambling around having rich millionair/billionair daddies... not knowing how to handle expensive materials.
Every
engineer who is working in the segments of industries, where we see extremly heavy loads, too.... e.g. mining, tunneling, building skyscrapers or gigantic bridges etc. .... cant afford such damages. It would kill hundreds of people's life. And every
engineer would take the risk to sit for rest of his life in prison building such crap.
Back to "the boss": In my understanding Alex should learn his lesson too... from this diseaster. Maybe not wasting his time for spectacles like mast walking and jumping into the ocean from
keel. All show making... Alex should invest his time to find a good
sponsor as partner who takes it seriously with a trustworthy planning, and more important "pre-planning" + test phase.
As a spectator who invests his time watching I expect a good race.... not a perfect one... here and there damages very normal. But such a race mostly should be driven by tactis, sail skills, excellent
weather navigation etc. ... and not waking up every morning having in mind: Which boat is capsized today ? Which crew has abandoned before evening ? Not at all fun to see a bunch of sailing folks who are spoilt with million heavy budgets presenting us such a "bad show".
Who gives me 5 million (HB costed 3.3 million only for the boat building) and I can gamble around like a little kid not knowing what I am doing just for having fun over some few days, with big media attention ? Hands up pls... :-)
Yes.... I am really upset... such folks should
work in film and fashion industries where they can hype themselves weekly in yellow press.
Probably in some weeks we will get the news, that Alex gets a
new boat for the Vende Globe... because the structural damages are too heavy.. and then again we see the same fools and greenhorns coming out of the meeting rooms having made stupid decisions just to hunt behind image with a new highly expensive campaign. No further interests from my side.
It is a farce having heard all these skippers who capsized, being dismasted and even being abandoned by coast guard have proclaimed their TJV participation as "training unit for the solo
circumnavigation race Vende Globe 2016/2017".
Can anyone imagine all these "fragile boats" being crashed in one week under more difficult conditions in the roary fourties or the mighty Pacific ? An IMOCA non stop round the world ? Thats a joke, right ?
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