The awesome boats thread

[DanRoM]

Sailing NV

Sailing yacht NV is an Open 66, originally built to do the Vendée Globe, which we've transformed into a family cruiser to take us around the world

www.sailingnv.com

I've just come across this project where a couple wants to sail around the world, but have serious sailing fun doing it. So they bought a used Open 60 / IMOCA racing yacht and refit it into what they call a "fast family cruiser" on what looks like a shoestring budget. This kind of boat is designed for non-stop solo round the world races, so turning it into something remotely suitable for a family including a toddler and a dog is certainly challenging.

While the boat in its current state looks very much like a work in progress, it is totally awesome. Impractical, but all the more awesome for it.

In car terms, this is like buying a Dakar Rally truck that has participated in three to five of those rallies, taking all the rally-related spares and tools out of the back and replace them with a self-built motorhome interior, and then setting off to drive across a desert for a couple of weeks at a time. At let's say 75% racing speed. With the added annoyance of not being able to go into whatever villages there are, because your truck is too wide and high for the village entrance, so you have to park 1 km outside and go in with the ATV you have with you.

I have to admire the lunacy and audacity of this project.

 

[narf]

That's insane

 

[GRtak]

 

[NecroJoe]

I should call her...

 

[GRtak]

The boat itself isn't that awesome, but the shot of the boat is spectacular!

 

[DanRoM]

The Ocean Race is on again, with leg 2 from Mindelo/Capo Verde to Cape Town/South Africa starting tomorrow in the late afternoon at 18:10 UTC. Sadly I will miss that due to a movie night at the office. Well, the YouTube live streams will be watchable after the fact.

As an appetizer, have some drone footage from the first leg last week, when they went from Alicante/Spain to Capo Verde:

 

[calvinhobbes]

The Ocean Race is on again, with leg 2 from Mindelo/Capo Verde to Cape Town/South Africa starts tomorrow in the late afternoon at 18:10 UTC. Sadly I will miss that due to a movie night at the office. Well, the YouTube live streams will be watchable after the fact.

As an appetizer, have some drone footage from the first leg last week, when they went from Alicante/Spain to Capo Verde:

What’s that at 2:15? Drone crash?

 

[DanRoM]

What’s that at 2:15? Drone crash?

Drone landing/catch. You can see the crew member looking towards the drone with extended arms directly before.

 

[GRtak]

https://www.npr.org/2023/02/16/1157430021/titanic-wreck-new-footage-1986

 

[DanRoM]

This time in the Ocean Race: Not so much awesome boats, but spectacular racing and awesome (repair) feats by the crews.

For anyone remotely interested, I recommend the The Ocean Race Show (YouTube playlist) on the offical Ocean Race channel. The (currently) last two episodes from March 1st and March 3rd cover Leg 3 quite well so far. I think it's watchable for people not so familiar with sailing, too. The basic concept of the weather not being static and therefore making course decisions based on the weather forecast being the major strategic element of ocean racing has to be in your mind, though.

The leg started from Cape Town/South Africa last Sunday and is going Itajaí/Brazil the long way round - eastwards around Antarctica via the Indian and Pacific Oceans. The opening in-port section where winds varied between 0 and >40 kn (about 80 kph) over a rectangular course just a couple of miles long made for difficult sailing and the first damage to two boats. Which could be repaired, and the resulting time penalties of two hours for getting help from land didn't matter because the rest of the fleet was caught in a dead calm - it was almost comical to see those mean machines lie still/drift along just a few metres from each other. Not that two hours should matter if the race literally goes three quarters around the globe.
Just half a week later, Team Guyot suffered major hull damage on their boat and are now on the way back to Cape Town, expected to abandon the leg and hopefully manage to repair their boat in time to meet the rest of the fleet in Brazil for the next leg - an Atlantic crossing would make for a nice shortcut. Meanwhile, Team Malizia had an almost bizarre run of bad luck culminating in a mechanical failure at the part that holds their big foresail up at the top end of the mast, resulting in them having to cut up the sail to get it out from under the boat, and worse, their mast was cut into by the halyard (the line that holds up the sail). Seeing that damage probably made every sailor wince:


(Source: Rosalin Kuiper's Instagram)

But they actually managed to patch it and are back in the race. In addition to the official Ocean Race channel, Malizia's YouTube playlist for the race on their channel covers it in detail. I think even non-sailors, especially people who regularly work on their cars , can appreciate how difficult that work must have been.

 

[narf]

Breakfast view 😎

 

[DanRoM]

11th Hour Racing logged 544 nm in 24 hours yesterday, making an average speed of 22.7 kn.

Timestamp 2:30 for awesome drone shots of the boat flying along.

And that's near the Kerkuelen Islands. The fact that we have video from down there almost in real time is awesome in itself.

 

[lip]

A simple clean box for a boat, nice.

 

[DanRoM]

Have some more drone shots.

The drone can barely keep up with the boat. Good thing it's going downwind.

 

[lip]

^ Skimming and crashing the wavetops, and yet still in easy control. Cool stuff!

 

[jack_christie]

Neel 43 trimaran sailboat

 

[DanRoM]

Neel 43 trimaran sailboat

Neel multihulls seem really neat. I'd love to try one, but that's way out of my budget.

In Ocean Race news, the epic leg from South Africa to Brazil has found a winner in Team Malizia. Considering this was a race going roughly three quarters around the world and the winning boat needing over 34 days, the racing has been incredibly close. 36 hours before the finish it still seemed to come down to a very close finish with the leading duo sailing withing line of sight to each other, but then they encountered a severe storm in which second-placed Holcim suffered some minor damage that they needed to repair, giving Malizia the opportunity to finally build a comfortable lead, which came down to finishing about 5.5 hours ahead.
The rest of the fleet, 11th Hour Racing and Biotherm, are a few days behind after falling off the weather system shortly before the Cape Horn passage and in case of Biotherm, hitting a UFO and now having to take it slow as a foil and the hull are damaged.

Following this race brings me joy. Though the overall winner is probably already decided: Holcim leads with a very comfortable 5 points over second-placed Malizia. With 5 legs (well, 4, but the Atlantic crossing counts double) remaining, and finishing directly in front of another boat means gaining 1 point, Malizia needs some help from the other teams even if they win every leg from now on (which is doubtful). Let's see. The next leg, Itajaì/Brazil to Newport/US-RI, will start in three weeks.

 

[lip]

^ The little Neel seems to be great, granted the interiour has a bit much of the "fresh-out-of-the-mould" painted fiberglass look, but what you pay in lack of appeal you earn in lightness and speed.

The wet head looked a bit like an afterthought. and I think even on a 43 footer trimaran you should be able to fit a seperate shower.

 

[GRtak]

I will start with an oopsie close to home.

Titanic: First ever full-sized scans reveal wreck as never seen before

Full-sized digital scans reveal shipwreck in stunning detail, showing unopened champagne bottles.

www.bbc.com

 

[CraigB]

Awful new ship to lose power and maneuverability. 😬