Ellen MacArthur

Outstanding

Owen Clark, Pascal Conq and Tim Jeffery report from Les Sables d'Olonne as Michel Desjoyeaux scores a maiden Vendée Globe victory

The emotions were powerful enough ashore, so how must the soloists 
have felt in their re-entry to the real world after a record-breaking Vendée Globe?

Seeing Michel Desjoyeaux come home to Les Sables d'Olonne 93 days after his PRB had left with 23 other starters, under low cloud, at night, with fireworks blazing and a seething mass of humanity some 200,000 strong, really did make the hairs on the back of the neck stand up.

But poor Desjoyeaux was to see his 93d 03h 57m achievement - which walloped Christophe Auguin's 1996/7 race record by a full 12d 16h - upstaged a hair over 24 hours later, when Ellen MacArthur brought Kingfisher in. La Petite Anglaise was not only the darling of the crowds, and the focus of a British media feeding frenzy. The author, Patrick Chapuis, then waxed lyrical about a child-like woman becoming a symbol for the women of France.

Yes, the publicity of Ellen's finishing was astonishing, and yes she is a woman, ..........See Seahorse April 2001 for the remainder of this article

Brimming with (different) ideas - Kingfisher and PRB 

When you walk down the dock in Les Sables to look at the first two boats to finish the Vendée Globe, first impressions are that these two Open 60s, built on opposite sides of the world, are quite different and that other than having just completed the same race they have little in common, apart from being very fast! Kingfisher's more conventional set-up appears at odds with PRB's radical wing mast, single daggerboard and lifting rudders.

Having been so close to all aspects of Kingfisher's design, looking at PRB it was clear, however, that the two campaigns had followed a similar development path, considered the same questions and had 
simply made different choices based on their experience and available information...........See Seahorse April 2001 for the remainder of Merfyn Owen's article

© 2001 Seahorse Magazine. All rights reserved.