Our Mate Alex Thomson’s Races
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After watching that video, all I can think is, "Does the boat have a sponsor?"
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The dive at the end makes it insanely cool to me. That, and the attempt when the boat went down on top of him.
Mad as feck, indeed.
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Holy crap, I didn't even notice that. That makes it so much more impressive.
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And the reason that the Keel is all the way over to the port side is that it is a canting (moveable) keel, so they have canted it all the way to port, typically it would be canted the opposite way to have as much vertical keel in the water as possible. So that boat is being sailed with no keel and no rudder….
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Again, damn, that makes it even more impressive. I (being virtually completely ignorant of sailing technicalities) thought it was some sort of inverted V shaped keel, which would leave one arm still in the water. I had no idea it was moveable.
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Actually, I think I'm wrong. I'll need to talk to Alex and double check. Thinking about it logically, the keel wants to be canted to windward to give the most righting movement, that is try and get the mast and thus the sails vertical which is where they are most effective. This though does mean the boat will be pushed downwind as the hull will tend to slide over the water…..
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P and me popped down to "the bar" tonight to say goodbye to Alex. He leaves UK shores for the Vendee a week on Monday and we will not be here to say goodbye.
We had the pleasure of meeting Christophe who does the photography for Alex.
Do me a favour and go visit his site…..Amazing images...
