Our Mate Alex Thomson’s Races
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Hugo Boss have signed up to sponsor Alex Thomson for another four years.
Looks like we'll have another thread on the Vendee in 2016.
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And the new deal gives Alex the flexibility to build a shiny new boat from scratch…....Personally, I was amazed at how well he did last time out considering his was an older generation 60. That handicap really showed when he was in close quarters racing with one of the newer generation boats....
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That's some James Bond shit right there.
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Yep he will, but they're taking the boat so it can compete in this:
http://www.sailweb.co.uk/offshore/18802/ocean-masters-new-york-to-barcelona-race
(Alex is not doing it as baby #2 is due soon)
The race starts on 1st June, so I guess it depends where the spare rig is and whether they can get it to NYC in time.
This is the boat that Alex bought off JP Dick that lost it's keel in the last vendee….
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I'm a few days slow in posting this, but Alex has officially announced he's getting a new boat.
For the sailing nerds, it's a Guillaume Verdier / VPLP design, which is very much the flavour of the moment in the IMOCA world.
And looking at this photo, he's already hard at work thinking of what stunt he can do this time!
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It sounds like he's into negotiations to build her at Green Marine too. Given the ramping up of Ben Ainslie's America's Cup team down that way, he could have access to some very good composite guys…
There's a comment about foiling in the press release...
McGoldrick said; “This Vendèe Globe cycle will be particularly exciting as we will almost certainly see the use of foils not too dissimilar to those used in the Americas Cup. The foils should significantly increase the performance of the boats, an increase we have not seen since the canting keel was invented. Today all the simulations are theory based and of course theory can be very different to reality, so it is going to be a fascinating next 12 months to see what emerges”.
