Our Mate Alex Thomson’s Races

[Finn666]

you also handed him a forum-t G.?…

should make some decent pics during the "race"...

[Giles]

On a round the world single hander you have zero time for anything but existing, so unfortunately no…...

[Finn666]

i must have missed that "single" part…sry 

[Graeme]

Giles, please tell Alex that this isn't the right place to stand when sailing.

[Giles]

[Chris]

After watching that video, all I can think is, "Does the boat have a sponsor?"

[rocket]

holly, have to say that I like that guy, even if I think that this is totally…

[Giles]

He is as mad as feck….

[Seul]

That's brilliant 

[Chris]

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.

[Giles]

Notice that they do not have the rudders down (see rudders in water in first post).  That would have been too dangerous and had Alex been hit by one of them, it sure would have wiped the smile off his face,  so they are steering that boat on sail alone.  Amazing…..

[Chris]

Holy crap, I didn't even notice that.  That makes it so much more impressive.

[Finn666]

damn, that vid is fekking amazing…looks like fun to me

[Giles]

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….

[Chris]

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.

[Giles]

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…..

[rocket]

I have no real clue about sailing, but that make sense to me Giles….

anyway, it is very impressing and your mate def deserve a lot of  props for doing...

[Giles]

@rocket:

could be the keel ankle wise moveable ?

? ? ? ?

[rocket]

ignore that, I said I'm tired as hell 

[Simon]

The keel is canted to windward to keep the hull flat and rig vertical when it's most efficiant.

Alex always was (dangerously) crazy! If he can keep his urge to break stuff in check, he'll do well