After the crazy finish at Globe40, the next offshore thriller is about to begin. Francesca Clapcich and Will Harris are about to take down the Vendée Globe winning yacht Macif with the ex-Malizia. Just one more day. It’s about a few miles.
“We are hunting them,” says Clapcich in her latest video update, in which she shows the enemy “Macif” passing in sight in front of the bow with Goodchild and Berrehar at the helm. However, under the current conditions they are getting closer and closer to the fastest IMOCA all-round yacht in the world. Hard downwind courses are the specialty of the Malizia, which is now sailing under her new name 11th Hour for the first time.
But the US-Italian now knows pretty well where the weaknesses of her new sports equipment lie: As soon as the wind dies down a little, she is a little slower compared to the Macif. The designs are too different to achieve the same performance. And since the current easterly trade wind hardly varies in direction, it’s all about speed – steering as quickly as possible, but also as low as possible.
In order to achieve the maximum node yield, Clapcich and Harris say they spend a lot of time on direct control. While it was said some time ago that autopilots steer faster than humans, under certain conditions this appears to be different. “Will and I took turns steering the boat by hand throughout the day to maximize performance in the medium wind, which we struggled with a bit. At night the autopilot definitely does a better job and we really try to get on the throttle and make up a few miles.”
