Baltimore VOR: Clean and to the Point

Clean and I have been putting together a project for the last month, and finally I'm on the East Coast to make it happen. If you've seen D1D's little promo that the Ed linked from the front page yesterday, you'll know I'm here to follow the NOODs on the water and get the real time info to the SA forums, as well as write race reports, take pics, and talk to anyone I can. That should be really fun, and I look forward to seeing how you all like it and what suggestions you have to make the reporting really interesting. At this point we know the wireless works from out on the water, so I should be able to post directly the way Wash and Clean (ha!) did from Key West and Miami. If not, I'll either be text messaging or calling in the info to Clean, since he is coordinating the whole mess. I may be able to send pictures from the course if the signal allows it, but I'm not promising anything. D1D and SA are both really excited to see how this comes out, and personally I am going to bust my ass to get you and the D1D and Quantum guys everything possible, but don't expect some kind of sanitized bullcrap- that's the opposite of what we want to do.

I got in yesterday afternoon and figured I would do some digging to see what I could turn up on the VOR front. I thought you all would be interested in any gossip I could get from the teams, and I won't have any time once NOODs start, so I ran right over to the Race Village and spotted pretty red Brunel, a hundred feet away from Brazil1, stern to the pontoon in the picturesque inner harbor.

Alas, there's a chain and sign across the ramp that says "NO TRESPASSING." I didn't want to be busted by race management before I even collected my first piece of data, so I sat down on a nearby bench and called the guy running this little show. Our conversation was as informative as most of my conversations with him.

"Hey Clean, where are you?"
"Where are YOU?"
"Looking at Brunel"
"Don't move."

Clean and Mer walked out of the VOR shop holding a kid's replica of an Open 70. They said hello and Clean turned and motioned to follow and cruised right past the sign as someone with a VOR jacket walked toward us. Clean, looking back at us, hollered: "I'm sure Kris left her bag on Basilica, let's get it now so we don't have to come back for it after we get the sailmakers sorted." I guess this was a verbal version of an ID badge. In any event we waited until the official guy was no longer near us and walked up to Brunel, just a few feet from the VX40 (which by the way are absolutely pornographic). Once I was done drooling on the VX, I noticed Brunel again and remembered that there was a ton of stuff I wanted to know about them. Somehow Clean had disappeared without a trace as he seems to do, so I took the ten steps to Brunel.

As my Irish luck would have it, I ran into Matt Humphries, who's a watch captain on the boat. He didn't say anything about his record, but I'd done my homework and I knew that he was the youngest ever crewmember to do this race. At 18 years old he sailed on Integrity for the '89-90 Whitbread (now VOR). What were you doing when you were 18?

Matt was cool and open and we chatted for a bit. He told me about the team's decision to drop out of the race, their intentions of joining back up now and their plans to make the changes they felt necessary. He made it clear that the team really came together when they analyzed what to do in Melbourne. They weighed their options carefully, and they realized the only way they could hope to have a competitive boat at all was by dropping out in Melbourne, making the needed modifications and getting the boat to the Chesapeake as soon as possible. They saw a window of opportunity that could get them the speed and reliability that they desperately needed, so they took it. Matt ran the refitting project, and he wasn't phased by the shit-talking they knew they'd take for missing the big leg, in fact he was proud of his entire team and what they had accomplished.

Like any sailors I was itching for the details on the changes to the boat, and Matt was mostly interested in telling me about it…mostly. So what super secret mods were so necessary that Brunel pulled out of the hallmark leg of the race? And what was so extensive that it took 35 people working twenty hours a day for 26 straight days to do the work? A few really big jobs, and a mountain of little ones. As has been already reported, Brunel's now got double daggerboards like every other boat. The single canard just wasn't fast, although you can imagine the amount of work required to patch all the bits that once held the canard and cut two new holes in the hull and deck and build the board boxes and everything else. They installed a regular traveler with the structure to support it like the other boats, too, ditching their simple and cheap system of a bunch of padeyes strategically located to attach the mainsheet. Matt said that using padeyes rather than a trav is pretty common on offshore racers, but that having a trav would just make life a bit easier for the crew. They brought the shroud base in "quite a bit" said Matt, but how much he wouldn't say- that must have been another massive job. They made substantial changes to the shape of the bulb, but Matt wouldn't give me the details and I didn't fancy a reconnaissance swim in the harbor for fear of cold water and pfisteria.. North Sails NZ was kind enough to provide some sails to the team that would fill some of the obvious gaps in their inventory. I hadn't seen the boat up close before today, but other people told me it looks like a very different boat than before.

Matt was great. I don't know his rep or anything, but he was great to me, and enthusiastic as hell. Having run the reconstruction program, he's proud of the "new" Brunel. He's got four or five round-the-world races under his different keels and he is clearly happy to be umm…back…in this one.

While Brunel was being getting her boobs enlarged, the team raced Wharro's other ride, Skandia, as much as they could, doing offshore races to keep their skills and wits off of land and on the sea. The honcho was busy as well, and Matt said that the team's management has resolved all of their budget issues and they will be financially able to complete the race. All that was left was the last bit of measuring by VOR measurers so they can get their cert and go racing. Barring something really weird, we should see them out there this weekend. Whether or not they do well, I think they deserve some praise for their dedication. Better a boat with a little humiliation and a new chance at success than a boat broken up at 52 South.

Good onya, boys!

-Riding Point
April 27th, 2006
(Edited by Clean)