At first sight, this sounds as if America’s Cup attitudes have spilled over into round the world racing, but I believe the situation is totally different. America’s Cup litigation is all about a struggle between very rich and powerful men – PRB’s move may be about financial survival in the current economic crisis. PRB is a small business, and its recent sponsorship experience has been financially painful. It is behaving like a US company one step away from filing for Chapter Eleven protection from its creditors.

The problem is that the case is addressing a taboo subject. To quote Yachting World’s Elaine Bunting in her recent blog post:

This dispute is over who should bear the financial consequences of saving a life at sea, something that until now no-one has dared publicly place a price on.

The unspoken worry is that potential rescuers will become litigation-conscious in the same way as landlubbers, and ‘cross the street’ to avoid getting involved. A far cry from the attitude displayed by Captain Ferro, master of the 113,000 ton tanker Overseas Yellowstone, in the recent rescue of the 38-footer Fleur during a storm off the west of Ireland. As reported in the July 2009 issue of Yachting World

… he had never been involved in such an operation before, and was proud to have helped

This despite the fact that his own ship was in ballast, with seas rolling over her and putting his own crew at risk.

On the face of it, PRB doesn’t stand much chance. It made the commercial decision not to insure for anything other than total loss of the boat (as did many Vendée Globe competitors). Full insurance is available, but it’s expensive – for a very good reason.

My feeling is that, even if PRB were to win even partial recompense, the negative publicity would outweigh any temporary financial advantage. I can’t believe that they don’t know this. This could become a very sad affair.

The event is organised by the Joint Services Adventurous Sail Training Centre (JSASTC), whose mission is:

to develop the personal qualities essential to members of the British Armed Forces through adventurous sail training in the Service environment.

The circumnavigation is planned to include participation in the Rolex Sydney to Hobart Race in December 2009 and Antigua Race week in May 2010.  All legs will be conducted as Adventure Training expeditions and will be either cruises in company or races in the spirit of Corinthian competition, with the emphasis on safety, seamanship and teamwork. Each crew consists of a skipper, a mate, and 12 others divided into two or three watches. Skipper, mate and watch leaders will all hold relevant qualifications and have done the required amount of sea time in their roles.

The boats are Challenge 67s, designed by David Thomas and Thanos Condylis, of which Devonport Management Ltd. built 10 as the one-design class for the 1992 British Steel Challenge. Two skippers placed in this race have been in the news recently – Mike Golding (second) and Pete Goss (third).

By 1996, the race was known as the BT Global Challenge. There were now 14 boats and Mike Golding won.

I’ll be in Gosport (the home of JSASTC) myself in April and in early June, so I hope to be able to take a look at the boats before they leave UK shores. They will probably have changed quite a bit since they were first designed and built – for a start, we’ve learned a lot about preventing the rigging failures caused by the incessant slapping and banging on long ocean passages. Francis Chichester’s Gipsy Moth IV’s stainless steel mast tangs suffered from metal fatigue en route to Australia, and several of the original Challenge 67s suffered rigging screw failures in both 19923 and 1996/7.

• The Volvo Ocean Race – crewed boats, multiple legs, fixed schedule.
• The Vendée Globe – singlehanded, fixed schedule. No pit stops allowed, but competitors can restart during the first few days.
• Singlehanded Round The World Record – competitor chooses start date. No pit stops allowed.

Competitors are now showing their form, and the potential winners have three things in common:

• The shore teams have superb project management and quality control. They have had time to make sure everything works and they have checked everything that can be checked.
• The skippers and crews are in control. They have put in enough sailing time under enough different conditions, and against benchmark competitors, to be confident that they know how to get the best out of their boats under all weather conditions.
• The skippers have the self-discipline and stamina to set whatever pace seems necessary to give them a good chance of winning.

Of course, even perfect preparation and an ‘ice man’ skipper is still no guarantee of winning. Ocean weather and sea state are chaotic systems, and freak conditions occur. The sea contains a liberal scattering of things to bump into, trip over or get tangled up in. At best they slow you down until you cut them adrift, but at worst they  can do serious damage and even put you out of the race. Both the Volvo and the Vendée have already had their fair share of such incidents.

In the Volvo, Torben Grael and Ericsson 4 are clearly the best-prepared and most experienced team, which has allowed them to drive harder than anyone else, even maintaining a lead in the first leg in spite of having to drop off an injured crew member who was one of their two ace helmsmen.

The Vendée Globe is particularly exciting because several boat/skipper teams appear to have what it takes to win. Mike Golding tried too hard, misjudged the start and had to return. Michel Desjoyeaux’ shore team missed a trick and allowed him to start the race with a problem that meant he had to return, restarting more than a day late. But both of them sailed so fast that they are now among the leaders.

Loïc Peyron lead the Vendée fleet on the wy to the Indian Ocean for about a week, but suddenly lost his mast during the next phase without knowing why. Did the shore team miss a trick somewhere? He’s not the only one to lose a mast or suffer rig failure, but because of his reputation and that of the Gitana Eighty team, everyone is surprised.

As for Thomas Coville and Sodeb’O, I find them both fascinating to watch. Coville goes about his job as if he were skippering a flotilla cruise, chatting to the press over his shoulder as he flings a small sports bag aboard and casts off. Even with Sodeb’O porpoising uncomfortably in the short inshore swell as he set out, he looks as if he’s walking on dry land as he moves around. I’d love to see some video footage of Sodeb’O in the southern ocean…

Kito de Pavant (Groupe Bel)

Marc Thiercelin (DCNS)

Yannick Bestaven (Aquarelle)

All three had their masts smashed after falling off large waves. Yannick Bestaven was perhaps the luckiest. He was at the foot of the mast, letting out a reef, when the mast jumped out of its step and crashed through the deck next to him.

In 1968, Robin Knox-Johnston set off on the first non-stop singlehanded circumnavigation, in the ketch Suhaili.

All these ground-breaking English yachtsmen treated their projects as tests of seamanship. Even Chichester, who set out to match the speeds of bigger, fully-crewed ships, would not have dreamed of pushing his boat as hard as he could at night.

How things have changed in 40 years. Today, Sunday 9 November 2008, 30 single-handed sailors set off from Les Sables d’Olonne in state-of-the-art Open 60 class boats, ready to drive them hard day and night, through storms that would have caused skippers to heave-to not that many years ago. The first Vendée Globe races were still survival affairs, in spite of the speeds at which they were sailed. Lives were lost, and boats were severely damaged. The third race, over the winter of 2000-2001, saw new boat design rules with stringent safety and survival features, and competitors had to undergo survival training. No more skippers were lost, but there were dismastings and other failures.

For 2008, the boat design rules have been modified slightly in the light of experience from earlier races, and to take advantage of new technology. Expect this year’s boats to be faster, and to be sailed even harder.

Surprisingly, although the French have fielded several very competent women in earlier years, the only two women competing this time are both British – Dee Caffari and Sam Davies. In this race, the boats are sent out of port at intervals according to their position on the pontoon, and Dee was chosen to be the first. No sure which I’d prefer – hanging around on the pontoon, or hanging around outside waiting for the start.

Short audio interviews with the skippers showed them all feeling a bit twitchy, longing to be away from the emotion of the last hours on the pontoons and getting down to the rhythm of the race itself. They’ll have a few hours to do that before they get hit by a deep depression as they cross the Bay of Biscay…

Good luck! Bon voyage!

For more information on this race, go to vendeeglobe.org

For a notorious pirate from Les Sables d’Olonne, go to François l’Olonnais