Just under 24 hours in and we are approaching the most southern point of Africa, Cape Agulhas. We sailed past the infamous Cape Horn in the early hours of this morning, but it was too far away to see.

We had a fantastic start, reaching in 20-knots of wind but, unfortunately this was short lived as after 20mins we sat in area of no wind for a few hours. The fleet split into two and fortunately our option of going offshore with BSL and Campagne de France has paid off and we are currently sitting all with in sight of each other heading southeast towards the edge of our first ice gate, expected in about six days. It was devastating to hear that the Dutch guys on Sec Hayai, who spen the last 3 days repairing their keel, we’re dismasted last night and we hope they can arrange something to get back on the race course.

We have six hours of relatively calm weather with shorts and t-shirt on deck but, by this evening we will have up to 25-knots upwind for about 36 hours.

We have been getting lots of sleep catching up while we can from the frantic few days before leaving. Being a borderline carnivore most of the time, it is going to take a little getting used to my new vegetarian skipper. Thankfully I have manged to smuggle a bit of Biltong onboard so insanity can be held off while that lasts.

All for now from Sam aboard Cessna Citation,

Sam

Global Ocean Race update provided by the Artemis Offshore Academy:

Conrad Colman and Artemis Offshore Academy member Sam Goodchild led the Class 40 fleet across the start line today at Noon (local time) today for the second 7,000nm leg. The six international teams enjoyed 20-knots of breeze for the start in Table Bay, Cape Town.

Sam Goodchild & Conrad Colman at the start of leg 2 © Global Ocean Race

“We had an exciting start, reaching in 20-knots. However, it was short lived as we sailed under Table Mountain and the wind disappeared,” reported Artemis Offshore Academy sailor Goodchild from onboard after the start. “After sitting in a wind hole for a few hours we finally escaped with BSL and Campagne de France and are now heading south past the Cape of Good Hope into the Southern Ocean.”

Before leaving the dock this morning the Victoria & Alfred Harbourmaster, Steven Bentley, stood-in as the Global Ocean Race fleet’s chaplain, reading from Luke Chapter 8 – a verse advising sailors on a sinking ship that faith in yourself is valuable throughout life.

“I can’t wait to race in this mythical place, the Southern Ocean,” said Goodchild. The Southern Indian Ocean is famed for being one of the toughest seas on planet earth. Cold temperatures, strong winds and large waves will challenge the duos throughout this leg. However they will also be blessed with racing alongside the Albatross, majestic scenery and being in the element for any short-handed sailor.

The Race Committee yesterday relaxed the exclusion zone, which was set at 42S latitude after receiving new weather information regarding the ice flow that the committee feared could pose a danger to the fleet. The new exclusion zone for leg two has been adapted to below 42S from the start until 49E, north of the Crozet Islands, with an additional southern limit south-west of Australia below Cape Leeuwin stretching from 100E to 120E at 45S, pulling the fleet up towards the Australian Bight from the Southern Ocean, permitting a variety of options between the two southern limits. In addition, the GOR fleet has been instructed to leave Kerguelen Island at 49S and 69E to starboard and the Celox Sailing Scoring Gate, stretching north-south at 69E – approximately midway between the African and Australian continents – has been extended south to Kerguelen.

The teams are expecting to complete the 7,000nm leg in roughly four weeks, arriving into Wellington after Christmas. If you have any messages for Sam Goodchild please submit them as a message on the Artemis Offshore Academy Facebook fan page.

Follow Goodchild and Colman here, and stay up-to-date via Facebook and Twitter.

I write this still sitting in London waiting for my flight to Cape Town. 4 days ago I was planning figaro seasons, booking flights to start training in the South of France and looking forward to a relatively relaxed 6 weeks in the lead up to our start of training in January next year. An email and a few phone calls later and I have now spent the last few days excitedly getting ready for my first taste of the Southern Ocean.

I will have 3 days in Cape Town to meet Conrad Colman and try and get to grips with his boat, Cessna Citation, before we set off on leg 2 of the Global Ocean Race, a 7500nm leg to Wellington, New Zealand. To boat is a slightly more robust sister ship to Concise 2, which I just competed in the Transat Jacques Vabre onboard so, hopefully the differences will be minimal. Conrad knows the boat very well having worked on the boat from before it was launched and already sailed it to Cape Town.

I have spent a long time hearing stories and wondering what the Southern Ocean storms, Albatrosses, Ice bergs are really like and I am really excited that in a matter of days it will become a reality that ill be able to see for myself. I have gathered from the stories that it can be pretty chilly down there so, a lot of my time has been spent beefing up my sailing wardrobe, Thanks to Musto Clothing I have been very quickly kitted out with some extra thick thermals and a few more water proofs to make sure none of it gets wet.

During the race, I will be keeping updates via twitter, my website as well as the Artemis Offshore Academy website. There will also be a track on the race website so you can keep a track on how we are doing.

All for now

Sam

Our Transat Jacques Vabre race may have ended prematurely but we felt we made the best of our 6 days of racing. We’re now back in the UK and looking ahead to next season. It’s still a bit painful reading the blogs, position reports and race updates from the competitors who did make it out of the North Atlantic storms and into the trade winds. With 2000 miles still to go, the race for the Class 40 fleet is far from over.

Here are my thoughts on my first Transat Jacques Vabre:

The start was delayed for 3 days to avoid a serious storm making its way across the race course. Mentally, this helped us both a lot, we spent the extra time relaxing, focusing on the race ahead and were both feeling a lot more comfortable.

Team Concise Mascots: The Pocket GIrls

With 3000 miles of trade winds and only 2 spinnakers onboard, we approached the start carefully with the smaller, more robust spinnaker up. Most of the boats had a similar approach apart from Aquarelle who, with bigger sails up, quickly accelerated to a 10 mile lead in the first 12 hours. We spent the first 24 hours getting into our stride and with reaching conditions through the channel we were able to push Concise2 more and bring ourselves within a mile of the leaders.

Although the delayed start meant we missed the worst of the weather, we still had to expect a few storms before the ‘champagne sailing’ of the trade winds. The first one came 48 hours into the race. With boats dropping out behind us, we pushed a little further south than Aquarelle to avoid the worst of the weather. This lost us a few miles but we still saw a significant amount of wind, we had one gust of 64 knots, the most I have ever seen while sailing.

The drowned rat look

With minimal breakages, Concise was going strong and still within a couple miles of the leading boat. We approached the second low with a bit more confidence, swapping places with Aquarelle, who took the safer route. This quickly shot us into the lead and as we approached the next frontal system we were aware that the ferocity would be less but it would last longer. With the angle of the wind approaching this front we were forced to hand steer a lot more which was much more tiring, a sacrifice we were willing to make for the lead.

Lots of water over the deck

We tacked on the front as planned and were able to put the autopilot on, this allowed us to take turns resting. After I finished a watch, I was in the bow area hanging up my foul weather gear when the hull started moving beneath my feet. It was obvious straight away that the race was over for us. Not knowing the extent of the damage, we quickly turned away from the wind to ease the pressure on the boat, gathered all our emergency gear near the entrance, with our life raft ready to deploy quickly. We dropped the sails and informed the race direction of our situation. We weren’t in any immediate danger but were aware that if the damage got any worse, the situation could get very messy, very quickly. We were able to nurse the boat the 130 miles to the nearest port of Horta in the Azores. This was the most unpleasant 24 hours I’ve ever had on a boat, we could see the hull flexing and knew that if it were to give way we would be swimming within minutes.

Before the start of the race we had no result expectations. Our aim was just to give it our best shot and learn as much as possible. We sat in 2nd place for the first 5 days and took the lead 12 hours before we dropped out. I had definitely never imagined ourselves in that position so I feel we made the best out of our week in the race. The Transat Jacques Vabre is now unfinished business and we will both be back! For now, the majority of next year will be taken up with Figaro racing for me and we are working on a programme with Concise2 to do some more races in preparation for the TJV 2013.

A massive thank you for all the support we received during the race, it was a massive encouragement and kept us pushing the boat. And equally, after we dropped out, the messages were a huge help to soften the blow. Also a big thank you to Team Concise who invited me onboard for this event, I can’t wait to get back out sailing next season and finish what we started.

All for now
Sam

We arrived in Le Harve for the 2011 Transat Jacques Vabre 10 days ago now and it’s been a very busy 10 days at that. We started with the Prologue regatta which was a fun couple of days racing in a Beneteau 7.5, on a tiny race course, against all the other skippers. We made it through to the final round and finished 7th in that.

During the week we had to attend a few final briefings and load up the boat with all the necessities to make it to Costa Rica in one piece. Thanks to the help of Tom Dawson, this all went to plan and by Saturday 29th October we were fully ready to go.

Class 40s lined up in Le Havre

The weather was the main topic of conversation throughout the week. A big low pressure system lurking in the west atlantic presented a safety risk for the first few days of the race. It came as no big surprise when the organisers announced on Sunday that the race start would be postponed for several days. If the race went ahead there was a concern that many of the boats wouldn’t make it to Costa Rica. The decision to delay the start was frustrating but in general the skippers agreed it was a good idea. Instead, we spent Sunday competing in a short Prologue race. It went really well for us. We sailed safely so as to not break anything and got an encouraging win in the Class 40 fleet, just ahead of our sister boat, Comiris.

Skippers Presentation

We have spent the last couple of days relaxing, double-checking everything on the boat and analysing the weather for the start, which is now scheduled for Wednesday 2nd November at 15:00. It looks as if we’re going to be spending the first 24 hours on a fast reach, perfect conditions for Concise. In general, the first week looks fairly windy so hopefully we can have a fast crossing and make it to Costa Rica in around three weeks.

We will be updating this website, the team website (www.teamconcise.com), twitter (www.twitter.com/goodchildsam) and facebook (www.facebook.com/teamconcise) as much as possible. There will also be a tracker on the race website (www.transat-jacques-vabre.com).

Hope you have a good month, see you in Costa Rica.

All for now

Sam

The Tour de Bretagne proved to be an intense and exciting week of racing with 30 very closely matched Figaros sailing inshore and offshore double-handed. We had a bit of everything during the week, starts delayed for too much wind, motoring to find more wind and a couple lively days sailing inshore in 20-25knots. I had Laurent Pellecuer join me for the week, having sailed Figaros for 15years I was excited to learn as much from him as possible. For most of the week I was helming and he was crewing, this worked out perfectly for me as I was able to observe all the different ways he did all the maneuvers and trimmed all the sails. In this sense the event was very productive for me and there are things I have already changed in the way I sail and some I will experiment with.

Through the first half of the event we steadily improved and this peaked with a win in the offshore race to Lorient. The race was dominated by light winds and after rounding the windward mark in 7th we settled into a very happy and fast ‘grove’ and built up a about a mile lead by the next mark. From there the last 40miles we played it safely to protect our lead. As the fleet compressed towards the finish, we had a very stressful last 15miles and ended up only winning by 40seconds. All the same we were happy with our performance.

The final two days we’re the worst of the week for us. We made a lot of bad tactical calls of which some were very extreme, this hurt our overall ranking a lot and we finished 19th. I thoroughly enjoyed sailing with Laurent and learning from him, also learning a bit of French a long the way. In hine sight we would have done a couple things differently but, thats always the way.

The next exciting project for me is the Transat Jacques Vabre, I have been invited by Team Concise to do the race onboard their Marc Lombard designed Class 40 with Ned Collier-Wakefield. Its one of the big Offshore Races which is a must do and Im thrilled to be invited to do it with a good boat and a strong team. We will be the youngest competitors in the race but, plan to approach that as a challenge and definitely not an excuse. The boat is one of the latest designs and kept up to date with all the latest gear so will be as competitive as possible on the 30th October for the start. Until then we have a lot of training to do and a few more final preparations.

While the class 40 is having a small re-fit next week I am off to do the Solo Quiberon, which is Inshore racing and the finale of the Figaro Season. On the way we are going to Paris for the Press Conference of the Transat Jacques Vabre tomorrow.

All for now,

Sam

The 2011 Solitaire finished in classic Figaro style yesterday with the first 40 boats finishing within an hour. I finished 40 minutes behind the leader which, doesn’t sound too bad until you realise it’s 33rd place. As a leg this was one of the toughest yet, combined with the accumulated tiredness of the previous 3 legs as well as continuously changing conditions that allowed very little time for sleeping.

Four British Skippers after the finish

It started well for me, arriving at the first mark in 3rd place and managing to stay with the leading pack for the first 24hours, it was encouraging. Unfortunately you get scored at the finish line and not the start line but, it is always nice to start well and give yourself that little advantage. A little bit of a theory for morale is, having a good start is great but, having only two boats in front of you and 43 hungry boats behind you means it is much easier to be overtaken which is much more depressing. However, having a bad start means you get to do lots of overtaking (hopefully) which is a much bigger morale boost. So, i’m not sure which is best but, I think an extreme of one or the other and i’m definitely not going to be looking for bad starts in the future.

Going past Brest the fleet split into two and I was feeling fairly confident in good company with some of the top runners and managing to keep up. We then sailed into a hole of no wind and had to watch everyone else sail past us and our hard work of the past 24 hours either erased or inverted completely. The most annoying thing about this is, I still don’t even know now where this hole came from. Frustrated as you can imagine, we finally got into some wind and continued to the north coast of Brittany in around 40th place.

Sunset

That night was pretty unpleasant, with a constantly changing wind, lots of seaweed, pouring with rain and a dark night with bad visibility, meant you didn’t have much bearing or feeling. Strangely addictive though to try and keep the boat going fast and racing while the odds are against you, it suddenly becomes more than just sailing a boat. At about 0400 in the morning I was doing a regular check of seaweed on the keel be leaning over the windward side with a torch, as I did about every 15minutes all night long. This time I had taken my pilot control (also our man-over-board safety device) off my wrist and in my pocket. Leaning over the side and at full stretch, I apparently leaned on the tack button which, quickly found me head first, waist deep underwater, with gravity helping me off the boat instead of onto the boat. A little too close for comfort.

Surfing into the finish

The constantly changing wind and thick fog, kept us on our toes for the following day, another wind hole off the Channel Islands caused another compression and then inversion of the fleet which, I unfortunately didn’t manage to capitalise on. The low point of the race was the position reports 18hours before the finish which put me in second to last place, thankfully this was because I had made a couple sacrifices in distance in order to get a better angle to the wind and by the morning it had paid off and had managed to climb up a few places.

A full update on my reflections of my first Solitaire will come soon but for now, a bit of recovering and a bit more sailing has to be done.

All for now,

Sam

Finishing into Les Sables d’Olonne was a pretty special experience which, is like no other. Despite finishing in 27th on wednesday morning, there were still people out on the Finish line and people on the edge of the canal clapping me in, which was a pleasant suprise after Leg 3 of La solitaire du Figaro.

We started in a very shifty Dublin Bay, a rain squall just after the start shook up the state of play a bit and left the fleet very spread out, with a small bunch getting stuck and leaving with a 4mile deficit. Thankfully for them this was reduced fairly quickly as the game of snakes and ladders continued. I was thankful to have escaped the bay in about 15th position, and once out of the Lee of Ireland things settled down a bit into our first leg of reaching for 170miles to lands end. Hanging around mid fleet before letting myself get a bit too far east, on the approach to Lands End, saw me go round wolf rock with not many boats behind. And as it was in leg 2, I had to play a bit of catch up.

A visit from a little fishy friend in the Irish Sea

An exciting trip between the Rocks off Brittany in lots of current where I took a slightly different course than the majority enabled me to get back into 25th position. It was then downwind for another 150miles to Les Sables d’Olonne. A big deciding factor in the race happened here…when to gybe? Gybing early proved to be fatal and saw a few of the regular top 10 finishers arriving with 4 hour deficits to their closest rivals. I also went a little bit too early but, thankfully only 20mins and dropped down to 27th.

The last night at sea proved to be quite exciting with a building breeze and a massive Lightening Storm at sunrise made for some spectacular viewing of fork lightening at the same time as feeling a little bit intimidated as to how close it got to our 30foot boats.

Our French Navy Race Support for a mid-race interview

The last 20miles proved to be a classic Figaro lesson of never give up. It should of just been a strait forward reach where position changes where unlikely but, a big rain squall made it a lot less strait forward. And 4 of us quickly found our selves engaged in an inshore race to the finish line, trying to play all the small shifts and local affects of the wind. And with 3miles to go, feeling optimistic that I had gained a couple places, 2 of us sailed strait into a wind hole and watched the two others sail around us while we sat wallowing. 30minutes later, we drifted out of our hole and we match raced to the finish line where I thankfully managed to get infront of Volorisions by less than a minute.

Match Racing to the Finish

As a leg it was much more encouraging for me, as far as a result goes, I think it was fairly average, I think I could easily improve on it but, equally very easily do worse. Either-way, I have steadily improved since leg 1 and that is encouraging. I have parts of the race where I am happy with my speed parts where I definitely need to put some work in. Tactically, some decisions go better than others but, I found my biggest fault has been lack of decisiveness and not wanting to get too far away from the fleet or do anything too different. And not committing to anything is the best way of not getting the best out of it.

The final leg starts on sunday and is a much more coastal course around to the North of france where we Finish in Dieppe. I will have the same intentions going into this leg as all the others and hoping to be able to end my first figaro on a high.

All for now

Sam