COMMENT
AS THE OCEAN RACE CREWS CHARGE AROUND THE WORLD, IS RACING UNDER AUTOPILOT CHEATING... OR PROGRESS?
“ That’s not racing. It’s cheating. If you’re going to use the autopilot to sail around the world you might as well simply control the boat by remote control from home.”
Comments like these were common online and on the busy dockside in Alicante at the start of The Ocean Race in January. This year’s start marks the 50th anniversary of the first edition of the most famous fully crewed round the world race of all, the former Whitbread/ Volvo. With such a high profile has come plenty of debate as to how much has changed, and what the future really holds for this type of racing.
A fleet of just five boats going around the world means this race doesn’t currently have the punch it once had. The IMOCAs being used are notoriously fragile, which has led to concern about how the reputation of the race hangs in the balance if one or more of them was forced to drop out.
On the other hand, some say that while the fleet size is small, this is what the ‘real world’ looks like when teams arrive with their own funding rather than aboard campaigns heavily supported by the event sponsor. This race, they argue, is a transitional one where a new class and a new definition of fully crewed is setting a marker for future editions.
One of the big talking points is about whether it’s right to race around the world from inside using an autopilot. There were certainly plenty of onlookers on the dockside expressing such frustrations. The irony was that many chose to ignore the fact that the airliner they’d arrived in would have been switched to autopilot just a few minutes into the climb and flown by the computer for most, if not all, of the trip. I’m not so sure they’d have been as happy for the pilots to have been in their sitting room flying by remote control.
Having sailed with 11th Hour Racing Team at over 20 knots in flat water it’s easy to see how disorientating and potentially puke-inducing the indoor experience would be in a sea state at full bore. Inside, where the headroom is frequently safe for crawling only, crews are not only out of touch with the elements, but the noise and the motion are horrendous. Many are so worried about injury below decks while moving about that they’re wearing crash helmets as protection. But, is that any worse than seeing crews being smashed into pedestals, wheels and winches by waves that have come barrelling over the deck at 25 knots plus?
And then there’s the debate about the autopilot – sure, it would be great to think that performance is down to the skill of the helmsman and trimmer but this hasn’t been the case for ages. In the Vendé
