Date:         Fri, 7 Aug 1998 16:13:55 +0100
Reply-To:     Sailing list <YACHT-L@NIC.SURFNET.NL>
Sender:       Sailing list <YACHT-L@NIC.SURFNET.NL>
From:         "Berkman, Cameron" <Cameron.Berkman@PLC.CWPLC.COM>
Subject:      S/Y Nicorette (long - part 1)

Yesterday was a good day.

I got to sail on Nicorette, an 80ft Grand Mistral maxi for a few hours. Here's some of the gory details:

NICORETTE'S VITAL STATISTICS

These stats are in metric, I'm afraid, and I'm not confident in my conversions, so I'll leave it to you!

Grand Mistral 80 Designer: Bruce Farr LOA: 24.5m Draft: 4m Beam: 6.2m Weight: 24,500kg Water ballast: 2 tanks (port and starboard) each holding 4,500 kg of water Fixed ballast: 12,100kg Rig: Bermudan fractional sloop, running backstays Mast: 36m (12 stories) Mainsail: 185 sq m Spinnaker: 503 sq m (apparently, their kite has the same sail area as the entire wardrobe of a Whitbread 60)

Subjective: this beast is MASSIVE. It's a bit surreal - it is hard to believe that something that big is not breaking some fundamental law of physics or something. But after sailing aboard her, I realised that she's just like any other sloop - I guess I made the sailing-equivalent of that realisation that this boat "puts her pants on the same way as the rest of us - one leg at a time". Sure, my whole body could have comfortably passed through the main sheet winch drum diameter - sure, she has three four-speed "coffee grinders" that need six people with stamina to work them - but in the end, it's still just sailing. But on a totally magnificent, grand scale. I had a brief look around down below - as you'd expect from an ultra-high performance yacht, it was pretty bare and stripped out. I got the feeling that there were huge areas of enclosed space that were just not used. She has about five to six feet of freeboard, but that's in proportion with her 6m beam.

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MORE INFO

I'm sure they have a web site - don't have the URL to hand, but search for "NICORETTE" - you'll find it! I also shot 27 photos (some of me on the helm - documentary evidence!) which I'll mount for your interest later.

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THE GRAND MISTRAL STORY

Bruce Farr was told to go and build the fastest yacht he could - no constraints. The result is the Grand Mistral 80. There are five of them in existence in the world, all owned by the same company - organisations such as Pharmacia and Upjohn then charter them as "branded" yachts, just large sailing advertisements for their product. Because they are chartered, this gives the charter company extreme control over the one design rules of the class - the charter agreement contains a penalty clause which will fine the charterer USD$200k for changing anything about the yacht that violates the class rules!

It's interesting, given our long-running debate over "the best boat", that Bruce Farr would choose a fractional Bermudan rig - is that any easier to handle on a large scale than any other choice? (Let the debate begin!)

A round-world race between the five Grand Mistrals (France, Cape Town, Sydney, Hobart, Auckland, Argentina and back to France) was held late last year - Nicorette won it.

Nicorette also recently broke the transatlantic crossing record, which had stood since 1905. They deliberately waited until the strongest winds were available, then went for it, chasing the lows and the storms across the north Atlantic. I asked the skipper if he had any scary moments - his answer, "plenty". I asked him what was the worst, and he related a story of an 80kt windstorm that lasted six hours. Part way through, the carbon fibre battons in the main started to shatter and poke through the sail fabric - he said the main looked like a porcupine. He told me they were doing 29kts on and off during this storm - I asked him if he had any sail up at all. He said, "sure - just a single reef in the main!". !!!! Now remember, this is NOT conservative sailing - they were trying to break the record, therefore they were pushing the boat as hard as they could. These people are trained lunatics - DO NOT try this at home!

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THE SAILING

Conditions - perfect. No really, just perfect. Clear blue cloudless skies, hot sun, temperature about 28 deg cel, true wind of about 20kts from the south. It really doesn't get much better than this (in fact, that's bloody good weather for Sydney Harbour, let alone Southampton! I had to pinch myself a few times - I really couldn't believe I was still in the UK!).

Our very simple plan was to head down the SE leg of the Solent, putting us on a broad reach. (imagine a funnel, with the wide mouth facing south. Plonk a bloody great island in the mouth of the funnel - that's the Isle of Wight. The Solent then runs from the north, down the narrow pipe of our inverted funnel, and then it forks SE and SW around the Isle of Wight. There is quite a large "sound" between the northen shore of the island and the narrow, south-facing tube of the funnel - this is where most of the "Cowes Week" regatta action happens). We would then tack and broad reach back up the Solent and return to the marina. The whole adventure was scheduled to last about two hours from dock to dock.

The first adventure - the visitor's berth where Nicorette was perched was the deepest part of the Royal Southampton Yacht Club marina, but...we left around the time of lowest tide and you can guess what happened - we got stuck. A 4m draft is not for gunkholing! The engine was in full reverse, and the bow was moving very very slowly. The harbour master came and in his little diesel putput managed to tow our sorry keel free of the mud.

So we set off on our first reach. I and five other foolish volunteers worked the coffee grinders to get the main up - I now have a deep and abiding respect for the gorillas that usually do that job. Justin, one of the permanent crew members, told me they had imported an Olympic rowing crew to be their grinding team - same sort of muscle strength/stamina requirements, apparently. By the time the sail was halfway up, my arms were jelly, and it was as much as I could do just to push them so they followed the winch handles around and around - I certainly wasn't adding one iota of lifting force to the halyard! The jib halyard was put on a more traditional type winch (still incredibly large), but then of course we had to trim the headsail in - more grinding! I thought my arms would drop off.

So by the time I looked around, the boat's doing 11 knots on a screaming reach in 20 knots apparent. She's well-heeled, leeward rail in the water, and the non-sailing crew were looking decidely nervous, perched on the high side rail about 6m off the surface of the water! The scale of this machine was inconceivable - an 80ft maxi with one rail in the water! Wow. We continued to plow through the water, with a non-sailor at the helm and the Skipper, Ludde Ingvall, giving calm (but repeated) instructions to the poor helmsman. We were dodging through the first of the Cowes Week fleet returning to South Hampton after a day at the races, and I'm sure the skipper was having some tense moments even though he didn't let it show.

We began preparing for a 180 degree tack - I saw that the windward winch was not loaded so I wrapped the sheet around it (I stopped counting at about five turns!) Somehow I managed to find myself facing another coffee grinder, and of course off we went, trimming in the jib on the new tack.

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THE GRINDERS

Each grinder had two double winch handles - from my perspective, my right hand was on the outer of the right hand handle, and my left hand was on the inner of the left hand handle, with my partner facing me filling in the other space on the double handles. One of us was therefore always working backwards (ie. back of the hand moving towards the head at the upstroke). There were three grinders, all of which were used for hauling the main halyard, but after that task the one closest to the mainsheet was "detached" and put to work on the mainsheet winch drum, leaving two winches (four of us) to work the jib sheet winches. The two grinders therefore were one machine - when I turned my grinder handle, the one next to us moved in unison. So the effort from four people's shoulders was being directed straight onto a winch drum, manned by the trimmer, who would call "TRIM! STOP! TRIM! STOP!". We had control of two speeds, say 4th and 3rd - just by reversing the direction of the grind. The trimmer would then flick a switch, shifting us down further, giving us control over 2nd and 1st. I tell you, with four of us in first gear we could have dragged a semi-trailer backwards against it's will!

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THE HELM

So of course, after we tacked, as I'm taking a breather, the skipper says, "so who wants to steer?" It might have been an illusion, but I swear he was looking at me when he said it! At any rate I had no hesitation at yelling "ME!", shoving six or seven folks out of the way and battling to the helm - only kidding! I walked calmly. No one else volunteered! Mind you, I didn't give them much of a chance, I guess...$->

Right away I noticed the weather helm - we were way over-canvassed (or so I thought - maybe in a boat that size you just have to have a shotgun on the other wheel all the time?) I was proud that I could anticipate her movements and keep us on a pretty straight course, a fact that the skipper acknowledged silently by making no comments at all - he just left me to it, for which I was grateful.

Nicorette has a wide skiff-back (which makes for awesome off-wind speed) and twin wheels - I think they're stainless steel, but they were wrapped in some sort of leather or plastic covering. Each wheel had a diameter pretty much equal to the span of my outstretched arms, and the two wheels were about my arm's span apart. Changing sides, therefore, to see what was below us and behind the sails, involved walking two long paces, spanning the gap between the wheels with my arms, letting go of the windward one and taking over on the leeward one, taking another two paces, then crouching on the rail to see the traffic. Going back to the windward side was worse, as it was an uphill walk!

There's an ideological battle on here - Nicorette (the crew) want to really spit in the faces of the tobacco companies by going up against their yachts and grinding them into the dust. Nicorette, as you may know, is a smoking-substitute product, so Nicorette campaigns under the heading of "competing for a smoke-free world" - some might see that as a good cause (no "smoking" flames, please! <bg>). The skipper went so far as to say that Nicorette wants to be the "last boat standing", competing and sailing until the tobacco companies are banned from sponsoring yachts. So far, they've been winning the races with ease.

So the crew were delighted to see that the Whitbread 60, Silk Cut, recently returned from the BT Global Challenge, was about a mile ahead of us and sailing the same course. Justin told me that if I hit it, the beers would be at my cost (ie. "don't screw up!")

It wasn't a fair fight really - 80ft vs 60ft. We creamed them. Somebody said all it takes is two boats heading in the same direction and you've got a race - they were right. Actually, Silk Cut saw us coming, wanted to tack in front, realised that they would have been cut in two (and they were courteous - they knew we were "hospitality sailing" and not able to respond as quickly as a racing crew might) so they eased their sails, let us pass, and hardened up behind us. A hollow victory! But we did catch them.

My sister Vicki - who had "smuggled" me aboard - was also aboard, and being a total sailing newbie, I got her to come and steer. She loved it! And she picked it up quite quickly. She said later "I'm hooked", so I've done my bit for sailing this week - another hook sunk in. Boy, what an introduction - "my first sail was steering an 80ft maxi". Wow!

Ludde let me stay on the helm for our tack up close to the container docks - I started to spin the wheel, slowly, not wanting to toss 80ft of angry maxi into a turbo-tack, and realised that she was lapping it up. I kept turning, under the gentle urging of the skipper, and then gave her heaps - she spun easily on her keel, and we ended up tacking pretty much in our own length. Another 180 degree tack, and we ended up pretty much back on our inbound wake. It was the most graceful, powerful thing I've seen - 25,000 kg of boat tacking with the grace and agility of an 18ft skiff.

We sailed her back around the point of the container dock, then Ludde took over - I'd steered for about an hour, I guess, but it felt like just a few minutes.

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DOUSING THE SAILS

They came down the usual way - headsail first, flaked on deck. But then I wondered, how the hell do you flake the mainsail when the boom is eight feet off the deck?

Answer: Wind power. The skipper put the boat in reverse, and backed slowly, leaving the bow into the wind. The sail fell on one side, then the skipper spun the wheel, pointing the bow just slightly off the wind - using the wind to push the sail onto the other side. Halyard dropped, then held. He turned again, putting the bow through the wind and just off it again, on the other tack - pushing the sail back. Halyard dropped, and held - etc etc. It was like watching two elephants in tutus dancing swan lake! Two crew at each end of the boom just pulled the ends tight, and another crew ran the halyard. What a neat piece of team work.

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THE SOUVENIR

I asked the skipper to sign my log book. Here's what he wrote:

6th August 1998, S/Y Nicorette, 25 mile passage, Helmsman, signed L Ingvall.

What a momento!

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THE TRIP HOME

On the train from Southampton to London, the late evening sun washed through the train carriage and over the green and gold fields as they flashed past the windows. I had a permanent grin from ear to ear, my favorite CD was playing through the headphones, my soul was at peace having had it's dose of wind and water - in short, I was very content. I glanced out my window, and saw a hot air balloon, beautiful and multi-coloured, drifting along on the cool evening sea breeze. A few minutes later, I glanced out and saw the huge white disk of the moon, nearly full, lifting itself clear of the lush green trees on the eastern horizon, just as her sister the sun was setting fire to the trees in the west.

Yesterday was a very good day.

Cameron London, UK

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