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Displaying items by tag: Chinese

#chinesegybe – This frightening video of a 'chinese gybe' was taken early this week on board a yacht taking part in the round-the-world Volvo Ocean race, as it encountered rough weather in the tumultuous Southern Ocean. The MAPFRE team's vessel did an involuntary "Chinese gybe," also known as a "death roll," while located about 2,000 miles from the nearest landmass. Two other teams did Chinese gybes on Monday into Tuesday in gale force winds and high seas, causing damage to some of the boats but no injuries.

MAPFRE (Iker Martínez/ESP), pictured above, led the fleet over Point Nemo on Wednesday after an amazing recovery from their Chinese gybe just 24 hours earlier.

They were one of three boats – Dongfeng Race Team (Charles Caudrelier/FRA) and Team SCA (Sam Davies/GBR) were the others – to crash over on their side as the fleet struggled through a heinous sea state and 40 knots of wind (75kph) in the Southern Ocean.

Published in Ocean Race

One minute it's trips round the bay with Miss World, canapés at the Royal Irish Yacht Club and corporate hobnobbing in Dun Laoghaire. The next it's a wet and windy ride from Dublin to Hamble in 24 hours. It's the lot of the modern Volvo Ocean Race crew (helmets compulsory). Chinese-Irish race entry Team Sanya boss Mike Sanderson (a previous race winner) has called his exit from Dublin 'heinous'. Don't take our word for it tho, check his vid below:

Published in Ocean Race

About Quarter Tonners

The Quarter Ton Class is a sailing class of the International Offshore Rule racing the Quarter Ton Cup between 1967 and 1996 and from 2005 until today.

The class is sailed by smaller keelboats of similar size and is likely the world's most-produced keelboat class.

The Ton, Half, Quarter, etc. 'classes' were each given a 'length' and yacht designers had almost free rein to work the hull shapes and measurements to achieve the best speed for that nominal length.

The Ton Rules produced cranky and tender boats without actual downwind speed. Measurement points created weird, almost square hull shapes with longish overhangs.

They were challenging to sail optimally and lost value very quickly as any new wrinkle (e.g. 'bustles') to take advantage of the rule made older boats very quickly uncompetitive.

Although its heyday was 30 years ago, the boat class continues to make its presence felt by holding its own in terms of popularity against some fern race fleets.