Le marketing tie-in

Murray Sayle

Londres As I write, 32 of the 90-odd starters in the Observer Singlehanded Transatlan- tic Race (OSTAR) are still at sea, while two are unaccounted for, although not necessarily in trouble. The race has, however, been won, and then won again; Frenchman Philippe Poupon was first to finish, in the trimaran Fleury Michon VI, in a new record time of 16 days, 12 hours and 25 minutes, arriving to a welcome riotous with roses and champagne.

Eyes the shady night has shut cannot, as

we know, see the record cut, and it was only in the following grey dawn that Poupon learnt that his had already been broken. A compatriot, Yvon Fauconnier, came in ten hours behind Poupon aboard the curiously named trimaran Umupro Jardin V. But, earlier in the race, Fauconnier had hove-to alongside the capsised catamaran Credit Agricole, and had thus very likely saved the life of her skipper, yet another Frenchman named Philippe Jeantot.

Impressed by this commendable example

of le fairplay, the committee of the Royal Western Yacht Club, deliberating in Plymouth, and mainly in English, decided to award Fauconnier 16 hours compensa- tion, giving him both first place in the race and the new record. Experiencing a coup de Trafalgar, possibly combined with a gueule de boil, or hangover, Poupon dissolved in- to manly tears on hearing the news. The fact that a win is reckoned to be worth several million francs francais to the winner may have added to his chagrin.

In fact, the massive, high-powered Gallic

-presence is one of the first things that strikes a student of the race, particularly one who recalls that it all began in 1960 with four middle-aged, English-speaking buffers messing about in boats, and continues to be run by the Observer, a dimanchier Brittani- que of the type to be found only on islands with long, rainy Sundays.

Another striking change a quarter- century has brought is in the tempo and reliability of the starters. Racing for a side- bet of half-a-crown, Francis Chichester, as then was, finished in 40 days, 8 days ahead of Col. Blondie Hasler of the Royal Marines. The other starters, David Lewis and Val Howells, also finished, as did Jean Lacombe, an early-bird Frenchman who was late for the start but nevertheless cross- ed the finishing line in 74 days. These times are respectable, but do not overwhelm the 36 days put up by pioneer Christopher Col- umbus, who was admittedly following the faster, southern trade wind route.

Today's racing passages are being made in revolutionary craft which are untried, light, and therefore, it would seem, flimsy.

How otherwise to explain the 18 contestants who retired, many within a few hours of the start, in weather which could hardly have been better for a transoceanic race? Rud- ders failed, hulls cracked and nearly a dozen masts collapsed, despite the claimed use of the most modern materials. On this showing the Spanish Armada would barely have made it out of Cadiz Bay, much less put Plymouth on the international bowling circuit. Sooner or later the OSTAR fleet is going to run into a real North Atlantic blow, of the breed which hit the Fastnet race in 1979, with consequences too epouvantable to think about.

Of course, anyone can lose a mast. I was dismasted myself near Bermuda in the 1972 OSTAR, and the same thing happened to the editor of the New Statesman only a fort- night ago, ESE of Southsea Pier (the latter case, I hasten to add, due not to rash seamanship but ' to a nietal-fatigued chainplate). But the craft entered in the Observer's race are almost all brand-new and have been inspected, only the day before, for seaworthiness. Various explana- tions have been offered for the alarming failure rate among the OSTAR fleet: inex- perienced crews, excessive commercial pressures, designers ignorant of the sea who specify masts and standing rigging which are simply not up to the job.

The question clearly needs further in- quiry, and to this end I joined a Fully Reim- bursable Business Investigative Expedition (FREEBIE) down to Plymouth to view the start of the race, offered by a French firm, Biotherm, sponsors of the catamaran of the same name to be sailed by Mlle Florence Arthaud, 26, a professional sailing instruc- tress from Paris. One Fleet Street rumour gave the sponsor's name as Piper Heid- sieck, the champagne marque, but it turned out that they were only (and magisterially) doing the catering.

We assembled, a carefree group of free spirits, at Gatwick, flew to Exeter, and went thence by bus to the French-owned Novotel at Plymouth. A quick ballon de rouge and it was time to go down to the Millbay Dock, normally used for unloading scrap metal, now looking like an early Raoul Dufy entitled something like Le Quatorze Juillet a Bordeaux. 'Ca va,' burbled the crowd, many in smart tenue de yachtman, mon vieux pot', 'tiens tiens tiens' and similar folklorique expressions. Le tout Plymouth, in short, was there, and most of the Place de la Bourse as well.

But there was no sign, anywhere among the powerfully built, gaily tricoloured yachts lining the Clyde Quay, of Mlle Ar- thaud or Biotherm. The newly completed catamaran had, we were told, sprung a leak in her port float, and was tied up in the lifeboat berth at the Barbican, undergoing hasty repairs. Four years earlier Mlle Ar- thaud, then skippering the ketch Miss Dubonnet, had her mast collapse on her way to the start of the 1980 OSTAR, so clearly there was no room for sloppy bosunry this time.

We understood, and proceeded to the

Holiday Inn for a slap-up, eve-of-race din- ner. No fewer than four such dinners were taking place in the hotel that night, and, judging by the noise, a particularly happy time was being had by the sponsors, crew and friends of Paul Ricard, which is both a French aperitif and a massive trimaran to be sailed by Eric Tabarly, winner of the 1964 and 1976 OSTARs and well fancied to win this one. We drank our champagne in a corridor, so great was the pressure on space;and went into dinner by way of what was to be a 'short presentation'.

This, I fancied, might be the latest meteo, or weather information, together with a discourse on the various routes which might be taken: the low-powered steamer route, for instance, with all its danger of collision, the northern route, where icebergs are. sometimes encountered, even in midsum- mer, or the Azores route, with its balmy weather and accompanying calms and variable winds. Then again, there is the sim- ple Napoleonic course followed by Jean Lacombe in 1960: ‘Ouest!'

Our briefing, however, was on the sub-

ject of the sponsor's product, Biotherm, a type of mud to be applied to the face. The absent Mlle Arthaud, la fiancee de !Arlan- tique, never, we were told, uses anything else. However, progress moves on, and the firm has now come up with a preparation suitable for the sac a main, the Stylo Rides or, in English, Wrinkle Pen.

In fact, explained the President- Directeur-General of Biotherm, M. Henri- Georges Muller, the entire event was as rich in symbols as the firm's mud is in radioac- tive plankton. The race was not only against the other yachts, but against Biotherm's business competitors, equally on the lookout for a moment's inattention. `The progress of Florence over the waves of the North Atlantic,' he told us, 'is a magnificent metaphor for the struggle and eventual triumph of the modern woman over wrinkles, thanks to the regular use of the Wrinkle Pen.'

ce que nous appelons "le marketing tie-in",' whispered mY neighbour, M. Jean-Jacques Lebel, with that clarity of expression for which the French language is so famous. But there was still no sign of Mlle Arthaud who had, we were told, suffered a new ennui; the Plymouth lifeboat was demanding its berth back, as they might need it for an emergen- cy call, and so Biothermhad been moved to dry out on the earthier mud of Plymouth Harbour. This was making it difficult for her to get ashore for the dinner. So, the Boeuf Wellington unable to wait any longer, we went in. It was indeed a meal to remember, made more so by the

final hurried appearance of Mlle Arthaud. She looked worried, if unwrinkled, not sur- prisingly considering that fibreglass takes up to a week to harden properly and her patch had just been hastily applied by lamplight. Even a minor leak puts a singlehanded sailor in difficulties, particularly one in a float which is hard to get at in a seaway, and almost impossible to pump out — it was, in fact, such a leaky float which im- pelled Donald Crowhurst towards his tragic fraud and eventual death in the round-the- world non-stop singlehanded race of 1968-69.

Here we touch, 1 believe, on one of the principal pressures which bear on the OSTAR competitors. The yachts which took part in the 1960 race cost a few thou- sand apiece and their skippers navigated with homely and comparatively inexpensive instruments, sextant and chronometer. (I paid, I remember, £50 for a world war two German chronometer which still works ade- quately.) While ocean yachting is never likely to be the working man's pastime, the kind of money involved in those days was well within the reach of a dedicated scrounger.

But after Eric Tabarly won the 1964 OSTAR, the sport began to show distinct commercial possibilities, particular- ly in France. Beating the Anglo-Saxons at a game which they invented seems to give special satisfaction outre-Manche, and in addition French radio and television severe- ly restrict advertising, particularly of booze and cigarettes. A yacht called after an arti- cle of trade would get a sponsor mentioned many times during the race, and many more if it won.

This soon led to a Darwinian struggle for survival among a new, emerging breed of professional singlehanded yachtsmen and their sponsors. Although Francis Chichester had once been an aeroplane salesman, Gipsy Moths have long since folded their wings, and the contestants in the first two OSTARs were advertising nothing except themselves. But the 1968 race was won by Geoffrey Williams in Sir Thomas Lipton, named after the tea knight, and fourth and fifth places were taken by Spirit of Cully Sark and Golden Cockerel, the latter the sign of Courage Ale. (Her owner, Bill Howell, a respectable dentist, took exception to his yacht being called 'the brewery boat'.) These developments disturbed the com- mittee of the Royal Western Yacht Club, who scented commerce creeping in, and for a while some undignified arguments developed over the naming of yachts. The committee passed a boat named Strongbow, for instance, because it was supposedly named after a 12th-century Anglo-Norman military figure, and not a Contemporary brand of cider. But when a French entrant tried to call her yacht Peter Stuyvesant, after the first Governor of New York who was, she said, a particular hero of hers, she was told that as this was also the name of a brand of cigarettes, she had to shorten it to PS. (It was hastily done with sticky tape, and fears were expressed that the tape might wash off, revealing the for- bidden name to the cameras.) All else equal, a big boat should beat a small boat. In 1972 the French cinema director Claude Lelouche put up a reported £250,000 for Vendredi Treize, a gigantic schooner 128 feet long which came second in that year's OSTAR. In 1976 the Club Mediterranee financed a 236-foot monster of the same name, which also came second. At this point the Board of Trade, responsi- ble for maritime safety, intervened unof- ficially with the organisers of the race.

Strictly speaking, all singlehanded sailors contravene Rule 5 of the Regulations for the Prevention of Collision at Sea, which states: 'Every vessel must at all times main- tain a proper look-out by sight and hearing as well as by all available means, ap- propriate in the prevailing circumstances.' A sleeping helmsperson clearly cannot do this, but, on the other hand, he risks no one's life but his own, and even Columbus probably dozed at the tiller now and then.

However, the risk that one of the French behemoths might run down someone else, says a small aircraft-carrier, induced the OSTAR organisers to set a size limit, first 56 feet long and at present 60 feet long. Like all rules this one has, in two races, already begun to produce freaks. All other things equal, a yacht with several hulls (catamaran or trimaran) is faster than one with a single hull, and so it is now all but impossible for a classical, monohull yacht to win the OSTAR or any other size-limited ocean race.

But, as between two similar yachts, the lighter one should be faster, and there are now many light, expensive and exotic materials (mostly untried at sea) for designers to play with. In place of the iron men and wooden ships of 1960, we now have hearts of carbon fibre and titanium putting hopefully out to sea. Much, however, is being learnt about the ultimate strength of these substances, often when yachts made of them break up in light to moderate weather. And all restrictions on yacht names have now gone by the board.

A dazzling parade of some of the great names of industry greeted us, therefore, when we arrived aboard the launch Tudor Prince for the depart. Elf Aquitaine is not only a catamaran of startling originality, but also, I believe, a brand of French petrol. Lessive Saint-Marc is a detergent, Credit Agricole a bank, Colt Cars GB a branch of the mighty Mitsubishi empire. One catamaran, Sponsorisable, failed to find one, and did not start. But Biscuits Lu was there, with no claim that this is the name of a French historical figure, and so was our own Biotherm, her spinnaker resplendent with a huge sun and a lady pro- tecting herself from it with the Wrinkle Pen.

Not all of this brave company finished, as we know. Biotherm's main halyard parted, she carried no spare, and the leaking float gave more trouble. Mlle Arthaud wisely put into the Azores, unwrinkled. Race Against Poverty began well, but poverty seems to have won, and she was forced back into Plymouth. Double Brown, a brand of New Zealand beer, broke into two single browns, giving her skipper an awkward choice before he was rescued. Jet Services, holder of the west-to-east Atlantic record, hit a tree trunk and sank, and Go Kart col- lided with a passing whale.

All of this was, fortunately, without loss of life, partly because most of the con- testants now carry satellite gear which tells them exactly where they are and gives the same information to their sponsors ashore. But this introduces a new pressure: a con- testant who knows he has a rival only a few miles ahead or astern will be tempted to press his yacht too hard, with a capsize the inevitable result.

Are these people victims of the cruel sea, or crueller cash competition? OSTAR is un- doubtedly the world's most interesting and innovative ocean race, but a yacht with a chance of winning now costs anything up to £500,000, and the million mark cannot be very far away. This sort of money has, to me, the smell of prospective disaster about it. The idea of a solitary sailor still has an inexplicable glamour to it, but the Observer's 1981 'Two-Star' race, calling for a crew of two, may point the way to a safer and eventually more constructive future.

If the rules required the designer to be one of the crew, even more dramatic im- provement could, perhaps, be expected.