Alan S. Paris is 37 years old and lives in S^t-Georges with his wife Becky and their almost 2 years old son Tucker. In 2001, he resigned from his job as General Manager at Ariel Sands, a restaurant and hotel partly owned by the movie star Michael Douglas, to concentrate exclusively on his race preparation.

Alan made his way through sailing mainly on J24s and then purchased a J105 with whom he won the Class II 1995 Bermuda One – Two and finished 2^nd overall for all yachts entered in the Single handed leg. (The Bermuda One - Two is a race single-handed from Newport to Bermuda and double handed from Bermuda to Newport held every two years.)

Always on his J105, he was on his way to the start of the Europe Onestar Plymouth to Newport transat in 1996 when he had to return to Bermuda as he had lost all power and autopilots during the crossing to England.

A Scott Jutson 40’ designed monohull

Since the superb performance of the Russian skipper Viktor Yazikov in his home made Open 40 during the last Around Alone, the Open 40 Class has attracted a lot of interest. Alan decided to go for an Open 40 mainly for budget reasons but knowing that a smaller but new Open 40 can be faster than a lot of the existing bigger Open 50.

Alan chose to work with Scott Jutson, of Jutson Yacht Design based in Sydney, Australia who has quietly produced race winning Open Class designs. In particular, Jutson designed True Blue, which won Class II of the 1994 Around Alone race with David Adams as skipper.

BTC VELOCITY, named after the main sponsor of the Bermuda solo campaign, (BTC stands for Bermuda Telephone Company) has 2 water ballasts of 750 kg each but no swinging keel.

Her particularity is a trim tab mounted on the keel and was developed with Peter Heppel who had experienced such a system on his Mini 6.50 in 1999. The use of a trim tab will be a first in Around Alone and has allowed the designer to go for a very narrow cord. The trim-tab keel’s main advantages are that it reduces the drag, the leeway angle and the rate at which foil Foil #foil drag increases.

The sail area is 110 sqm upwind and 236sqm downwind (the big asymmetric spinnaker is 168.6 sqm) for a displacement of 3500 kg.

The construction of the yacht was made by Jon Sayer of Allyacht Spars in Australia. Jon Sayer is a solo sailor and yacht designer himself and has an excellent reputation of building strong, light and well thought out yachts. Construction has been by using a "modified female mould" that consists of laying a Divinycell foam core, Kevlar and E glass sandwich. Four watertight bulkheads and local re-enforcement with Carbon fiber makes the execution of this design a light but solid yacht.

Launch and first trial in 2001

Launched in Australia on the 13th of September 2001, more than one year before the start of Around Alone, the boat was christened and had already the colours of its main sponsor BTC Velocity. The first trials at sea very quickly indicated that the boat was extremely powerful and fast. So fast that it was decided it was somehow too powerful as the yacht would be down to very small sail area when only in 30 knots of wind.

In consultation with the designer Scott Jutson and the builder Jon Sayer, it was decided to cut 1.8 meters from the top of the carbon mast and to add some 250 kg to the bulb in order to increase the righting moment of the boat. From a fractioned rig, BTC VELOCITY became a masthead rig !!!

After these modifications were made to the yacht, she was delivered in February 2002 by cargo to Florida from where Alan sailed her single handed to Bermuda. The welcome in Bermuda was fantastic with even Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta Jones being present for the welcome party and showing great support in the educational programme set up by the Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute. 16 primary and middle schools will be able to contact Alan on a regular basis and will follow progress of the yacht around the world.

Qualification for Around Alone 2002

In the beginning of March Alan decided to do his qualification rather sooner than later. His plan was to do a triangle (interesting for a Bermudian, don’t you think ?) between Bermuda, the Canaries, the British Virgin Islands and back home. He had to give up his plans due to an engine failure which held the yacht in the Canaries for longer than anticipated.

The weather that BTC VELOCITY experienced during her maiden crossing was challenging as a big depression was « glued » in the middle of the Atlantic and was continuing to deepen. Alan therefore had a severe storm with winds steady at 55 knots with gusts higher. Seas were building and waves were 20 feet and bigger. Luckily, BTC VELOCITY was going downwind at that time. During this storm BTC VELOCITY was knocked down 4 times with the mast in the water but righted after that immediately.

The main problems that Alan had on the boat were actually more mechanical or electronics than pure sailing hardware. Some bolts of the trim tab lever went off but were spotted before it was too late. A faulty computer software that controls the rams movements of the autopilot went crazy and Alan had to switch on the secondary autopilot for the last week. The biggest problem was certainly the engine, which left Alan without power for the last 2 days. Apparently the pistons are damaged and the engine will need to be pulled out in Las Palmas to be repaired. Despite these problems, Alan very much enjoyed his crossing, particularly when he reached a maximum speed of 21.6 knots !

The funniest part of the crossing was certainly the arrival in Las Palmas where BTC VELOCITY had to be towed in because of her engine problems. But the interesting part was that Alan was not in a distress situation and had therefore to negotiate hard the tow price with Spanish people talking no English and Alan not speaking their language ! Finally, BTC VELOCITY and Alan arrived safely after a crossing of 16 days and a lot of experience, which will certainly be helpful in the Southern Ocean.

For more details on the Bermuda Solo Campaign, visit the website http://www.aroundalone2002.com.