Press Release No.6
Thursday 21st February – 1300 UT
Final ‘sprint’ for Gitana 13
The fifth week at sea for Gitana 13 in the Route de l’Or has been marked by a
change of hemisphere – early on Tuesday night – and by the crossing of the
tricky Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone. And it was with a Doldrums, which proved
considerably less cooperative than its Atlantic homologue, that Lionel
Lemonchois and his nine crew had to work with. Setting out from New York on 16th
January, they are currently positioned less than 2,050 miles from the final
destination of San Francisco, after 35 days sailing. However, these last few
miles are likely to cause the men no end of trouble aboard the maxi-catamaran
equipped by Baron Benjamin de Rothschild.
Though their passage of the ITCZ on the Atlantic coast took place without the
slightest difficulty – it only lasted a few hours – the second Doldrums along
the La Route de l’Or course have proven to be more complicated. “Our second
Doldrums were fairly spread out but not at all violent. We had some very shifty
winds and some big clouds, which generated a lot of rain. However, contrary to
what you can sometimes encounter when traversing this zone, the jumps in wind
were never overly brutal. Nevertheless, we had to work with light winds for over
two days in order to pick our way through to the exit" stated Lionel Lemonchois.
This exit was located by the crew of Gitana 13 last night at around 7° latitude
North. Since then, Lionel Lemonchois and his men have set off on a NW’ly heading
on a reach (beam wind). However, in the next few hours the ten sailors will
encounter moderate N'ly winds. This air flow will impose an upwind point of sail
which, as we are regularly reminded, doesn't sit too well with the 33 metre
catamaran: “Our last few miles upwind will be very uncomfortable both for the
boat and for the men. And the perspective of over 1,500 miles in a headwind is
slightly clouding the joy of the imminent finish" announced the skipper of
Gitana 13 before concluding: “On this record, we really haven’t had much of an
opportunity to slip along, apart from on the first quarter of the course as far
as the equator. We've either had the wind three quarters aft, forced to make
some tack changes, or we’ve been upwind, which is a long way off Gitana 13's
preferred point of sail!”
In this way, the final sprint for Lionel Lemonchois and his nine crew may well
take on the form of a ‘Way of the Cross’ since it will take several days of
headwinds before they can inscribe the word ‘end’ on their first record of 2008.
According to the latest estimates the maxi-catamaran, in the colours of LCF
Rothschild Group, may well make its entrance into San Francisco Bay and slip
under the Golden Gate Bridge in a week's time, with their arrival planned for
Thursday 28th February.
21/02/2008 - 13:22
Eclipse of the moon
The Doldrums is now in our wake. Gitana 13 was able to slip along in a narrow vein of wind with 6 to 8 knots of SSE’ly, at the cost of a few gybes and a few long hours spent on port tack at nearly 80° to the direct course. The upshot of this type of sailing is that you can't trace pretty lines across the chart and it comes as no surprise then, that yesterday was our smallest day since Cape Horn, or even since the start of our voyage, namely 176 miles along a great circle route.
The facts that have stood out over the past 24 hours occurred last night. First of all, we passed our first cargo ship since we began sailing in the largest ocean on the planet, the trajectory warranting close monitoring if you please. The vessel struck quite an imposing figure and, bound for Panama, it passed less than quarter of a mile astern of us. The second sighting was by far the most impressive of the day, or the month even, so splendid and unexpected was it. Whilst we were under the spotlight of our second full moon since setting out from New York, it began to turn hazy. We were witnessing a lunar eclipse, the shadow of the earth almost totally masking it. Solely a minute crescent escaped this extinction, the consequence of which was the canopy of heaven, extinguished up to that point, was re-established for a good three hours during the eclipse. Though this phenomenon is not rare in itself according to the various 'specialists' aboard, it was nevertheless the first time for all of us that we'd witnessed such a spectacle at sea.
Nicolas Raynaud
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