Tuesday 25th November 2008
The equator in 7 days and 28 minutes
or a descent of the North Atlantic at an average of over 16 knots
Setting out from Brest last Tuesday at 13hr54’14’’ (GMT), the skipper of
Sodeb’O has indeed taken the 7 days forecast by his routers to make the
equator. At 14hr22’ (GMT) Thomas made the switch into the southern
hemisphere.
Seven days and 28 minutes to make the descent of the North Atlantic is
quick, even though it may well be an increasingly common feat in the future!
Seven days and 28 minutes, means the solo skipper sailed an average speed of
16.3 knots over the water, day and night, with just minutes of sleep
snatched here and there. Last year in the same period, Francis Joyon took a
few hours less – 6 days and 17 hours, that is 7 and a half fewer hours than
Thomas – benefiting from conditions recognised as being exceptional by all
the specialists who scan the world’s seas on a permanent basis. These same
seas are in the process of becoming the new playing field of sailors, if we
are to believe the number of racing yachts which have passed this way over
recent weeks. As Thomas pointed out yesterday, he really had to battle for
the last 48 hours with a very, very special semblance of a Doldrums, which
was very high north and paradoxically not very active. All this seems due to
an enormous cloud mass as worrying as it was unforeseen, which settled to
the south of the Cape Verde islands and lined itself right across his path.
This zone of cloud really upset the generally well-established NE’ly
tradewind in this area, thus hampering the express descent led by the
maxi-trimaran Sodeb’O from Brest.
“Yesterday I was fighting like a wildcat, it was exhausting! Constantly
battling through squalls with the wind doing exactly what it wanted. It was
really full on at times and it was hard to know if I should dump all the
sail or chance everything and go head down into it without knowing what was
behind the black curtain! You no longer know which is the way out and it
just goes on and on. The mainsail halyard was poised to drop. I had nearly
600 m² of sail above me to deal with if it all went pear-shaped. A real game
of calling its bluff!”
Once past this cloud mass, Thomas battled for seemingly endless hours
through the chop and light winds of the so called convergence zone itself.
Since mid-morning the situation has become more organised with increasingly
steady SE’ly winds of around 15 knots, familiar to the classic tradewind
scenario of the southern hemisphere.
Doubtless a 2,500 to 3,000 mile run now lies in store with headwinds and a
relatively steep chop. Thomas will just have to make do with it prior to
hanging a left into the Indian Ocean. For the time being, the wind seems
stable across the whole of the South Atlantic, with Sodeb’O likely to need
around nine days to make the upwind descent with slightly eased sheets
before making the turn. Aside from the heeling, the sailing conditions on
multihulls are pretty much the same as on the particularly wide modern
monohulls like those in the Vendée Globe. “Thanks to the appendages and hull
shapes, today’s multihulls are able to make a course. A lot of them have
canting masts to enable them to sail to windward better” explains Thierry
Briend, in charge of coordinating the shore crew. He goes on to add that
although the multihull makes twice as much headway as a monohull in these
sailing conditions, it also takes off more on each wave. It’s certainly
sporty!
AUDIO, VIDEO, IMAGES AND CARTOGRAPHY ACCESSIBLE FROM THE press zone on the
site www.sodebo-voile.com
Translated by Kate Jennings – Expression
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