Jules Verne Trophy - Orange II - Geronimo - Cheyenne zur Übersicht 30.04.2004 Auszug aus dem Empfang beim Bürgermeister von Brest: Olivier de Kersauson: "I never want to repeat the experience we had in the Southern Ocean, but at least half our voyage around the world involved some magnificent surfing, for which this boat has such a wonderful talent. (Ovation:) Bravo Olivier!! “As for the second half of our trip… Well, it was a nightmare relived every day: not knowing when we would get through, not knowing what the wind would do and not knowing whether we would have any wind or not… We had no surfing, no enjoyable sailing with the boat – even as we approached the finish, we didn’t know whether the wind would turn in our favour or not. So it’s been rather a severe experience. Just now, we were passing the coast of Ushant where you meet the ocean, where we should have been with the boat this morning when the current and the wind were working together, but what we had was almost uncrossable. If sailing was always the way we have had it in the last month, I wouldn’t sail at all. And I wouldn’t be the only one. We had a wonderful time in the first month, it was truly magnificent, but that’s the way it goes – and you can’t have everything all the time”. "In terms of sea conditions and weather, it’s certainly been interesting. In terms of weather, things have gone really well. Pierre Lasnier, who worked with us, has done some incredibly accurate forecasting, which in some particularly complicated circumstances has allowed us to anticipate conditions accurately on the basis of a weather forecast, which is pretty rare. In this final stretch through the Channel, we were able to anticipate things correctly. We came from the North - from 51 North. It seems we’ve always had to go the long way round. No one ever achieves anything in complete isolation – and I mean never. When I heard there was snow, I could hardly believe it, because it meant that winter had arrived - and winter in the Southern Ocean… We sailed those waters even later with Sport-Elec, but we’d never experienced this arrival of cold air from the south. We went further south, we were thrown about, we went south again, but never did we have a decent day’s surfing, and the boat suffered all the time. We certainly had every reason to give up. At one point we said to ourselves: “we’ll never get through; we’ll have to go via Panama”; but that would have been no joke either. I believe that what we did with the boat was quite complicated. It was a close run thing. But we’re happy we didn’t go via Panama”. (Laughs) Bravo! Bravo... (Applause) Copyright © 1996-2004 - SEGEL.DE