[January 10, 2001 - 11:01:14 AM]
Michel Desjoyeaux (PRB): ETA at Cape Horn...
(ETA = Estimated Time of Arrival)
"I’m still not sure of my ETA, right now I’m going at 10/15
knots and I’m heading to the Horn but just a moment ago I
was going at 15 knots and at 25/30 degrees from the route.
Moreover, I don’t know what the influense of Terra Del Fuego
is with the weather – all these unknown factors!
"I’d like to sight land, but now the sky is quite charged, and
the cloud bank is hanging low. In a few hours I’ll spot land for
the first time in a month or so! It’ll be great to see all my
friends on the ‘Darwin Sound’ (Ed: Yvon Fauconnier’s boat with
the TV Production team on board). I won’t be stopping
though, and I just hope they can keep up with me if they want
to get some film.
"I’ve seen that Ellen has clawed back a lot of miles on me,
she should have better conditions than me passing the Horn,
and I’m going to try not to make any mistakes after that. I’ll
have to keep analysing the data coming in and above all not
rest on my laurels.
"Rounding a cape doesn’t hold the same signification as in old
times, where sailors sought land to know where they were.
Thanks to the GPS I know exactly where I am. You always
think you’re going to pass some barrier leaving one ocean
and entering another, always bizarre sensation, physically and
rationally, and it can be often an emotionally poignant time.
Passing into the Pacific from the Indian, there were lots more
animals, birds especially in the Indian and hardly anything in
the Pacific."
[January 10, 2001 - 10:05:03 AM]
Thomas Coville (Sodebo): Surfs, What Surfs?
As he approaches Cape Horn, Thomas Coville describes his
feeling of frustration after his crossing of the South Pacific on
the other side of the world, when he considers what he had
been hoping to find there. Exceptional surfs at these
latitudes? They have been conspicuous by their absence. Still
in fifth place up with the leaders, Sodebo’s skipper feels for
his boat which gets a bit of a battering in cross-seas like
these.
"I’ve been sailing upwind since yesterday and am trying to
pick up speed as best I can. We’ve got a short choppy sea
and I have decided to take it a bit easy so as not to break
anything. But the boat slams around mercilessly. It’s difficult
to finish the Southern Ocean this way. It’s frustrating to
approach Cape Horn like this. I’m going to leave this zone
without having really benefited from it. At no time was there
any real stretch with big waves to surf down where you feel
your boat taking off from a long way up to wind up in a
fountain of seaspray. Actually, either I head north upwind in
dead calm or downwind in light airs with the gennaker up in
squalls. Nothing like the conditions we had to face on Sport
Elec. To come here and have this odd sort of weather is not
that much fun at all. Almost all of the fleet has the same
conditions. The best ones are out in front. You make your own
luck. Sodebo is made for sailing downwind in strong winds and
we’ve had nothing but medium conditions which are much
more suited to the type of boats which are in the lead right
now. I should be able to start sailing downwind at the end of
the day once the low has passed over ".
" The water is still at 9 degrees, it’s very cold and my fingers
are freezing. Cloud cover makes for a grey ceiling with a pale
halo at dawn. The wind is blowing at between 25-30 knots. A
squall passes over, and the rain has come out. Looks like the
front is on its way. "
Source: Corine Renié-Péretié
[January 09, 2001 - 4:35:12 PM]
Aquitaine Innovations is floating again! Yves Parlier at
1350hrs phoned his shore team to indicate that he has
successfully floated Aquitaine Innovations again after running
her aground.
Source: PC course Aquitaine Innovations
[January 09, 2001 - 3:55:47 PM]
Telex from Dominique to this morning:
"Busy night, chopped sea, rain and gusts... ! Lots of
manoeuvres, rolling, unrolling, reef not reef, back in the fight!
The wind ,first upwind, lifted a bit, the jib already repaired, got
torn another time. Damges seem to be quite important this
time, before I rolled in emergency I saw three 1 to 2 meters
long rips.
I am waiting for the wind to drop a little to unroll and see how
bad it is. For the moment, I am sailing with the staysail. In
the calms I will put the genoa or the gennaker if the sea
flatten up."
The tears are outside of the tack where Dominique did already
a few repairs, and where the pressure is enormous. Dominique
fears the damage is going to be very important. Without this
sail, the boat’s potential will be seriously reduced. At the
beginning of the race, he already had some problems with
that sails, and after many hours of sewing, he managed to
repair the sail.
Today, we can’t tell yet if the sail will be or not repairable; the
Swiss skipper keeps a good morale and wants to fight "until
the end".
"As soon as it will be possible I will try to repair, even if it only
lasts a few days. For the moment, I will try to limit the speed
loss until I find a solution..."
During the repair, Dominique will have to climb up the mast in
order to unhooked the sail(hooked with a Spectra rope). He
will then have to go down again, re-hoist and reclimb up the
mast in order to re-hook it. No wonder he will need lots of
energy and courage. Dominique shouldn’t find any of the
Swiss lakes conditions as the winds should increase during the
passage of a low in the next few days. If the winds are staying
over 35/40 knots, Union Bancaire Privée shouldn’t lose too
much ground; but if it drops, it will have to be under 25 knots
to let him use his genoa or gennaker. THe range of winds for
the job being between 25 and 35 knots. "Navigation is not
great at all for the moment, it’s raining, the sea is bad coming
from the front. However I am happy to have caught some wind
and to do 12/13 knots."
Source: Bleue Salée
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