03/01/2001
It was just another mirage . . .
During the radio conference with race headquarters I said how
we'd finally caught the fringe of the depression and that we
were beginning to make good progress . . . In fact, it was just
another mirage! " So wrote Elena Caputo (Innovation Explorer)
in an e-mail that arrived tonight at race headquarters. Loïck
Peyron's maxi-catamaran hadn't yet escaped from the
anticyclonic dorsal which tonight was still barring her way and
preventing her from catching the benefit of the depression. At
the 3.00 am GMT fix, her 21.6 knots average for the previous
hour showed that she had at last managed to break through the
soft spot and get into the emancipating west-southwesterly air
stream. Club Med is 1,192 miles ahead.
"For the last 48 hours, we've moved parallel to the dorsal without being at all able to get
away from its adverse effects. One radical decision we took was to gybe. In the evening,
Explorer was surfing on the swell, a sign that the depression wasn't far away, but the wind
still wasn't there!" . . . In effect, it's only been in the last few hours that Elena and "her
men" have felt the influence of this "lucky depression" which has been propelling Club Med
in the right direction. From now on, a good breeze of 20 knots from the southwest will be
pushing Innovation Explorer. But, it'll force her to sail long boards at wide gybe angles and
therefore travel more miles compared with the direct route. The VMG (Velocity Made Good)
shows this . . . 21.6 knots average speed for the hour and a VMG of only 14.5.
Club Med continues to make her solitary way toward Gibraltar, logging a 20.6-knot average
speed over the last hour for a nearly perfect VMG of 20 knots. What's there to say?
She's on the direct line and is passing the coast of Morocco while leaving Madeira in her
wake. She's at the latitude of Casablanca. In 24 hours, she'll be in the Strait of Gibraltar
and will pass through the entrance to the Mediterranean. She'll then have less than 700
miles to go before pointing her bows in victory at Marseille.
Team Adventure didn't see a mirage at 11.00 pm GMT . . . She did indeed cross the
legendary longitude of Cape Horn. Cam Lewis's crew turned another page in the history of
The Race in making theirs the third maxi-catamaran to inhale the Pacific at a rate of close
to 450 miles a day. Her average course is 76, or more or less east-northeast, which
indicates that the Franco-American boat is able to squeeze a little north into her route
around the world. Her re-ascent of the Atlantic has thus begun! For now, she's sailing at an
hour's average of 11.8 knots and has run 416 miles in the last 24 hours. Team Adventure
will begin another regimen: close hauled into a head sea. It's a fresh challege to meet, and
not an easy one as Grant Dalton will attest.
Warta-Polpharma is still in a race against the clock . . . Will she make it or not? 408 miles
on the log these last 24 hours, 18.4 knots average speed, 19.2 knots instantaneous
speed. . . .The Polish boat wants to get past Cape Horn as soon as possible so as not to
have to endure the depression that's coming up from the Southern Ocean to bar her way.
It's bringing 45 knots ahead of it and 50 knots behind, and it'll create as horrendous a sea
as we can imagine in this notoriously dangerous place . . . It's a mighty ugly cocktail
that's predicted given that we know how fierce the wind and waves can be in the Drake
Passage. She's still 440 miles from Cape Horn and should pass it in about 26 hours.
Team Legato's had another bad throw and has fallen again into a patch where there's no
wind . . .4 knots instantaneous speed, 3.7 knots average for the hour, 238 miles on the
odometer . . . Nothing's working for Tony Bullimore who is definitely not making any
progress south, unlike the "follow" boat Watcher (ex Merit). Now quite far ahead of him,
she's getting her fill of depression-driven westerlies. We have a little "problem" here.
PGa
Translation by JMc
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