02/05/2001
Week 5 -
Smooth passage through the Indian Ocean
The fifth week of The Race began and ended with a record. For the
leaders, the Indian Ocean was not as fierce as its reputation offering
them a long smooth run.
The situation on Sunday, January 28th illustrated the chasm now separating The
Race challengers. A chasm as wide as an ocean, because on the same day that
Team legato was still parked up in calm waters brought about by a torpid high
pressure area southwest of Cape Town, Club Med was crossing the longitude of
Cape Leeuwin on the other side of the Indian Ocean. In doing so she was beating
the record of 8 days and 23 hours set in 1997 by Olivier de Kersauson between the
longitudes of The Cape of Good Hope and Cape Leeuwin by more than a day. Club
Med needed only 7 days and 18 hours to cover the distance. Less than two days
later, it was the turn of Innovation Explorer to lower the time by four hours.
These times demonstrate clearly just how fast the two giant multihulls are sailing,
regularly clocking up 500 miles a day. Before the start of The Race, some members
of the sailing fraternity had spoken of the fantastic potential of the catamarans
designed and built by Gilles Ollier. Figures of up to 700 miles a day were being
mentioned. Not impossible, but these were potential speeds, requiring optimum
weather conditions. In the Roaring Forties, the often unstable seas do not allow such
performance levels to be indextained for hours at a time. It was also quite
unprecedented for average speeds of 21 or 22 knots to be notched up over periods
of several days. You can’t help but admire such performances, and the endurance
of these boats and their crews is to be saluted.
There is another remarkable thing about this Indian Ocean crossing – the courses
followed by the two leaders. The combined skills of skippers, navigators and
shore-based routers enabled them to sail an almost seamless path, never straying
far from the direct route and thereby indextaining an optimal VMG. Weather systems
that would have slowed the catamarans down, such as high pressure or deep lows,
were anticipated and perfectly negotiated. At a press conference organised on
January 31st, Bruno Peyron emphasized the level of organisation around the map
table between the navigator-router partnerships. Roger Badham and Mike Quilter
aboard Club Med; Pierre Lasnier and Roger Nilson for Innovation Explorer; Bill
Biewenga and Jean-Yves Bernot aboard Team Adventure; Bob Rice and Stan Honey
aboard retired PlayStation – the teams combine a wealth of experience, and it shows
in the results they have achieved. In comparison with these ‘super teams’
comprising the world’s top weather specialists, the boats at the other end of the fleet
have taken very roundabout routes. As a result of these twists and turns away from
the racing line, the gaps have grown all the more quickly.
Although the fifth week of The Race gave us an opportunity to admire the top
speeds of the Multiplast catamarans, there were also more immediate records within
the challengers’ grasp. Loïck Peyron and his crew caught us by surprise at the end
of last week when he set a new world 24-hour speed record of 629.19 miles.
Innovation Explorer was crossing the Tasman Sea at the time. Her skipper had
thrown up a psychological smoke-screen, claiming that a broken daggerboard and
sail problems would force him to stop in Wellington, in the Cook Strait.
The aim was to persuade Grant Dalton that, if he had any technical problems aboard
his boat, he could afford to stop for repairs without worrying, because his nearest
rival was going to do the same. But when it comes to kidology, the Kiwi skipper is an
acknowledged master. He sailed straight past his homeland without flinching for a
moment. There was one slight hitch with Loïck Peyron’s strategy – who is going to
believe that you need to stop for repairs when have just set the world 24-hour speed
record?
One of Innovation Explorer’s daggerboards was damaged. The problem was swiftly
solved by cutting away the damaged section and re-fitting the board upside down,
as had always been intended. This ‘upside-down’ daggerboard is less effective,
because it is shorter, but it will serve its purpose, at least across the Pacific Ocean.
There is also concern over the limited sail wardrobe aboard, and the reliability of
those that they do have. No serious technical problems were encountered during
this ocean crossing, though. Some hatches enclosing the survival rafts were torn
off by powerful waves, two plexiglass screens which protect the cockpits were
broken, one aboard Club Med and one on Innovation Explorer, some of the padeyes
gave out and had to be replaced with cables – but there have been no major
structural problems since Team Adventure’s accident.
The Franco-American crew were sorely missed in the Indian Ocean. The suspense
has not been so intense since Cam Lewis was forced to stop in Cape Town. Once
back at sea, they had to face much less favourable weather conditions – headwinds
off South Africa and then a vast area of high pressure. Meanwhile,
Warta-Polpharma had snatched third place in the provisional rankings. The former
Commodore Explorer was in fine form, racking up a series of excellent days, in
which they topped 400 miles in 24 hours several times. Inevitably, once Team
Adventure had wrestled clear of the high pressure below Africa, the Polish crew had
to accept their fate and fall back into fourth. No matter how fast Cam Lewis sails
his giant cat, however, the fact reindexs that at the end of week five he was 4,200
miles adrift of Club Med.
Team Legato had just reached the westerly airflows as Club Med was nearing the
Tasman Sea. The British challenger had a dreadful run down through the tail end of
the South Atlantic high, but since then she has regularly managed around 400 miles
in a day. Since the beginning of February Tony Bullimore has been sailing in a very
favourable weather system, but the distance to the leader is steadily increasing.
DB
Translation by LMQV
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