Day 55, 4.00 am GMT :
Cold wash, cold rinse,
extra spin
02/24/2001
Throughout this race and especially since the South Atlantic, Club Med,
the ever relentless leader, has never left center stage nor Grant the
footlights.
Rare are the times the winds haven't blown in their favor. "In the right place at the
right time, " said Elena Caputo, convinced that the angels were on their side. But
now, thanks to a light breeze, a rather sluggish wind, the grand master of the glide,
the fastest catamaran in the world, has logged the second lowest average speed
over
the last 24 hours. Team Legato doesn't easily give up her last place. What's stolen
the limelight for the time being from Club Med's men is the maelstrom developing
around Team Adventure and Warta-Polpharma.
"We'll be getting 30, 40, and 50 knots of wind for a few days, perhaps more," Cam
Lewis wrote in a telex to race headquarters tonight. He's describing the worst that
the Pacific can deliver. The Fifties seem to have been unleashed and the tension
aboard the catamaran has gone up accordingly. "The tranquil sailing of recent days
is a distant memory." And the conditions are such that sailing right now in the
Pacific at 54° South is more like "flying an airplane in a washing machine," Cam
added . . . Aside from the winds which are beginning to build, there's the ever
present threat of icebergs : "We're ready for anything but, to quote Jules Verne, one
is never prepared well enough. We're indextaining a constant watch on deck for
growlers as well as monitoring the radar." In most unpleasant sailing conditions,
Team Adventure and Warta-Polpharma are facing a war of nerves in a game in
which they trade places all the time. Warta yielded her place at 11.00 pm GMT only
to take it back. At the 4.00 am GMT fix she was in third place again. The two boats
are engaged in a thrilling pas de deux in a Pacific which tonight is proving
formidable: "It's tonight that they could find themselves in the most dangerous
conditions," said Denis Horeau at race headquarters. The two boats have altered
course toward the northeast while being driven by a northwesterly that looks as
though it will back west. The low speeds posted for the last hour (15.5 knots for
Warta-Polpharma and 16 knots for Team Adventure) say a lot about the strength of
the wind which has forced them to slow down significantly.
At the head of the fleet, Innovation Explorer is still pushing toward the Equator at a
lively pace. She logged 20 knots and with 502 miles, registered the best distance
run over the last 24 hours. Club Med is several hours from hooking into a
depression to her north which should allow her to break away conclusively from her
rival. "If Dalton can catch the depression which is developing, he'll get the benefit of
an essentially southwest tradewind instead of the usual northeasterlies. Low
pressures located this far south, like those forming now, are relatively uncommon in
the Atlantic, " Elena explained, somewhat dismayed, no doubt, to think of Club Med
taking advantage of that in the next few days . . .
LG
Translation by JMc
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