Jules Verne Rekord 2003 www.kingfisherchallenges.com - zur Übersicht JV DAY 17: MEDIA UPDATE 1600GMT Absender: "Team Kingfisher" Datum: 15. Feb 2003 16:15 SUMMARY: 1500 GMT 15.2.03 Position: 42 00'S 11 14'W Av/Max boat speed in last hour: 19.75 / 29.7 knots heading: 108 Av/Max wind speed in last hour: 19.75 / 32.0 knots Wind direction: 287 Distance to WP5 42 00'S / 18 28'W 490nm south of Cape of Good Hope : 1318 nm (theorectical shortest distance) SOME WORDS JUST SAY IT ALL... CREWMAN ANDREW PREECE: "For the last half an hour the speedo has hardly dropped below 30 knots, the boat is covered in a fine mist of spray from the continual breakers that are being hammered skywards by the bows. Guillermo's watch crew in goggles and helmets to protect themselves from the battering. Every now and again the back beam is hammered by a wave that sounds like a car smacking into a wall as the windward hull lifts clear of the water..." KINGFISHER2 continues to indextain high speeds as she eats the miles eastwards whilst the crew work on repairing the damage to the wind instruments. Staying at 42-43 degrees south, KINGFISHER2 will keep a good pressure gradiant of 33-35 knots for the next 48 hours to join the next big low on Sunday night/Monday. Read below ELLEN'S WEEKLY COLUMN as she puts the past few days quickly behind her as they enter the beauty of the Southern Ocean... We've arrived... and the timeless gate keeper to the Southern Ocean welcomed us. As we had barely crossed the 30th parallel we saw our first albatross - Hervé told me that the French call it the 'smoky gull', and I cursed myself for having come down here once again without having learnt more about the various species. Then again there are books that tell us, but we don't carry many books because they are too heavy. Our reading consists of manuals on CD's, instructions on how to cook our freeze dried printed on laminated sheets, signs on the usage of safety equipment and emergency drills - and finally - the antarctic pilot guide. The book I cannot wait to read... The antarctic is a fascinating place - full of life - much more so in fact than the South Atlantic. Though I hate to say it, we had bad luck in the Atlantic - the weather was unpredictably bad, and what makes it a little bit harder is that the Atlantic is the only ocean we have to sail through twice in this record attempt. Now as I type we have passed the 40th parallel and almost on cue we have sailed into the front of our first Soutern Ocean low. The sky is grey - there are storm peterels fluttering over the water's surface, and the water temperature is losing a degree every watch change. There was pure ecstacy in the galley last night at 0300 as Damian made the porridge, he discovered that we had a tin of maple syrup that Bruno had bought back from Canada. Heavy items such as tins just don't exist on trips like this. So it was a real luxury and we all felt very grateful to Guillermo who cunningly slipped it on board. After several permutations of food, we have now got around to realising that we have in fact tried everything at least three times and with our menu will be seeing little variation for the next month or so... Each meal is freeze dried, each two days food for fourteen is in a kit bag about the size of a sports kit bag filled with vaccum packed pouches of powder. It does not look like those volumes could possbly feed our hungry bodies. I was very nervous yesterday as we headed down towards the south. The sky had cleared for a while after our first cloud band and the temperature was still warm outisde. I could sense a kind of 'waiting' in the attitude of the guys. I think we all just want to get stuck into it now... We are tired of sailing slowly and frustrated at how slow things have been. Sadly for us, the part of the trip which de Kersauson completed in record time was the part where we sailed slower than the previous record holder. No one ever flinched though, no one ever said anything negative. Everyone just fought and fought until we had come through the other side to begin our new phase of the trip and the speeds we have been doing is nothing short of awesome... The positive thing is that most of us have had a real chance to catch up on sleep and are on good form for the south. I personally now feel a little sense of relief to be down here.. it's an odd feeling, but this is one of the oceans I feel the most at home in. Here I am expected to reindex constantly on my toes - watching every satellite picture coming in - monitoring every change in sea temperature... It's a very "real" and completely "living" place to sail. Now the waves are bigger, the sky is greyer, I'm at last not sitting in the nav station in a pool of sweat - and, above all we can get on with it! Last night kind of summed it all up really. There was a full moon beaming out over KINGFISHER2, it was almost as if the deck was floodlit by the heavens. As I wrote the night's tactic out I didn't even need a torch. We were sailing at speeds of 25 to 30 knots with the solent and the full index, the boat felt as if she was flying just skimming over the waves which were even and flat as we sailed into a zone which had been dominated by a high pressure. It reminded me of the Vendée- sailing with a full moon - the water shining and my heart feeling full of life and energy. Though little was said on the watch last night I had a funny feeling that I wasn't the only one feeling this. The lack of chatter was testament to the unbelieveable beauty this world has to offer us. Once again I was stunned, absolutely stunned - and I hope that's a feeling I will still have for the rest of my life... Ellen JULES VERNE USHANT (START) TO CAPE OF GOOD HOPE TIMES: 2003 Geronimo (de Kersauson) 16 days 14 hours 35 minutes 21 seconds 2002 Orange (Peyron) 18 days 18 hours 40 minutes KF2 must cross longitude 018 28'E before 01:28GMT Tuesday 18.2.03 1997 Sport Elec (de Kersauson) 21 days 18 hours 17 minutes KF2 must cross longitude 018 28'E before 01:05GMT Friday 21.2.03 1994 ENZA (Blake/Knox-Johnston) 19 days 17 hours 53 minutes KF2 must cross longitude 018 28'E before 0041GMT Wednesday 19.2.03 1993 Commodore Explorer (Peyron) 21 days 12 hours 48 minutes KF2 must cross longitude 018 28'E before 19:36 Thursday 20.2.03 JV DAY 17: 'LAUNCHING' INTO BLACK HOLES... Absender: "Team Kingfisher" Datum: 15. Feb 2003 11:12 SUMMARY: 0700 GMT 15.2.03 Position: 42 06' S 15 32' W Ahead/Behind the record: 5 hours 53 minutes behind Orange (using WP5) Ahead/Behind Geronimo: 74 hours 53 minutes behind Geronimo (using WP5) DAY 16 24 hour run (point to point) : Kingfisher2 559 nm, Orange 436 nm, Geronimo 529 nm End DAY 16 distance to go (on theoretical course) : KF2 19037 nm, Orange 18942 nm, Geronimo 17838 nm Click on POSITIONS link at http://www.teamkingfisher.com to see graphic images comparing the tracks of these 3 challengers at 4 hourly intervals. Av/Max boat speed in last hour: 20.29 / 32.2 knots Av/Max wind speed in last hour:20.21 / 34.1 knots Wind direction:308 Distance to WP5 42 00'S / 18 28'W 490nm south of Cape of Good Hope : 1506 nm (theorectical shortest distance) IN BRIEF: * KINGFISHER2 CONTINUES AT BLINDING PACE, gaining more time on Jules Verne record, with a 24 hour run of 559 miles. This morning sailing in 40 knots of wind with just the storm jib up after wind instruments fail during the night. Sailing 'blind' at high speed is one of the hardest things to do in a big multihull where the apparent wind angle changes so quickly as the boat accelerates down the waves. Team working to fix the problem...no audio this morning as Ellen rather occupied, but a very quick call to base to alert us of the problem: "We're still blasting down the waves with just the storm jib up, as we need stay in control of the boat....without the wind instruments it's pretty hard to steer at the moment...." * WIND HAS NOW SWITCHED INTO THE SOUTH and KINGFISHER2 is sailing off the wind on starboard gybe [wind on her right hand side]. Forecasted wind for this afternoon from Meeno sums it up: 12-18UT TWD 220 35-33 kts, gusts 40-42kts; SEA 5-6m SWELL DIRECTION SW. [TWD = True Wind Direction]. With the swell having switched very quickly from NW to SW this will have led to confused seas as the two sets clash for a period. * GERONIMO SEES ICEBERG for the first time in her Jules Verne, and surprisingly far north at a latitude of 53 degrees South. The weather is looking a little more complicated for them with high pressure systems disturbing the normally consistent flow of depressions... http://www.grandsrecords.com * LIFE IN THE SOUTHERN OCEAN MAKES LIFE ON BOARD UNCOMFORtable even simple tasks can take three times as long... Ellen's reports arrive looking like they have been typed by an ENIGMA machine. Email and contact with shore will become more intermittant but the guys on board will continue to send back news via their Clie PDAs... (see feature story at http://www.teamkingfisher.com) Go to http://www.comet.co.uk/cometbrowse/jsp/makelink.jsp?url=/comet/content/promotions/ellen/html/ellen.htm&zone=eCometZone to enter the Comet competition to win some top prizes including Ellen MacArthur's autiobiography 'Taking on the World' plus a SONY CLIE... ELLEN LATEST LOG: communications by BT [broadband users check out video and other high speed content at http://kingfisher.sportal.com] ....last night kind of summed it all up really. There was a full moon beaming out over KINGFISHER2, it was almost as if the deck was floodlit by the heavens. As I wrote the nights tactics out I didn't even need a torch. We were sailing at speeds of 25 to 30 knots with the solent and the full index the boat felt as if she was flying just skimming over the waves which were even and flat as we sailed into a zone which had been dominated by a high presure. It reminded me of the Vendée - sailing with a full moon - the water shining and my heart feeling full of life and energy. Though little was said on the watch last night I had a funny feeling that I won't the only one feeling this. The lack of chatter was testament to the unbelieveable beauty this world has to offer us. Once again I was stunned, absolutely stunned - and I hope that's a feeling I will still have for the rest of my life.... ex JARGON BUSTER : WHY DOES A YACHT NEED WIND INSTRUMENTS? Wind instruments are particularly important on a yacht like KINGFISHER2. The sails are trimmed to an angle of attack to match where the wind is coming from relative to the heading of the yacht. However, because the 'apparent' wind (which depends on how fast you are going as this brings the apparent wind forward - imagine running at 50km/h, the wind is in your face) is what matters in this respect rather than the 'true' wind, on a multihull that is always travelling very fast compared with the true wind speed the apparent wind changes very very quickly. On a dark night, at speed, the B&G instruments can often be on the only thing the helmsmen can see - and with his instincts and 'feel', the only way he can keep the boat launching in a fast but safe direction as he weaves the boat through the seaway. In such conditions with spray constantly blinding the helmsman, to lose the instruments would be like blinding a Formula 1 driver half way around the track... Copyright © 1996-2016 - SEGEL.DE