Betreff: Alex Thomson Racing: Sill on the Southern Highway with no speed limits
Absender: "Mary Ambler"
Datum: 10. Nov 2003 14:35
ALEX THOMSON RACING
SILL ON THE SOUTHERN HIGHWAY WITH NO SPEED LIMITS
Transat Jacques Vabre: Monohull Class 1 – DAY 9
10th November 2003
Leader: Virbac (Dick/Abiven FRA))
13:00hrs GMT Position of SILL: 2nd place, 124m to the leader
Conditions: 12-13 knots from the WNW
Location: 2399.1m to Brazil! About 400m N of Canaries
*If you missed the weekend news go to the website for Alex’s logs – the boys moved into 2nd place!
* On day 9 of the race, nearly at the half way mark, Alex and Bilou have indextained their 2nd place in the fleet of 13 monohulls still racing to Brazil, and at 1300GMT position update Sill was 124m from leader Virbac, the French leading duo having streaked ahead by catching the NE Trades first. Sill has not lost out on the boats behind in general, but their lead over 3rd placed Ecover has been reduced to 33m now, as both boats are on the same 24N latitude but Sill is still positioned 3 degrees in longitude further over to the West. Ecover is racing at 100% again and both boats averaging 11.7 knots in boat speed, but on different sailing angles in the new breeze. Fellow Brits Mike Golding and Brian Thompson are hot on the tail of the Sill boys after having a disastrous weekend caught by a small high pressure ridge and suffering from technical problems on the boat.
* Alex Thomson has had a ‘wicked’ weekend, pulling up to second place in the rankings and currently the leading English skipper in the Transat Jacques Vabre. They are now on the Southern Highway, it’s as if they have got off the B road and driven onto the motorway, with their foot down and green lights all the way to the Doldrums.
“We’ve had the monster kite up all night and both of us have been driving, so no more than 3 hours kip for us both. Ecover and Virbac are currently going a bit faster than us as the trades haven’t totally filled in for us, but the breeze is 12-13 knots from the WNW right now. It did go light on us for a while and we got the Code 0 up, but then we saw this big cloud and behind it the new breeze from the ENE, at 8 – 10 knots. So then the gennaker went up, then the spinnaker for a couple of hours and the wind rotated more, then we gybed and the wind has stabilized now. We have a smaller reaching kite up and are heading straight for the mark. Tonight the breeze should clock round more to the North, which favours Virbac and Ecover then, but afterwards it should clock back slowly and we can sail on a hotter angle then. If the wind gets to 15 knots, which it is due to do, we can get the gennaker up and sail fast.
“Virbac gained overnight as they reached established Trade winds first, but Ecover is sailing more away from the mark than us. We can’t afford any mistakes, and it’s just as important to hold onto this second place as it is to catch Virbac. In theory, if the wind is from the north east we are running big kites on the inside and on a hotter sailing angle than Ecover, if it’s the other way, we’ll be laying with the gennaker and be quicker. We shouldn’t have a problem, but we’re still worried about Mike!
“I’m enjoying the race more than I thought I would. It’s not that I look for discomfort, but I look for a challenge, so I’d rather be going upwind in 60 knots than 10, and likewise downwind in 25 knots than 10.”
And finally… Alex continues the domestic theme and today talks about personal hygiene and other stories of living with a Frenchman on board a boat for 2 weeks non-stop:
“I went to bed in shorts and got up a couple of hours ago, the cabin is starting to warm up inside. I remember from doing the Clipper race that the Atlantic is the hottest part of the world, except the route between Hong Kong and Singapore where the humidity is unbearable. It’s going to get hotter, I will put some sun tan lotion on and maybe get my shirt off. Bilou is threatening to have a shower soon but I won’t take a salt water shower though, if I wash it will be with water boiled in the kettle as it is so itchy when the salt dries on your skin. My hands are going raw too, why? Oh, because I haven’t been moisturizing them of course! You get half way pulling the kite up the mast and it is so painful, and boys and pain don’t go together well, especially me… They’ll probably be peeling by the end of the race – nasty! The hygiene on board is pretty good I have to say, because we have to live and work in such a confined space, so we wipe down all the surfaces every day.
“Today Bilou & I had a bit of a scream, I taught him how to set the digital camera on timer and then we worked out the only place to take photos was if we were looking out of the hatch and the camera was perched on the indexsheet winch, so we took a few cheesy snaps of the two of us. Then guess what, we looked at them and thought, nah, they’re no good, so we did some more! It was a giggle because it was like being in one of those automatic photo booths, and you go through the pictures, pointing out which ones are bad because half your head is cut off, or the other person’s eyes are shut…hopefully if the Sat B unit fires up we’ll email them to you.
“How are my French lessons? The only French word I know is Maxsea!! I’ve been correcting Bilou’s English, we don’t speak French on board at all now, and so now he says things like ‘Wicked’, ‘Is It’, and ‘Aye’! Now that both countries are going head to head in the rugby this weekend I wish I had an England shirt to wear on the boat just for a laugh!”
ATR.COM WEBSITE
You can follow Alex Thomson on ‘Sill’ in the Transat Jacques Vabre on a new-look format of the current campaign website at www.alexthomsonracing.com, where Alex’s personal updates & images taken on board, plus the latest race information and boat positions will be posted online. If you wish to make enquiries, sign up to receive updates or send Alex a message of support at any time please register your email through the Quick Enquiries section online or at info@at-racing.com.
The Official Race web site is at www.jacques-vabre.com
ENDS
AT Racing Ltd
Address: Unit 11, Haslar Marina, Haslar Road, Gosport PO12 1NU
Tel: +44 (0)23 9252 4343 - Fax: +44 (0)23 9252 4646
Website: www.alexthomsonracing.com
Sponsorship enquiries: sponsorship@at-racing.com
General enquiries: info@at-racing.com
Media enquiries: Mary Ambler - Email: mary@at-racing.com - Mobile: +44 (0) 7887 643 583
High resolution images of Alex Thomson / Sill (on board & aerial) are available on request and copyright free.
Notes to Editors
Alex Thomson, 29 year old professional sailor from Gosport in England, is the youngest skipper ever to win a round the world yacht race after he came 1st in the Clipper ’98 race. Alex Thomson founded in 2000 and headed up the sailing side of yacht charter company, Formula 1 Sailing Ltd for 3 years. His short-handed career includes racing as co-skipper to Josh Hall on ‘Gartmore’ in the 1999 Transat Jacques Vabre. He also came 1st in the 2000 Criterion Round Britain & Ireland race, and 3rd in class in the 2000 Europe 1 New Man STAR on the Open 50 ‘Sail That Dream.com’.
Keith Mills has just been appointed CEO of the London 2012 bid for the Olympic Games and is currently Chairman and Chief Executive of Air Miles International Group BV (AMIG) which is the holding company he established in 1988 to develop the AIR MILES programme. He is also Chairman of Loyalty Management International and Loyalty Management UK Ltd, the company which recently launched the Nectar programme. Prior to founding the AIR MILES business, Mr Mills had over 20 years experience in marketing and advertising. He is also a keen sailor, and was part of the crew on board the winning boat in the Clipper ’98 RTW yacht race.
AT Racing Ltd is the new company set up by Keith Mills and Alex Thomson to manage all aspects of the Open 60 boat campaign, including shore team, marketing and communications support.
Open 60 ‘Sill Entreprises’ - Under the previous skipper, Roland Jourdain, the Lombard design Open 60 ‘Sill Entreprises’ has been on the podium many times since being launched in 1999 and broke the solo 24hr record by covering 436 miles at an average speed of 18.16 knots within days of arriving 3rd on the podium of the Vendée Globe. With trademark giant deck spreaders and rotating mast, ‘Sill Entreprises’ has been constantly optimised from build, particularly for upwind performance, which is second to none in the current fleet.
The 2004 Vendée Globe
Out of all the current five RTW yacht races, only two are single-handed, and the Vendée Globe is the only non-stop event. Held every 4 years from the port of Les Sables d’Olonne in the Vendée region on the western coast of France, this 26,000 mile solo marathon around the globe is renown as the ‘Everest’ of the sport of sailing. The Vendée Globe was created by legendary French solo skipper Philippe Jeantot after he had won the first two editions of the solo RTW BOC Challenge race, which was competed in 4 legs. First run in 1989 with just thirteen competitors on the start line, the Vendée Globe has now become a high profile international sporting event thanks to the incredible exploits of competitors from outside France such as Pete Goss, Tony Bullimore, and more recently Ellen MacArthur. In 2000/1, the race attracted 24 professional teams with their sponsors, plus a major following from media all around the world. The fifth Vendée Globe starts on 7th November 2004.
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