10.06.2004
MOLONEY ON THE EDGE AS EXHAUSTION SETS IN....
IN BRIEF:
* With just over the distance of a Sydney to Hobart race to go, SKANDIA continues to defend fourth place and still has an outside chance of third in to Boston this weekend.
* Swiss yachtsman Dominique Wavre on TEMENOS is charging up on PINDAR; only 13 miles behind at 0900GMT. Mike Golding on ECOVER has stretched out to a 37-mile lead over PINDAR with 522 miles to Boston.
*Tales of exhaustion make frightening (and semi-amusing) reading. The race is taking its toll as the skippers push for the finish.
IN DETAIL :
With just over the distance of a Sydney to Hobart race to go, SKANDIA continues to defend fourth place and still has an outside chance of third in to Boston this weekend. But it may not be Dominique Wavre on TEMEONOS that Nick Moloney has to overhaul. The Swiss yacht has been like an express train over the last 24 hours. At 0900 GMT today TEMENOS was just 13 miles behind of Kiwi Mike Sanderson on PINDAR.
Sanderson admitted this morning that one his daggerboards shattered during Friday’s storm-force headwinds. Mike Golding on ECOVER has stretched out to a 37-mile lead over PINDAR with 522 miles to Boston. Golding refuses to take his lead for granted: “Everyone is a threat ‘til I’m tied up on the dock in Boston,” he said earlier.
Nick is pinning his hopes on Wavre or Sanderson running into light winds between now and the finish. To overcome his current deficit, SKANDIA must sail an average of five knots quicker over 24 hours than TEMENOS, 110 miles ahead. Whoever gets there first, the monohull record for the Transat will topple. The first yachts are expected to finish before way Monday evening, beating Yves Parlier’s 1992 mark, set on Cacolac D’Aquitaine, of 14 days 16 hours and one minute.
The relentless pace of this race has started to take its toll on the skippers as complete exhaustion sets in.
In a semi-amusing call back to the Skandia MultiManager shore team, Nick recounted yesterday how he started to get irate with British skipper Conrad Humphreys. During their match-race on Wednesday, the SKANDIA and HELLOMOTO were at times only 100 meters apart with neither skipper willing to give an inch.
"I couldn't understand why Conrad was allowed to race with a full crew while I was on my own?" Nick argued to himself. After some sleep, his first rest in over 24 hours, he figured out that Conrad was solo as well and it was classic sleep depravation.
Humphreys tale from the same evening is scarier. The British skipper decided to cat-nap in the cuddy hole in case the breeze built. "The next thing I was conscious of was waking up over two hours later just in my underwear, but fully in my sleeping bag, with all my clothes in a pile swilling around in the bilges,” he explained. “I realised later that I must have gone into sleep walking mode sitting in the hatchway and put myself to bed unconsciously.”
Leader Mike Golding isn’t immune either, saying: “I got myself so knackered that I crashed out for quite a long time! My alarm is set for an hour, but I didn’t hear it, which meant I was sleeping through a 100 decibel car alarm for two and a half hours.” With skippers and yachts reaching their limits, this race is far from over.
IMOCA POSITIONS 1100 GMT
NAME / SKIPPER / LAT / LONG / DIST
1. ECOVER / Golding / 43 02.64'N / 59 18.40'W / 515 to finish
2. PINDAR ALPHAGRAPHICS / Sanderson / 43 00.12'N / 58 31.16'W / 34.5 behind leader
3. TEMENOS / Wavre / 42 46.28'N / 58 21.72'W / 41.6 behind leader
4. SKANDIA / Moloney / 43 47.48'N / 55 44.08'W / 153.1behind leader
5. HELLOMOTO / Humphrey's / 42 49.64'N / 55 16.24'W / 194.1 behind leader
ABD CHEMINÉES POUJOULAT - AMOR LUX / STAMM
ABD PRB / RIOU
ABD VIRBAC / Dick
QINETIQ FACT OF THE DAY : ENERGY SOME FACTS AND FIGURES>/B>
Every function performed by the body requires energy. The three sources of energy available to the body are carbohydrate, fat and protein food nutrients.
The calorie is the unit commonly used to express the heat or energy value of food and physical activity. A calorie is defined as the amount of heat energy that is required to raise the temperature of 1 kilogram (1 litre) of water by 1 degree centigrade, e.g. from 14.5 to 15.5 degrees centigrade. This explains why the more accurate term for a calorie is actually a kilogram calorie or kilocalorie (kcal).
The average amount of energy or heat made available to the body from eating carbohydrates, fats, and proteins are 4, 9, and 4 kcal per gram, respectively. Therefore, in order to calculate the amount of energy available from a food or a meal we must know both its weight and composition (i.e. the percentage of carbohydrates, fats and proteins it contains).
For example, 100 grams (g) of vanilla ice cream contains 21 percent (21g x 4kcal) carbohydrate, 13 percent (13g x 9 kcal) fat and 4 percent (4g x 4kcal) giving it an energy or calorific value of 217kcal. This means that a man could meet his average daily energy requirement (approx 2500kcal) by eating just over a kilogram of vanilla ice cream. While this is not recommended, it does provide "food for thought". Nick of course will be expending more energy each day during the Transat – we estimate he will need to eat approximately 2.25kg of vanilla ice cream per day!!
Further information see http://www.qinetiq.com
PERFORMANCE PARTNER OF THE DAY : OYS
Official rigging and hydraulics supplier to Nick and the Offshore Challenges Sailing Team
http://www.nickmoloney.com/oys
For more information visit http://www.nickmoloney.com or contact :
Helen King
hk@offshorechallenges.com
T : +44(0)870 063 0210
M : +44(0)7870 678360
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