Press Release
Monday 13th December 2004
15h00 GMT 13 December 2004
1. PRB (Vincent Riou) 13362.6 miles from the finish.
2. Bonduelle (Jean Le Cam) 68.7 miles from the leader.
3. Sill et Véolia (Roland Jourdain) 248.1 miles from the leader.
Australia in less than 37 days!
Vincent Riou (PRB) has a 68.7-mile lead over Jean Le Cam today averaging 16.2 knots of boat speed over the past 4 hours. Second placed Le Cam was the first to cross the second southern ocean gateway late last night, 600 miles South-West of Tasmania (1000 miles from the Australian coast, at 52° S with a Western extremity of 136° E and the other at 147° E). Just 179.4 miles behind him, Roland Jourdain (Sill et Véolia) became the third to pass the gateway late this morning around 3 hours after Riou. The trio are now south bound propelled along by a fine 30-knot North-Westerly in more organised seas and a more constant average wind than of late. Suffice to say that conditions for speed are ideal, other than the fact that the wind is blowing rather too hard down their course. Sébastien Josse (VMI) and Mike Golding (Ecover) will be following suit in the coming hours, though Mike is likely to lose some ground through his more southerly position and hence later passage of the gateway compared to Josse. The presence of the Australian high pressure zone is contributing to the acceleration of the general westerly airflow, and for the top five, there are no depressions in view before the entry into Pacific waters, next Saturday at the latest. They are likely to pass the western tip of Australia, Cape Leeuwin, tomorrow morning, after what will be a staggering 37 days of high speed sailing, knocking a possible 4 days off the record...
Revelling in the sailing, Vincent Riou (PRB) was in good spirits late morning today, “I passed the gate quickly though I gybed a bit late and had to cross through the middle of it. We have a nice stable flow to carry us to the next waypoint. We’re likely to have 20 to 25 knots of downwind in the next 2 to 3 days. Last night I sailed in 25 knots of wind with great sea and it’s fun again. I’m sailing under 1 reefed index and solent. The boats behind us must have had the same conditions with 30 knots of wind with 1 or 2 reefs and trinquette, which would have been great. The air is 13 degrees and the water 9 degrees. Until the entrance into the Pacific it looks like we’ve got high speed downwind sailing and I reckon to be around 12 hours from Cape Leeuwin.”
In contrast, both in terms of mood and technique, second placed Jean Le Cam (Bonduelle) sounded particularly tired even though he reckoned he’d slept really well as usual and joked of being forced on deck in just his ‘pyjamas’ and socks to get the boat back on track again after it wiped out in 45 knots of breeze. “I took the shortest route to cross the waypoint at the very beginning. I was pushing hard during the day and I slowed down to spare the boat. I put up the trinquette and slept. Vincent decided to keep pushing but I deemed that no longer reasonable. I refuse to play such a dangerous game. We haven’t done half of the race yet and I’m not prepared to do 17 knots of reaching all night – you couldn’t steer for more than 15 minutes. We both messed up the layline though Vincent messed it up more than I did so he had to push afterwards. For now the conditions are better but everything is under autopilot.”
Roland Jourdain (Sill et Véolia) has had his mind on other things of late after spotting a broken upper fixture on the bracket holding his port rudder this weekend. Having spent a good deal of time reinforcing the piece and drilling bolts through it he is happy that his rudder is now going to be able to take the pace...so happy that in fact he has had by far the best speed over the past 24 hours and beyond racking up 438.7 miles.
Fourth placed Sébastien Josse (VMI) is in hot pursuit with 422.7 miles in the past 24 hours though the picture would seem less rosy for fifth placed Mike Golding (Ecover) who looks to set more ground on the leaders in the coming hours as he has to get in quite a few miles of northing to pass the southern gateway, virtually on Josse’s direct course. “I didn’t have a good day yesterday really” said Mike. “I think I’ve lost 30 miles from where I should be. Call it what you like, maybe I copped out, but I’m a bit bruised. It was blowing hard, about 45 knots, in hard reaching conditions, so I took a deep reef. I was getting tired and it was just uncontrollable. We had a surf rolling in from behind. You’ll be going along at 16-18 knots and then you’ll get picked up and suddenly you’re doing speeds of 24, 26, sometimes 28 knots. It’s a whole different game from running, doing this reaching, because the loads go up exponentially. All in all, it was a bit scary. I was convinced something was going to get broken. So I put in a reef, grabbed some sleep, and I when I woke up and it was time to shake the reef out again, I was 30 miles down. It’s a perfect illustration that if you have one reef wrong – and I’m not talking about the sail plan being massively wrong - for three hours, then you can lose 30 miles, which is just extraordinary. It’s not just the speed, it’s not like we’re doing 10 miles an hours slower, it’s putting in the reef, shaking out the reef. I just think I lost my bottle for a while. It’s just outrageously wet, there’s a huge amount of water coming across the boat. Just wave action alone broke the one-and-a-quarter inch carbon support for the antenna, so I’ve been out fixing that this morning.”
Leading the second group, Dominic Wavre (Temenos) spoke of dark threatening skies, Jean Pierre Dick (Virbac Paprec) had fixed his gooseneck and was on the warpath while Nick Moloney (Skandia) was feeling the effects of gusts that come at you like a ‘punch in your chest,’ the latter the first to hit the harsh effects of a strong depression, slightly south of Wavre and Dick. They still have 2 700 miles to cover before making the more clement waters of the Pacific.
Ocean Planet and VM Matériaux have passed north of the Crozet Islands, with Arcelor-Dunkerque just ahead. For the time being these three boats are the only ones to have taken this course alongside Pro-Form. The latter has just entered the roaring 40’s for the first time. All three of them are running a certain risk about to be slowed by a ridge of high pressure which has had the time to form between the passage of two depressions. The depression to the west will affect the latter racers while the one to the east is likely to give Skandia a good shake tonight.
At the tail of the fleet, Akena Verandas and Benefic are sailing at the same latitude, with just 34 miles between them. They will have a day of respite before the arrival of another depression which will pass over them on Tuesday. Ahead of them Roxy and Max Havelaar Best Western are sailing on very similar longitudes. Solely Roxy passed north of the Prince Edward Islands last night, while Max Havelaar Best Western went south of the archipelago. 110 miles separate them in latitude and both are on a southerly course to take them around the Crozet Islands.
Once again the frontrunners, that is the group of five, will become richer in the coming days.
Quotes from the Boats:
Jean Pierre Dick (Virbac Paprec):
“I’ve had difficult conditions. I have a big problem with my automatic pilot which is set to use as little power as possible. When the wind gets too strong the pilot can’t handle it. It broached away and the gooseneck broke again. I changed the gooseneck yesterday afternoon. It was very long and cold and difficult. It was the hardest manoeuvre of my life in 30 knots of wind. I’m really happy I managed to do it. Now everything is tough because everything is manual: the keel, the watermaker etc...I have to steer for 6-7 hours a day when it’s bad but when it’s a good day I helm for around 2 hours. I am worried about the weather conditions to come. I really want to get to Cape Horn safely. I’m currently sailing downwind in 30-35 knots of wind. It should be stronger tonight with a wind shift from the north-east with 40 -45 knots.”
Joé Seeten (Arcelor Dunkerque):
“I’ve got no port rudder for the moment as there was simply too much sea to change it off the Ile de Cochons. The chart I had wasn’t great. I had a devil’s job trying to anchor, losing the first mooring altogether. The boat kept turning round and round on its mooring. There were penguins and birds everywhere with quite a lot of current. I battled for about twelve hours but had to give up in the end. After leaving I obviously still had just the one rudder and a gust of wind sent the boat into a broach with the rudder up in the air. I’m currently sailing north-east on port tack. I’ve got around 30 knots of wind with 4 or 5 metre waves and I’m expecting a calm at around 1400 GMT where I can make repairs to the damaged port rudder blade. It’s a bit of a shame to see others get away but I feel like I can do this.”
Nick Moloney (Skandia):
“I had 47 knots of wind and had absolutely no idea what speed I was doing. I rolled her right into weather and just don’t know how I didn’t gybe. I was shit scared. The wind was really howling. The gust of the century. When the gusts come in it really hammers, so like the Whitbread, like a punch in the chest. I think the gusts are more intense because the cold air is more dense and I was so sure it was going to snow because the whole sky was brown. I was fine slipping off the Kerguelen shelf and had no stress with it all the other night, but here it is just too intense when the breeze is over 40. The seas are actually ok at the moment, slightly on the beam.”
Conrad Humphreys (Hellomoto):
“I’ve been totally becalmed for last 4-5 hours! I dropped the indexsail as otherwise it’s more damaging to the battens slopping around from side to side. I’m heading directly south with the genoa up going at ½ knot boat speed. I was trying to get round this high pressure ridge but I couldn’t get in front of it, so I pointed the bow directly eastwards, which was probably a mistake as the wind died out then. I hope by mid-afternoon to start seeing the breeze freshen, and then either tonight or tomorrow morning it should build up to 40 - 45 knots. It’s been slow progress this weekend, I’ve covered only 500 – 600 miles so far since leaving Cape Town. The swell indicates something meatier coming up behind us and the barometer is on its way back down. To be brutally honest it’s taking me more time to get my rhythm back. I look at the fleet and it’s hard to shake the fog from my head there wondering if I can make an impact on the fleet. I shall start picking off some of the boats immediately around me. Nick’s (Skandia) the same distance ahead of me as he is behind the leaders, so if I can start making some inroads into him then that would be very satisfying.
Marc Thiercelin (Pro-Form):
“It’s war! Winds of 40 knots. There’s no point me heading down in search of a storm as my ProForm rarely needs a lot of wind to go fast and in 45 knots of wind...”
Source: Vendée Globe 2004
www.vendeeglobe.org
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Tel: +33 1 55 56 62 95 - Fax : +33 1 55 56 62 90 - @ : press@vendeeglobe.fr
French Media: Caroline Concetti, Anne Millet and Soazig Guého
International Media: Sabina Mollart-Rogerson, Ophélie Théron
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