Figaro Solo Transatlantic race 2005 08.04.2005 DAY 6: CLOSE ENCOUNTER WITH SHIP & 18KTS WITH EYES SHUT! Skandia is a leading provider of long-term savings and pioneer of the highly successful multi-manager investment approach. IN BRIEF: * SKANDIA 6TH AFTER NIGHT OF SPINNAKER RUNNING IN STRONG NORTH-EAST WINDS GUSTING UP TO 30KTS… * "I'M FEELING QUITE GOOD, IT'S PROBABLY THE ADRENALINE THAT KEEPS YOU GOING WHEN THE CONDITIONS ARE LIKE THIS..." * SAM HAS CLOSE ENCOUNTER WITH SHIP, "THERE WAS REALLY BAD VISIBILITY, I THOUGHT IF I'M GOING head ON TO THIS SHIP THEN IT'S GOING TO COME UP REALLY QUICKLY..." * WITH 440NM TO THE CLOSEST ISLAND OF THE AZORES, THE FLEET ARE STARTING TO THINK ABOUT THE TACTICAL DECISIONS FOR THEIR APPROACH... IN DETAIL: SKANDIA holds 6th position after a night of spinnaker running in strong NE winds, at times gusting up to 30kts, with an average speed of 10+ knots. The races' 24 hour record will be one to watch today with these speeds set to continue, "I don't know what my top speed is so far, I think it's 18knots. Quite often when you do your record speed you have your eyes shut!" Charles Caudrelier (BOSTIK) is now back in the lead. Yannick Bestaven (AQUARELLE.COM) moves up to 4th while BANQUE POPULAIRE drops down one place to 5th. Further place changing is expected today as the strong downwind conditions take their toll on tired skippers. Sam's night onboard SKANDIA didn't go to plan...after re-configuring SKANDIA's sail plan, so she could switch to autopilot allowing her to eat and get some sleep, her 'See Me' alarm starting going off... "I had just decided to put the big boy's sails away and the big girl's sails up and go and sleep. Just as I sorted everything out, and went inside, I heard a beep....beep...there was really bad visibility so I thought if I'm going head on to this ship then it's going to come up really quickly so I can't sleep. It was frustrating. It turned out that the ship was coming up from behind which meant it took AGES to catch up and AGES to pass, and when it did, it went quite close down the starboard side." Sam finally managed to get her head down afterwards, "I'm feeling quite good, it's probably the adrenaline that keeps you going when the conditions are like this. You find how tired you are when you get on the helm for a long period of time and after 2 hours if your head starts nodding you realise you're tired. At the moment I feel ok. I think I got quite a lot of sleep last night (the 2nd half of last night) - I was dreaming and everything!" There are mixed feelings between the other skippers this morning. While leader Charles Caudrelier (BOSTIK) had a good night's sleep, "I had my automatic pilot on all night and slept well, everything is perfect", this morning other skippers were feeling quite the opposite. Jeanne Grégoire (BANQUE POPULAIRE): "I was very tired last night as I hadn't slept the night before. I didn't know where I was and broached several times so I needed 2 hours to have the boat back in order." Dominic Vittet (ATAO AUDIO SYSTEM), "I was inside and the boat went out of control, in 2 seconds everything was upside down. I ended up on the other side of the cabin, couldn't breath for a couple a seconds, and I feel in pain now but I don't think anything is broken." With around 440nm to the closest island of the Azores, the fleet will be starting to think about the tactical decisions and strategy on their approach, Sam has been looking at routing options, "As as we approach the Azores there's a really light patch - there's an option to hold your course high and go south of nearly all of the islands, that way you stay in the wind when you end up going south into the trade winds. The other 2 options I've looked at take you north, through a really light spot so it will be interesting to see who chooses which option. It's a few days away yet so it's difficult to tell, but you've got to decide earlier enough to get south because it's quite a long way south to go if you don't go direct to Flores [the NW island of the Azores, which boats must pass south of]. It should be interesting in the next few days." The North-East wind is forecasted to turn eastwards to a South-East, with no change in wind speeds which are between 15-25knots. EMAIL LOG FROM SAM (0844HRS) Yesterday was FUN! Surfing along with the asymmetric spi up, full index in 22 knots of wind, with squalls of 30 knots! The squalls got a bit hairy towards the end because it was a black, black night - no moon, no stars, cloudy sky and big, unforgiving waves! In fact, in the last squall (of my big sail configuration) I was in all kind of trouble trying to keep up with the wind shifts and waves - and that was me steering! I wasn't sure that the pilot would cope at all! - Correct! I needed to rest (because I had been steering all day), so I decided to change down to small spi and anti-wrap net - the black night sleeping configuration! The wind had come aft a bit too. That was interesting - getting the pilot to hold for long enough to do a safe drop! Luckily I managed! Once the small spi was up, I left the pilot on and she seemed happy. However, the next 30 knot squall wiped us out. Re-try new configuration - vang right off, barbers on, bear away a bit more - that seemed more stable. I managed to have dinner (chilli - very nice thank you Ellen - one of the leftovers!) until the next hairy situation! In the end, I put in a reef and the vang back on because I didn't want to damage the indexsail on the spreaders. Very safe, but it is good not to break anything at this early stage in the race! Then, typical - my See Me alarm starts going off, to let me know there is a ship around. It is very reliable, so I knew there was a ship, and the visibility wasn't that good, so with my boatspeed at 14knots, the ship at 18, we could be closing at over 30 knots and that doesn't give much time to get out the way (especially when you are limited in ability to turn due to hairy downwind conditions!) SO, I still couldn't sleep. I set my alarm at 5 min intervals to check for the ship, which was getting closer due to the alarm sounding more regular... Eventually, it showed up behind me and passed close by the starboard side which seemed to take ages because I was going fast! So, finally I managed to sleep, which was great, but I had a horrible dream. So I went back to sleep again and the second dream was better!!! (With the gloves on!) Now, I am back up and fast running with big spinnaker and full index. The wind has shifted more, and I decided to gybe as my strategy is to stay South of the fleet for the approach to the Azores. The trouble is that the wind shift seemed temporary, so I may have to gybe back again... Sam xx TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO WITH SAM Can you explain your close encounter... "It was annoying - I had just decided to put the big boy sails away and the big girls sails up and go and sleep, Just as I sorted everything out, and went inside, I heard a beep...beep...The 'See-Me' is pretty good - it doesn't pick up all the ships but if it starts beeping there definitely a ship around.There was really bad visibility so I thought if I'm going head on to this ship then it's going to come up really quickly so I can't sleep. So it was frustrating. It turned out the the ship was coming up from behind which meant it took AGES to catch up and AGES to pass, and when it did, it went quite close down the starboard side." With seven boats in a line advancing towards the Azores, with you on the south side, it's amazing how close this is... "Yeah it's pretty cool. I was talking to Lionel Pean (Race Director) who said, 'It's a great race - we're really enjoying it'. It's going to be exciting. I'm just looking at routing options, and as we approach the Azores there's a really light patch - there's an option to hold your course high and go south of nearly all of the islands, that way you stay in the wind when you end up going south into the trade winds. The other 2 options I've looked at take you north, through a really light spot so it will be interesting to see who chooses which option. It's a few days away yet so it's difficult to tell but you've got to decide earlier enough to get south because it's quite a long way south to go if you don't go direct to Flores. It should be interesting in the next few days. My feeling is go to south as you can probably see in my position but I'm not entirely sure about definitely for the approach to the Azores I'm happy about being one of southern most boats." You mentioned having a few wipeouts during the night - what sails did you have up at the time? "I didn't wipeout with the asymmetric, I actually took it down before just because it's a really strong sail and I know that, that sail would never break but if things did go horribly wrong it could break something else - the pole or the boat. In actual fact one of the spinnaker pole ends is completely bent - i have to hammer it open and close now- the ring on the mast is completely bent just through the loads on the asymmetric yesterday so I'm going to have to use just one pole and one ring just for asymmetric under pressure and have to hammer it open and close now. So that was why I took it down before i wiped out. I had a few other wipeouts with the small spinnaker but that's kind of normal - it happened just as I was setting up the pilot. I was trying to work out how to set the trim of the boat and the pilot to keep it going through the gusts. It was gusting from 20 up to 30 knots and it was shifting - with shifts of 20degrees the pilot is all over the place." What has the sea state been like? "Yesterday they were quite disorganised, and also we were sailing a bit closer to the wind but now we're more downwind and now there's nice big rollers, hooning down the waves - we're going 16.5knots at the moment - she's surfing!!" What is your record speed so far? "I don't know, I have my eyes shut...I think it's about 18knots. Quite often when you do your record speed you have your eyes shut or you're looking at the sails - working out which rope to let go of first!" How are you feeling physically? "I'm feeling quite good, it's probably the adrenaline that keeps you going when the conditions are like this. You find how tired you are when you get on the helm for a long period of time and after 2 hours if your head starts nodding you realise you're tired. At the moment I feel ok. I think I got quite a lot of sleep last night (the 2nd half of last night) - i was dreaming and everything!" So far, is this race what you had expected? "Yes it is meeting expectations - it's really good fun, we've been lucky with the weather cause we've gone really fast so the scenery is going by really quickly so it's an interesting race to navigate. There's not enough time in the day to do everything. With the boat quite lively like this, you want to be steering all the time. At the moment, the boat is a real mess inside, I haven't had enough time to tidy up. It is how i expected it - I'm really pleased it's as close as it is - that's what make it fun. You just don't know what’s going to happen next!" Listen to the full audio from Sam at Audio/Video section of website Communications thanks to BT Broadband JARGON BUSTER 'See Me' Alarm - An active radar transponder - when it gets 'pinged' by a radar is alerts the skipper with an alarm below (to let them know they are being tracked) and bounces back a bigger signal - making SKANDIA look bigger on the radar screen. A really important set of eyes for a solo sailor. Even with this technology it's unlikely that Sam will sleep for more than 20 mins at a time. LATEST POSITIONS 1000 BST 8/4/05 (boat name / boat speed /distance to leader) 1. BOSTIK / 9.7kts / 3460.4nm to finish 2. CREDIT MARITIME - ZEROTWO / 9.5kts / +0.8nm 3. CERCLE VERT / 9.9kts / +12.9nm 4. AQUARELLE.COM / 9.6kts / +18.6nm 5. BANQUE POPULAIRE / 8.9kts / +26.5nm 6. SKANDIA / 9.0kts / +39.0nm 7. COUTOT ROEHRIG / 9.6kts / +39.3nm 8. TOTAL / 9.3kts / +41.3nm 9. GEDIMAT / 9.9kts / +48.7m 10. LITTLE BLACK SHARK / 7.2kts / +59.0nm 11. ENTREPRENDRE AU PAYS DE LORIENT / 9.2kts / 63.2nm 12. ATAO AUDIO SYSTEM / 10.3kts / +73.2nm Click here for full positions report Official race website: http://www.trophee-bpe2005.com (French only) 2005 FIGARO PROGRAMME 3 April: Trophée BPE 2005 (St.Nazaire – Cienfuegos, Cuba) 6-25 June: La Generali Solo 2005 1-28 August: La Solitaire Afflelou Le Figaro 2005 PARTNER OF THE DAY : PLASTIMO Official Supplier of Boating Equipment to Sam Davies http://www.samdavies.com/plastimo Email powered by Active 24 For more information visit http://www.samdavies.com/skandia or contact : Josie Robinson (English) josie@offshorechallenges.com T: +44(0) 870 063 0210 Caroline Muller (Francais) bienvenue@welcomeonboard.fr T: +33 (0)6 80 40 00 24 Other information sources online: Finistère Course au Large Classe Figaro Bénéteau Copyright © 1996-2016 - SEGEL.DE