7 February, 2007
VELUX 5 OCEANS - Leg 2, Day 25 Report
BERNARD PUTS STAMM IN STAMINA AS HE ROUNDS CAPE HORN
* Bernard Stamm (SUI) rounds Cape Horn but stays south
* Unai Basurko (ESP) loses wind instruments
* Graham Dalton (NZL) works through the night to make gains
Shortly before 21:30 UTC last night, the Swiss skipper scorched passed the Horn on a single gybe at 16 knots, leaving the infamous island to port. However, passing the Horn this time for Stamm will be a marked contrast to his previous passing when he discovered he had broken his keel and was forced to make a pit-stop in the Falkland Islands. After sailing over 4,000 miles of bottomless Pacific Ocean abyss, Stamm encountered harsh conditions as the sea bed rose to just 68 metres off the cape.
The 10:20 UTC position poll places Stamm just past the Isla de Los Estados, north-east of Cape Horn in the South Atlantic. Stamm avoided slipping through the Le Maire Strait, a narrow and dangerous 15 mile wide channel between indexland Argentina and the Isla de Los Estados, opting instead for the longer route and continuing north-east. This reason for this was to avoid the dangerous weather conditions and increased risk posed by this body of water as he sails cautiously out of the Pacific into the Atlantic.
Cheminées Poujoulat has now banked an extra 14 miles over Spirit of Yukoh in second place: this lead of 1810 miles doesn't make Stamm complacent about his lead. He is constantly reviewing the weather systems to retain an optimum position so that he doesn't get penned into a high pressure system in the Atlantic which could cost him dearly. Meanwhile, in mid-Pacific, Kojiro Shiraishi continues due east, taking the Japanese Open 60 above the latitude of the second mandatory race ice gate and holding off any advance by third place Unai Basurko 1,000 miles to the west.
Earlier this morning, Basurko reported a rip in his headsail, explaining that any effective repairs would have to wait until the sail was dry. Having passed Ice Gate 1, Basurko has decided that the south westerly wind and southerly swell means that he can continue on a southerly course as he heads deeper into the Southern Ocean. Basurko also reported today that he has lost all of his wind instruments. Both windexes, the one at the top of the mast and at the stern have been broken off.
Basurko's northern position, loss of wind instruments and sail damage has allowed Kiwi skipper, Graham Dalton, to steal much needed miles from the Spanish yacht, taking the Open 50, A Southern Man - AGD to within 101 miles of Pakea. Currently further south than Pakea, off Basurko's starboard quarter, Dalton reported 28 knots of breeze at latitude 52° South. Working the night-shift last night to get the best out of the breezy opportunity Dalton's efforts have paid off on the track today.
"A grey mist on the sea's face and a grey dawn breaking," wrote Sir Robin Knox-Johnston this morning, quoting from John Masefield's poem, 'Sea-Fever'. However, this calm narrative distorts the fact that Knox-Johnston has had a grueling night. The headboard car attaching the top of the indexsail to the mast track on SAGA Insurance has broken. This vital component allows the sail to slide up and down the indexsail track fixed to the trailing edge of the mast.
Knox-Johnston has made a temporary fix and is now able to sail with a small area of indexsail, hoisted to just below the third reef. With reduced sail, SAGA Insurance has lost 24 miles overnight on fourth place A Southern Man - AGD and now trails the yellow Open 50 by 80 miles in terms of Distance To Leader. Knox-Johnston reported a south-westerly Force 6 (22-27 mph), gusting to Force 7 (28-33 mph) with frequent squalls and will continue repair work when conditions allow.
Bernard Stamm, CHEMINEES POUJOULAT:
"I am very happy to leave the Pacific. Cape Horn is the target since Fremantle and to reach it is very satisfying. Le Maire Strait, has very bad weather and can be very dangerous, with a big risk so I am heading east for one day."
"With weather systems you are obliged to reach another system or stay in the same one. With Kojiro he missed the pressure in the Pacific but this could happen to me in the Atlantic. I am still racing and for me it's not finished."
Kojiro Shiraishi, SPIRIT OF YUKOH:
"Today we have a lot of gusting with variable wind, so we have a lot of manoeuvres. The wind too is now a headwind, but we should be able to keep our course. The waves are not bad. I just want to get past this way point and start heading south again. The Maxsea routing software is being kept very busy although not instilling much confidence as it is showing a radically different course after every grib download. First it is indicating we should head east, and then we should head directly south and then somewhere in between. So I am being kept on my toes and leaving the decisions as late as possible to based on the latest information."
"Tonight should be the last night where we are still heading for this waypoint. This ice gate has been very troublesome for me. Before we never had these ice gates which made sailing a lot more simple and direct, but equally more dangerous because we would naturally sail much further south."
Sir Robin Knox-Johnston, SAGA INSURANCE:
"A grey mist on the seas face and a grey dawn breaking" (*) describes how today started. Cold, clammy and misty. But to this was added the calamity of the new indexsail headboard slider connection coming adrift, (**) and when I got it down I discovered it had sheared one of its lugs. It came apart because its connecting pin dropped out. There are bits of it up the mast, bits broken and bits missing, not an encouraging situation. So now I can't hold the top of the indexsail to the (mast) track. I put a spare slide on as a stopgap but it did not survive the first gybe and came off the track, hopefully doing no damage on the way."
"I have some index set at the moment, a fathom or so short of the 3rd reef, (i.e. the top third of the indexsail) but it is baggy because I don't want to put too much pull on the leech (the back edge of the sail) and wouldn't get me to windward and will be a critical handicap if I cannot fix it when we get lighter conditions."
Unai Basurko, PAKEA:
"I have some damage on the indexsail. It is a little too windy and too wet to repair and I am must wait. I don't have a windex. I lost the one on the top of the mast and the back of the stern has gone so I have no wind instruments but they are not important. I have a south westerly wind and the swell comes from the south. I can go more South. I am happy sailing 62 degrees South. I don't like to think about Cape Horn but I think I'll could be there in the next 10 days."
Graham Dalton, A SOUTHERN MAN AGD:
"I stayed up all night and worked. I could see the weather was going to change and I thought that the other guys were going to bed in their pyjamas with their teddy bears. I don't like to talk about the problems I have got on the boat. You are just making excuses for your performance so they stay onboard with me. I knew that in Fremantle we just didn't have enough time and the boat was 99% there and I was going to find out about the 1% at sea."
"The weather in terms of the Southern Ocean is pretty damn good. I haven't had any thermals and no gloves. My hands are little cold but the conditions are positively benign. I am actually enjoying it. Last time [rounding Cape Horn] we got absolutely smashed, the boom broke and I got rolled upside down and the wind was gusting 70 knots."
Boat Positions as at 10:20 UTC 7 February 2007
Yacht
Skipper
Latitude
Longitude
Course (°)
Speed (knot)
DTL (nautical miles)
DTF (nautical miles)
Dist - last Pos (nautical miles)
Dist - 24h (nautical miles)
Average speed - 24h (knots)
VMG - 24h (knots)
1
Cheminées Poujoulat
Bernard Stamm
55° 29.80 S
061° 58.08 W
70
18.3
6783
64
352.7
14.69
13.05
2
Spirit of Yukoh
Kojiro Shiraishi
52° 16.56 S
114° 13.88 W
131
14
1810
8594
50
233.3
9.72
9.72
3
PAKEA
Unai Basurko
51° 39.72 S
141° 57.24 W
84
15.1
2829
9613
56.7
232.8
9.7
9.36
4
A Southern Man-AGD
Graham Dalton
52° 32.96 S
145° 04.64 W
70
10.3
2928
9711
52.6
252.7
10.53
10.25
5
SAGA Insurance
Sir Robin Knox-Johnston
50° 09.84 S
145° 08.28 W
88
13.1
2971
9754
75.1
232.5
9.69
9.36
- END -
For more information on VELUX 5 OCEANS please visit www.velux5oceans.com , or contact:
Tim Kelly / Justine Ozoux / Kate Fairclough
RACE PRESS OFFICE: + 44 20 7494 1616
E: tim.kelly@pitchpr.com / justine@pitchpr.com / kate@pitchpr.com
|
