Oceanracing 2006 - Route du Rhum

Route du Rhum-Banque Postale
Start 29. Oktober 2006 - St.Malo
www.routedurhum.org - Übersicht

31.10.2006
Damage on TEMENOS
It is constantly reiterated that sailing is a mechanical sport and Vincent Riou paid the price yesterday evening aboard his brand new monohull. On learning the news Dominique, who was surprised to no longer be able to make out the mast of the orange monohull in his wake, immediately put two and two together about what had happened to the skipper of PRB at the end of the day.

Breakage is something feared by all sailors, particularly those whose new steeds have just been launched like TEMENOS. Shortly before the start, the skipper shared with us his heightened concern during the period of running in and fine tuning a new boat.

At 0100 hours this morning, Dominique indicated to his shore crew that there was a daggerboard issue aboard TEMENOS. Just at the point where a change of tack was being prepared for, the daggerboard dropped down too far in its casing and was caught above the upper block.

Dominique was quickly forced to slow the boat down in order to remove the pressure from the appendage as much as possible, as it was threatening to damage the hull around the daggerboard casing.

Eventually he was forced to take the upper block apart, in order to try to get the daggerboard free.
After over 3 hours of work the skipper was back racing again, making good speed in the downwind conditions.

In 4th place yesterday evening and 26 miles from the leader Virbac-Paprec, TEMENOS found herself back down in 6th position, flashed doing 1.9 knots at the 0400 hours ranking and over 55 miles behind the frontrunner.
Making the most of the steady downwind conditions, TEMENOS should also be able to rack up some good averages. In any case, there is no question that the overall speeds should be far greater than those from the very slow start to the race and the skipper will really be able to put the boat’s abilities to the test under these conditions.

Caught up in the light conditions, the skippers who haven’t really been able to rest until now, should get some respite now in the medium winds. It will certainly be well earned for Dominique who will have had to sacrifice the bulk of his sleep once again.

At the 0800 ranking TEMENOS had regained both her speed and 5th position and was flashed making over 16 knots of instantaneous speed.

Kate Jennings P.O. Box 26 Dartmouth.