Route du Rhum-Banque Postale Start 29. Oktober 2006 - St.Malo www.routedurhum.org - Übersicht 12/11/2006 HOT FINISH BETWEEN PHIL SHARP AND GILDAS MORVAN Life should have become easier at sea many days ago. Right after the Azores, the skippers should have caught nice steady Trade Winds that would have pushed them straight to Guadeloupe. Well, that was the nice postcard description before the start ! Not only was the best road in this race in the shattering low pressure systems in the North Atlantic, but now the skippers are getting much closer to Guadeloupe and there are no Trade Winds to welcome them. Just a weak breath of Eolus. And, while Pointe à Pitre is resting – the next arrival is planned in one day – the intensity of the battle at sea between Phil Sharp (philsharpracing.com) and Gildas Morvan (Oyster Funds) is building up gradually. Every time the 4-hourly pollings came down in the last 24hours the gap between them literally resembles a rubber band and both know how to push their boats (Phil Sharp being entitled of the 24h record during the Mini Transat last Year). The finish in the 40-footer class – the ETA for the 1st is early on Wednesday 15 - is quite promising ! Phil could be the only Britton after Ellen MacArthur to finish first in his class in the Route du Rhum – La Banque Postale. Dominique Wavre 5th Temenos auf den letzten Metern IMOCA 60 mohonulls Dominique Wavre (Temenos) finished in 5th place on Saturday evening (French time) on his brand new Open 60 after 13d,09h,20'03"at sea. That is 21h21'05" after Roland Jourdain. Brian Thompson (Artemis – former Pindar) quickly followed, and crossed the line 1h after Temenos, the only newborn 60-footer to finish the Route du Rhum – La Banque Postale . It was the first solo crossing on a 60-footer in Brian’s sailing career and he is not far from his objective to finish 5th. He commented that this race was a bit a learning curve for his next competitions in solo racing on a 60-footer. Anne Liardet (Roxy) is the next one to cross the line in the IMOCA class and should arrive by tomorrow evening. Brian Thompson ist 6. 40- footer monohulls The gap between Phil Sharp (philsharpracing.com) and Gildas Morvan (Oyster Funds) has gone “Yo-Yo” since yesterday: 101 miles of lead for Phil at 8 AM in regards to the 70/80 miles yesterday and back to 80 miles at noon). As it is the time for the front runner to make his lead comfortable before the weak winds predicted at the arrival, the reception of the polling on board might generate a few shots of adrenaline. For now the front leaders are sailing in the same low pressure system after their crossing of the front. On both boats the reduction or the extension of the gap means it is time to push one step harder which is generally synonymous to driving the boat rather than leaving it to the pilot...and get tired. And, after the loss of his gennaker, Phil has now to deal with another problem onboard...his waking up alarm is not working anymore ! What could seem as a detail for us on land is quite tricky for a solo sailor who needs to manage his sleeping time very carefully. The usual scheme is 1h30 – 2h in 30-40 minutes snatches to be on deck for the manoeuver and push the boat as hard as possible. Phil had a lot more than 5 hours ! Nevertheless, so far it did not seem to handicap him too much, as he increased his advantage after his good night’s sleep ! Dominic Vittet (Atao Audio System) – 3rd – is now already 355.2 miles away from Phil (or 2 days). This gap seems, today, difficult to narrow for the skippers who chose a southern road and did not find the winds they were expecting. With less than 600 miles to the end, the finish might really turn into a duel between Phil and Gildas. In the front, Phil should touch the weaker winds first which could give Gildas – and some others - the opportunity to home in. At least, the rain showers are getting warmer, giving the skippers who spent 13 days at sea now a chance to wash themselves and get rid of their wet suits for a bit of time. QUOTES OF THE DAY Phil Sharp / philsharpracing.com I am a lot less tired than yesterday. Probably because I have a little problem with my alarm. The one I use currently, which is a car alarm, is broken so I have real problems waking myself up. Last night I was supposed to wake up at 3 o’clock in the morning and I woke up at 8:30 ! But I just go as fast when I sleep and do nothing ! The wind was veering quite a lot yesterday so I started under the jib and I was doing as well as I could with the jib because I don’t have my genaker and the wind changed quite drastically so I put the spinaker up. That was an easy day really hot rain showers. Ideal conditions. I sailed pretty hard yesterday and we managed to get out of the front and got some good winds to the West so that helps a lot. Now I am pretty happy because we increased the gap. I neet to keep it like this and make sure that we can cover Morvan to the finish. We plan to the finish, and make sure we’re not going to be in a different weather system than Morvan because when there are winds so light you just want to make sure no one is going to be lucky on Tuesday or Wednesday. I feel quite tired because I had too much sleep. I feel drowsy. I got up and I am cooking myself a meal. I was already hungry last night but decided to get to sleep first and now I am unbelievibly hungry and I ‘ll pull over if I don’t shoot something quickly in my stomach. RankingsOn 11/13/2006 12:00 Monohulls IMOCA Roland JourdainSill et Veolia Classe 1 Pierre-Yves GuennecJeunes Dirigeants Classe 2 Kip StoneArtforms Classe 3 Michel KleinjansRoaring Forty Classe 40 Phil Sharpphilsharpracing.com Multihulls ORMA Lionel lemonchoisGitana 11 Classe 2 Franck-Yves EscoffierCrêpes Whaou! Classe 3 Pierre AntoineImagine-Institut des Maladies Génétiques Copyright © 1996-2016 - SEGEL.DE