13/11/2006
TWIN ROUTES
There is a pack of 4 that, in their respective classes (40-footer and Class 2), took twin trajectories in this race. Two skippers (Phil Sharp and Servane Escoffier) who crossed the tracks of their opponents after the Azores for a northwestery option; 4 front leaders that dug the gap with the rest of their respective classes; four boats that are less that 500 miles from the arrival line. And, two leaders, who are down at least one sail (gennaker for Phil Sharp, Code 5 and Solent for Kip Stone). Now, less than 3 days to sail in, it's time for Phil Sharp (40-footer) and Kip Stone (Class 2 monohull) to keep their followers under control and, as the basic sailing rule says: stay in between the opponent and the mark. Both skippers have in mind that the loss of their gennakers handicaps the performance of their boats in “reaching”, which is the pace of the finish before entering the shadowed and puffy road behind the Souffrières Mountains ! Noone knows yet who is going to have the last word in this story !
IMOCA
Anne Liardet (Roxy) sees Marc Guillemot (Safran) hopelessly gaining on her as the winds are refilling his sails. Marc, who homed in on Anne yesterday thought it would be a good thing to give the end of the race a bit of excitement and play a regatta-like finish ! That was before the winds escapes from his sailS ! Today he is a bit nervous about the situation.
Anne is still some 246 miles away from Pointe-à- Pitre with an average of 129 miles on the last 24 hours.
Class 2 Monohulls
Kip Stone (Artforms) knows how much Servane Escoffier would be happy to pass him along in memory to a previous experience during the Transat Jacques Vabre. At that time he said (in his skipper's log) : “I erased a similarly large lead while she was stuck in a windless hole, and my long afternoon was made all the longer knowing that she'd like to do nothing better than to repay the favor “. Servane is now just 68.8 miles behind Kip, but on a very favourable position in terms of wind than the American skipper.
She also shows the best average in the last 24 hours, with 252.8 miles swallowed in, while Kip sailed 193.6 miles.
Luc Coquelin (Cap Guadeloupe), 3rd, is polled 452 miles behinds the leader. The 4th skipper in the Class Denis Douillez (AOI solidarité Dentaire), still has 1,414 miles to run before the arrival line.
40-Footer Class
Phil Sharp's advance on Gildas Morvan (Oyster Funds) is melting down like an ice cream under the Tropical sun. Up to 140 miles three days ago, it has now been reduced to 58 miles (12:00 PM), but that was a predictable story, not to the advantage of the leader though, who sees his pursuer homing in !
The rest of the fleet is also coming back, but from far away, as Dominic Vittet (Atao Audio System) in 3rd position, shows a deficit of 400 miles behind Phil Sharp.
Phil (philsharpracing.com) is coming down upon Gildas' trajectory. Two interpretations are possible here: as he said yesterday, he wants to stay in the same weather system as Gildas to make sure he can cover his tracks to the finish. Or, he mixes up a bit of control with the necessity to compensate for the loss of his gennaker – It means Phil needs to seek for downwind sailing, which is, as a result, favourable to the boat's performance.
As the gennaker will also be missing when he tries to capture the slightest puffs behind the Souffrière Mountain, Gildas Morvan (Oyster Funds) knows he has an edge here, and not only in terms of boat performance !
Ian Munslow (Bolands Mill) has jumped one more place since this morning 8:00 (which makes 2 since 4:00 this morning) and is now in 5th position, 416 miles from Phil Sharp but only 8 miles from Olivier Rabine (IXSEA).
His position on the northwesterly route gave him an advantage on Damien Grimont (Chocolats Monbana) and Ivan Noblet (Appart'city) as he is sailing downwind under big spinaker while the two others, more to the South, are fighting to find more established winds.
Class leaders 4 :00 PM polling
Class 3 multi :Imagine / Pierre Antoine
Class 1 mono : Jeunes Dirigeants / P.Y Guennec
Class 2 mono : Artforms / Kip Stone (US)
Class 3 mono : Roaring Forty / Michel Kleinjans (BE)
Class 40 : philsharpracing.com / Phil Sharp
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