22.11.2007
Dear all,
Please find the latest from Temenos in the Barcelona World Race, tonight Thursday as well as a great event in Brest next summer at the Naval College: The Grand Prix de L’Ecole Navale.
Latest on Sodeb’O, Thomas has postponed the start as a leak has been found in the hydraulic cyclinder and he doesn't want to rush things just to make this particular weather window.
Francis Joyon is still hoping to set off on his solo round the world attempt tomorrow morning, Friday.
Friday’s news isn’t likely to be sent till very late GMT or even early Saturday, once I arrive in Brazil. Sorry for any inconvenience.
Kind regards,
Kate
Since this morning, the spinnakers have been hoisted again aboard the boats in the Barcelona World Race and the averages are finally picking up again. However, for those in the chasing pack hoping to get back with the race leaders, this isn’t such good news as all they can do is sit and watch the frontrunners getting richer.
A long W’ly tack has enabled Véolia Environnement to snatch 3rd place on this thirteenth day of racing and they are now leading the hunt for the leaders. By being the first to enter the calm conditions, the top duo, Virbac-Paprec and PRB, saw their pursuers close in on them, but the comeback was only short-lived. The first out of the high pressure were consequently the first to hit the tradewinds, the leaders managing to stretch away again over the past 24 hours. With averages sometimes 4 to 5 knots in excess of their closest rivals, today’s analysis promises to be a heavy one for the chasing group, who must now count on a tricky passage of the doldrums in 3 days time, before they can hope to make up some of their deficit.
Between fishing nets and wind holes, last night wasn't at all restful aboard Temenos II. The positions from the onboard Sat C early yesterday evening left no doubt as to the conditions that Michèle and Dominique were encountering. With their speed polled as 0.0 knots, we feared today’s first ranking. Fortunately, in the meantime, the wind kicked back in and Temenos II continued to battle along, neck and neck with their new travelling companion Hugo Boss, as Michèle told us in an email sent to Race HQ this morning.
“The nights go by, each different than the one before. We've changed our neighbour, yesterday it was Estrella and tonight Hugo. We've had some great battles which keep the on-watch sailors on their toes. For a while we almost have a little bit of difficulty relaxing as we’re constantly trimming in this fluky wind. We passed Hugo at nightfall and have managed to keep them behind us.
I’d barely dropped off when there was an unusual noise and the voice of Dom definitively pulled me out of my rest period. Sh… Temenos was caught up like a large fish in a net and had stopped. Everything came together very quickly as if we had rehearsed the scene. We rolled in the gennaker and went right around the boat with a torch. We were dragging a line with floats... we reverse... the line comes away, we unroll the gennaker but there's nothing we can do. The boat heels over but we don't make headway. Dom asks me to be careful. He has spotted another line near the keel which is fully tensioned. I rush for the sharp knife in the cockpit and hanging over the guardrails, I try to cut it once, twice and the third time it comes away. Temenos finally gets free of its trap and we come out of it unscathed.
Hugo is still behind but now is barely 150 metres back. We haul on the sails and head off more motivated than ever and a tad more edgy!
We certainly looked behind us a lot last night as Hugo monopolised our attention, but we also looked ahead and the net in which we got caught up wasn’t signalled at all. This reminds us that we are sailing close to the African coast and that the fishing methods used here will be a little more ‘rustic’ than the European methods, so we’d better watch out!
After all that, it’s doubtless going to take a bit longer to fall asleep so I’m hoping that I wake up in a couple of hours time with Hugo in our wake...Dom is ‘on the case’ ;-))
Mich, aboard Temenos II”
Contacted mid afternoon, Michele adds: “We’ve just left Hugo Boss. We gybed and they continued on another tack about 2 hours ago. We’re following the little oscillations in the wind, which is still pretty unstable for us. The waves are slightly abeam of us, catching the side of the boat and destabilising it a bit. The spinnaker isn't holding so well, so to make up for that we're spending a fair amount of time on the helm. We're having shorter watches so as we can freshen up more often and be at 100% during our sessions on the helm.
There are still a number of manoeuvres in view for this group then, who find themselves with the wind directly on their tails, having to gybe, whilst the leaders are slipping along quickly on a single tack. Unfortunately, this current situation is unlikely to see the deficits reduced.
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