30.11.2007
Southbound
Concentrated on speed, the crews are trying to get the most out of their monohulls. Sometimes sailing within contact of each other, such as Hugo Boss and Delta Dore yesterday, the sailors are benefiting from these improvised mid ocean speed tests in order to measure themselves against the others and weigh up their boat's capacities. However, it is very difficult to make these comparisons with the whole fleet, which is so spread out that it doesn't always encounter the same conditions; far from it sometimes in fact. The weather continues to smile on the two leaders though, who are making the most of the situation to greatly increase their lead over the fleet.
Since escaping the doldrums, the sailing conditions have been particularly pleasant aboard Temenos II and Michèle certainly isn’t complaining:
“It was a fairly quiet night, with some gentle wind that changed direction, but since this morning the wind has filled in again and Temenos II is accelerating well. As soon as we go up on deck we get a good drenching, but the sailing conditions are still fairly pleasant and easy. Outside we’ve got glorious sunshine and blue skies, the temperature is beginning to drop, which is particularly noticeable at night."
As regards race strategy, Michèle made a point about the difficulty of defining a long term trajectory. For the time being the whole fleet seem to be geared on making southward descent as quickly as possible, with the frontrunners hoping to hop into the first class carriage of the train of depressions in the roaring forties.
“The situation is tricky so we're studying what’s happening up front. There are some little calm zones and some other areas where the wind is a little stronger, but we’re hesitant about distancing ourselves too far from the direct course as that’s the angle where the boats go the fastest. By distancing ourselves we know that we’re bound to slow down. It’s hard to give up speed whilst we’re currently lengthening our stride. However, as soon as a situation presents itself over a shorter term, with a better reliability, we’ll adjust our strategy. For the moment though we only have long term forecasts, with high pressure sweeping right across the zone and making the models more random."
Since the first day of racing, the two leaders have sailed a faultless race and a number of the chasing pack would like to see the wind change in their favour for once. Michèle agreed: "we hope that the two frontrunners don’t get away with the little depression situated along the coast of Brazil and leave us floundering. If they catch the train of depressions before us, they will end up in the next weather system and that will prevent us from getting back with them. They've got some small calm zones ahead of them too though, and it would be good to see the situation reversed a bit this time."
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