12.12.2007
Please find below today’s release from Temenos. Please note that the latest ETA
for Transat Ecover BtoB is late tomorrow tonight UTC. I've just translated the
latest news from Groupama detailing the replacement navigator for the Jules
Verne Trophy…. Very intriguing!!....The one and only Yves Parlier…do check out
the website shortly.
Kind regards Kate
Albatross keeping the boat company
Hostility all around
After the bad news of the past few days, the race is getting its bearings again,
still just as demanding for the boats and stressful for the crews. Aboard
Temenos II, the threat of the high pressure now seems to be behind them as
Michèle confirmed when contacted in the middle of the afternoon. By plunging
South, the duo has managed to get away from the danger of this high pressure.
Now situated around 50 degrees South, the monohull reindexs out of its reach. By
dropping down into lighter winds than the leaders, Temenos II has conceded some
ground to the top trio, but when you see what’s happened to Mutua Madrilena,
literally swallowed up by the high pressure, you could say that our two
co-skippers have managed to limit the damage.
"For the time being we’re no longer worrying about the high pressure, it’s all
going well here and we have managed to escape it by making southing. We still
had a few light patches last night, but since this morning we are in a good vein
of wind, continuing in the same air flow which is carrying the frontrunners.
It’s kicked back in quite hard and we have a fair number of squalls. The wind is
varying between 25 and 35 knots under the squalls, it’s hard to keep a lot of
sail up. You have to find the right sail compromise to avoid ending up
over-canvassed in the squalls and under-canvassed the rest of the time.
The seas are quite big and fairly disorganised, with 4 metre waves. The boat
surfs a bit, submarine style. There are a lot of waves breaking on the deck, and
when you go below after a session at the helm you are completely frozen.”
For several days, you can guess from the remarks made by the sailors that their
approach to the race has changed, the harshness of the conditions encountered
relegating the race to plan B. In this way, Alex Thomson aboard Hugo Boss
admitted having eased off the pace at yesterday’s radio session and it was the
turn of Roland Jourdain this morning to evoke a navigation which at times tended
to be more like a delivery.
“In this neck of the woods, you can feel the hostility around you all the time.
You have to be more careful than usual, that’s clear for everyone. You have to
safeguard the material and the sailors, as you can very quickly reach the limits
of any one of us, and here errors can cost very dear.”
Advised yesterday by the race committee about the risk of ice broadcast by the
Reunion Island coastguard, Michèle and Dominique seemed adamant that they
weren’t going to tempt the devil, a reasoning visibly shared by the leader
Paprec-Virbac 2, who on gybing last night, opted to stop its dive beyond this
latitude.
“The high pressure zone is trapping us, forcing us to drop South to avoid
getting stuck again inside during the next gybe. We're not going to drop below
52 degrees though. We’ve set ourselves that limit as we’ve no desire to play
Russian roulette with the icebergs. There's a point where you have to know how
to reindex reasonable.”
With a 2°C sea, and a very real threat of ice, it couldn’t be anything else.
Kate Jennings
Expression.
P.O. Box 26,
Dartmouth,
DEVON.
TQ6 0YG
United Kingdom
+44 (0)7795 116699
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