Barcelona World Race 2007-2008

Barcelona World Race 2007

www.barcelonaworldrace.com - Übersicht

17/12/2007 08:16 GMT
The gap between race leader Paprec-Virbac 2 and Hugo Boss is essentially the same.
For the leaders, the night was quiet, with Force 4 winds. The lateral gap between the boats is now quite small and they likely have very similar weather conditions now.

Veolia Environnement put in a gybe overnight and lost nearly 20 miles to the leaders. Her wind angle isn't as good for making miles towards the mark and this likely accounts for most of the losses. It's a similar story for Temenos II, who gybed just before the Kerguelen Islands.

Mutua Madrilena and Educacion sin Fronteras are both sailing very fast at the moment. Educacion in particular has a lot of low pressure behind them and the wind will be stronger tomorrow; in fact, the forecast is for very strong breeze for them. Fast fleet

Updated : 17/12/2007 06:19 GMT

It's been a good night for the Barcelona World Race fleet to pour on the miles. And the fast conditions reindex. At the 06:00 poll the entire fleet is doing 13.7 knots or better. In fact, the slowest boats are at the front while the back markers are roaring along at over 17 knots. This should allow them to begin to close the gap a little. In the last 24 hours, Educacion sin Fronteras has made 366 miles, compared to race leader Paprec-Virbac 2's 359! Sidney Gavignet, Delta Dore

Updated : 16/12/2007 16:08 GMT

Speaking during today's video conference, Sidney said, We've spent our time before Ocean 7 (the trimaran sent to tow them to South Africa) joined us on cleaning the boat and thinking about the future of Delta Dore and for Jeremie, who will go on to do the Vendee Globe on this boat. I've written some technical conclusions to help them in preparing and improving the boat for next time.

Over all, we have been pretty lucky since the dismasting in that the conditions improved quite quickly. So we never felt in danger except during the actual dismasting... Veolia Environnement at the Kerguelen Islands - on video

Updated : 16/12/2007 12:28 GMT At 00:50 GMT last night Roland Jourdain and Jean-Luc Nélias left the Kergeulen Islands where they had been forced to stop with technical problems. Veolia Environnement had been moored there since Friday afternoon to fix the engine. Veolia Environnement is now back in the race and charging hard into the Southern Ocean in third place.

"We decided we had to stop and get it fixed as we didn’t have any power left. Thanks to our wind turbine we were able to produce electricity to get the electronics working and the autopilot near the Kergeulens as we couldn’t hand steer as the waves falling over the deck were so big…" said Jean-Luc Nelias.

Upon arriving at the Kerguelen Islands, home to a small scientific and technical base, the two sailors were instantly welcomed and supported by the head of the district, Yann Libessart, who liased with their shore team back in Concarneau.

Helped by a team of mechanics, Roland Jourdain and Jean-Luc Nélias worked hard to find the source of the problem, as Jean-Luc explained earlier: "Even after working from Friday night, through to Saturday, it still took us 7 or 8 hours to get the engine started and to recharge its batteries. We then decided to sleep for 3 hours before setting out again early the following day….we were absolutely exhausted as we’d only been able to sleep for 8 hours in total over the past 3 days…"

Veolia Environnement was stationary for nearly 35 hours before setting out again at 00:50 this morning. They are 800 miles behind the leaders of the fleet, but still in 3rd place.

"We took this challenge on with the aim of sharing two things: obviously the race itself, which is a long way from over and also to enjoy the Adventure side of it, with a capital A ! You get that from discovering new places or seeing what surprises nature has in store for us but you can also enjoy some extraordinary meetings and that’s certainly been the case this time," Nelias said.
but this was enough to cause the mast to break.'