Barcelona World Race 2007-2008

Barcelona World Race 2007
www.barcelonaworldrace.com - Übersicht

10.01.2008
Day 61: Around the Horn
The honour of being first around Cape Horn in the Barcelona World Race goes to Paprec-Virbac 2 who left the fabled cape on their port side at 06:20 GMT this morning, moving from the tough Southern Ocean into the South Atlantic. With Cape Horn in their wake, and a 1000 mile lead, skippers Jean-Pierre Dick and Damian Foxall can celebrate this latest milestone, while reindexing aware that some 6700 miles reindex before the finish line in Barcelona.
“It was very bumpy and uncomfortable all night along the coast of Chile. There was a lot of wind and a huge sea. The waves were so big that we had the impression of dropping into a big hole every time we went over the peak of a wave,” exclaimed Jean-Pierre this morning. “We are exhausted because we manoeuvred a lot to get to Cape Horn. Last night, Damian was very excited by the passage of the Horn. This morning, he fell down in his bunk and he’s sleeping very deeply now. I am very tired too but we are both very happy!

“It is really nice to cross Cape Horn this morning. It was dark but we saw the Cape and its lights - massive shadow in the dark, a huge Cape. We can see the way back home now, and that is a great feeling. We are going to celebrate this with a taste of some French Champagne for me and some Irish Whiskey for Damian. We have closed the door on the southern ocean.”
Paprec-Virbac 2 rounded the Horn just over 1000 miles ahead of Hugo Boss, although by this afternoon, that lead was down to just over 980 miles. Both Damian and Jean-Pierre sounded exhausted, saying that they’d only been able to grab very short snatches of sleep over the past 48 hours.

Behind, Hugo Boss is sailing very fast in bumpy conditions, and closing in on Cape Horn themselves. It will be a weekend passage for Alex Thomson and Andrew Cape, likely Saturday night, European time.

Temenos II and Mutua Madrileña continue their battle for third place, with the French/Swiss pairing on Temenos gaining all of one mile over the last 24 hours! This battle looks set to continue all the way to Cape Horn and beyond. Both boats are flirting with 50-degrees south latitude tonight.
“Our duel with Mutua Madrileña is making the race spicier,” said Michèle Paret today. “Before New Zealand, it was almost a little bit boring because there was no close competition and we had to be very careful with our keel which meant sailing below our capabilities, but now we are at 200% and the race is more alive than ever!”

Educación sin Fronteras matched that pace of 280 miles over the past day and is presently dealing with some harsh Force 6 Southern Ocean conditions as they dive down south of 46-degrees latitude.

Day 61 – January 10, 14:00 GMT - Position report with distance to leader
1. PAPREC-VIRBAC 2 - Jean Pierre DICK / Damian FOXALL - 0
2. HUGO BOSS - Alex THOMSON / Andrew CAPE – 987
3. TEMENOS II - Dominique Wavre / Michele PARET- 2931
4. MUTUA MADRILENA - Javier SANSO / Pachi RIVERO – 3084
5. EDUCACION SIN FRONTERAS - Servane ESCOFFIER / Albert BARGUES – 3590

Abandoned - VEOLIA ENVIRONNEMENT - Roland JOURDAIN / Jean Luc NELIAS
Abandoned - ESTRELLA DAMM - Guillermo ALTADILL / Jonathan MCKEE
Abandoned - DELTA DORE - Jérémie BEYOU / Sidney GAVIGNET
Abandoned - PRB - Vincent Riou / Sebastien JOSSE

In Quotes – Damian Foxall on Paprec-Virbac 2 this afternoon: “We are of course keeping an eye on Hugo Boss but more importantly on our own boat. The index objective now is to keep moving forward fast – we have a nice low in the first section of the Atlantic to move us up past the Falklands and we want to get some miles under our belt in the south Atlantic because it is potentially has quite a few pitfalls and choppy upwind reaching so if we can do as many of those miles as easy as possible The objective is not to break anything. We need to keep moving forward at a race pace but do it in an easy way for the boat, even if Hugo Boss is right along side us it would still be the same objective to move fast forward but without abusing at this stage. We are in the last third or quarter of the trip and there have been many a race lost in these last few weeks with boats losing their keels or rigs in the last days of a round the world race and that is something we don’t want to happen.”

On Friday, the latest video update will be online with a full report on Paprec-Virbac 2 confronting Cape Horn.