13.01.2008
Day 64: Hugo Boss rounds Cape Horn
Hugo Boss crossed the Cape Horn scoring gate at 01:13 GMT overnight on Saturday, becoming the second boat in the Barcelona World Race fleet to round the famed Cape. Skippers Alex Thomson and Andrew Cape now turn their attention to chasing down race leaders Paprec-Virbac 2, now over 860 miles ahead in the South Atlantic.
“I think maybe tomorrow for sure they’re going to slow down a bit and we’re going to speed up. But the outlook for the next week is for a few big low pressure systems to come off the land and deepening in front of us, so that will life pretty interesting. We’ll just try and pick our way through it,” said Andrew Cape.
“It’s a great relief to be around Cape Horn. We got quite close yesterday and the sun had just gone down, it was twilight, and it was really nice. But it is just a relief to be out of the southern ocean. It is a big landmark and an achievement and I’m glad it’s out the way. It’s the best rounding of Cape Horn I’ve ever had – perfect conditions really.”
Behind the leading pair, there is real action in the Southern Ocean with a deep depression giving horrible conditions to both Mutua Madrileña and more recently, Temenos II as well.
"Last night we had some very difficult conditions with some gusts of up to 56 knots without any visibility near to an area where icebergs had been plotted a week ago,” wrote Javier Sansó from on board a very ‘shaky’ Mutua Madrileña. “The waves have begun to reach a considerable size - between 8 and 10 metres - with some of them breaking at the top. And yesterday, we broke the speed record for the boat, without really trying! The speedo said 36.8 knots and we sailed for quite a while above 30 knots with 3 reefs in the index and our staysail.”
And at the back, a tired Servane Escoffier described how they were heading a bit more to the north to avoid the worst of a forecast gale. Even still, they have 30 to 35 knots, big waves and a tired crew: “We broke three battens in the indexsail on our last gybe and the work to replace them was really difficult in the conditions. We’re very tired and we’re expecting some more wind, so we’re going to head a little further north now, to get out of the worst of it.”
Day 64 – January 13, 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 – 861
3. TEMENOS 2 - Dominique Wavre / Michele PARET- 2690
4. MUTUA MADRILENA - Javier SANSO / Pachi RIVERO – 2795
5. EDUCACION SIN FRONTERAS - Servane ESCOFFIER / Albert BARGUES – 3592
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
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