Transat Jaques Vabre 2007 von Le Havre nach Bahia - Start 3. November 2007 www.jacques-vabre.com - Übersicht PRESS RELEASE of 11/05/2007 OPTIONS THAT PAID OFF Being first in a sailing race is a fine combination of different ingredients. Experience, boat and sails design, analysis and interpretation of the weather informations and good knowledges of the area you are going to sail in. But, at some point wether it is inspiration or somehow luck, one of the option picked up just paid much more. MONOHULLS (Imoca and Class 40) Safran (Guillemot /Caudrelier) separated from the rest of the 60-footer fleet overnight after deciding to go through the Chenal du Four (closer to the shore) where he not only avoided contrary currents but also benefited from more wind (up to 17 knots, a bonus as it was not forecasted to be so strong. Dee Caffari Ecover, Gitana Eighty, Foncia and Groupe Bel who were sailing along with him before the option, are now up to 20 miles further north. Those direct pursuers have pushed hard south and west during the day so as not to be glued in a transition zone of light windsbefore they can reach fresher wind. This situation will give Safran a nice advantage before she reaches the Canary Island (up to 4 days from now). Aviva and Roxy are indextaining their positions in the middle of the fleet. Sam Davis was quite satisfied that Roxy has kept up the pace with the newest boat, showing no disadvantage in these conditions. The British skipper concedes a mistake in their decision-making as their router had told them to go inside the Ushant, advice they took a risk not following. Artemis slipped down to 12th after having sailed with Foncia and Safran yesterday. Johny Malbon mentioned today that they would now concentrate a bit more on their routing. At 4 p.m., Ecover gained one place, ranking 4th (passing Groupe Bel) as well as Roxy (9th) whereas Aviva slipped 12th, passed by Pakea Bizkaia and Artemis. In class 40 Telecom Italia (designed by Guillaume Verdier who also designed Safran) still holds the lead, without concession. The fleet split in two after Ushant, a consequence of the course they set to pass the lane. Sail changes were not an option to keep up with the changes in the wind-shifts . Moreover, the new boats are also testing their sails' range, which sometimes means more effort to choose the right sail at the right time. The skippers that positioned their boats on the most easterly route are now reaching some fresher wind with speeds of up to 6-7 knots, whereas the boats more to the west and at the tail end of the Class 40 are stuck in wind holes (1 to 2 knots only) MULTIHULLS ( Orma and Class 50) Banque Populaire took the lead of the Orma Class overnight. The first 3 trimarans, Groupama and Sopra Group, were staying within 12 miles of each other (as of 4 p.m.). Gitana 11's and Brossard's option further to the north was not successful as they were showing respectively a 35.1 and 62.1 miles behind the leader that might be difficult to fill in the sails of the leading pack (up to 25 knots). The latter should reach Cape Finistere in the next 24 hours. More choices to make there. Crèpes Whaou ! is starting to accelerate, increasing dramatically her lead over her competitors. The gap between the duo Escoffier / Fauconnier and Croisières Anne Caseneuve doubled up and the difference between the frontrunner and the last boat is now 76 miles (after only 24 hours of racing). Dee Caffari – Aviva The wind was very light overnight coming from lots of directions and the sea is very flat. It was very difficult to make progress in the direction we want to go. We are very happy with our position, we have lots a few miles to those who were further to the East. But we need to keep trying to go South to get rid of the the light weather so we get the fresher breeze and catch up with the other boats so we can stay in the race. Jonny Malbon - Artemis We've had better mornings, I have to say. We had a very bad last part of last night before Ushant.We nearly didn't make it through without having to gybe and then just at the last minute we had to change the sails and gybe.Just after the morning I guess we came across Foncia and then Safran. We had a good gybing battle with them and we're all looking for a way through the high-pressure ridge. And we were very close to them for the whole day and that's why it's even more upsetting for us right now. It's been very good. (Laughs.) When we got the schedule earlier it was pretty quiet on board for a little while, as you can imagine, but we're fine and we want to get back in the race. Since the start we've had a great time. The boat is working really well and we're working really well. We're starting to get more sleep today. We haven't had much at all. Passing Cape Finisterre depends on the light winds, they should be changing later today but we might gybe  out. But it's going to be a day and half, at least, I think. Mike Golding – Ecover How is it going?  It's going fine. Obviously the local boats did good around Ushant but there's still a long way to go. It's been very gentle so it hasn't been a hard test for the boat so far. The boat seems to be performing well. And we have good speed in the light air, so it's encouraging. We're looking forward to getting into more wind and making more steady progress. I don't know exactly what Safran did but I presume he went inside Ushant. Obviously he's had a good job because we were with him only a few hours ago. We're both up and we're just sitting here looking at the boat's performances trying to work out what is best to do. Obviously the light air is sort of catching up from behind. Unfortunately it looks like boats ahead will look better than boats behind. The push is to get south and west and push down the course and try and stay in the strongest breeze for as long as possible.            Sam Davies – Roxy It's really peaceful right now in the early morning.  It is nice, at last to get sailing in the Bay of Biscay after a bit of fight to get out of the English Channel. It is very difficult because it's very technical and it's hard to find the wind in the right place. There's some bits of luck. We've had some good luck and bad luck That was a mistake to pass out Ushant because our weather router told us he had a feeling it would be better to pass inside. We were too scared to risk to lose wind. So we chose not to take the risk…. We're regretting that because we were quite well-placed. The conditions are great, for Roxy especially. We've managed to stay with a new boat. It's really nice to realize that we're not any slower and we don't have any disadvantages in these conditions. So Jeanne and I are pretty happy right now. It really depended on the conditions. I've just woken up from just over 2 hours sleep, which is the longest I've managed to get from the start.  … Most of the time in the  English Channel we've been  lucky to even get one hour at a time because there have been so many manoeuvres, sail changes, boats to avoid. We had some really close crosses with the other boats, Generali, Gitana, Ecover yesterday morning. It was incredible. We've been so close to the other boats. So we've had to be on our toes. Jo Royle – Pindar 40 At the start our option to go North paid off. We sailed with the 60's at one moment that was fun to sail with those boats. Past 12 or so hours we have very light winds. We have not received any e-mails since Saturday afternoon which is making our life very difficult to decide where to go right now. We don't know where we are in the high pressure system. It's good news to see Dominic Vittet close to us at the moment because I know he is very good on the weather, we must be doing something right. We are looking to find the stronger winds of about 10 knots and go straight to Cape Finisterre. We didn't get time to rest until today. But we got time to sleep a bit today so we feel good now. There are so many boats around us that we don't want to go sleeping at all. Ifor Pedley – Fujifilm Currently boat speed is 7,5. We are in a constant wind field coming slightly from the North East. From the start we had a slight delay but we made a good recovery on that first leg. We fall into a wind hole on Sunday afternoon, and we saw a lot of boats come past us. But when we caught them up later on we realize they were boats of the 60 fleet. I guess it is does not feel good to sail with us if you are a 60 foot! We have been on a watch system for the last 24 hours. At the moment we are only 2 on, 2 off because we're having to change headsails quite a bit. Currently we are having masthead spinaker but we have also used the Code 5 when there were more wind and that gave us a good boat speed. Contact for international medias Veronique Teurlay vero_teurlay@yahoo.fr +33 623 09 34 33 skype:  vteurlay IMOCA - SAFRAN © MOCHET Marcel / AFP Download http://media.rivacom.fr/event/jacques_vabre/photo/hd/imoca60_boat_40.jpg ORMA - BANQUE POPULAIRE © MOCHET Marcel / AFP Download http://media.rivacom.fr/event/jacques_vabre/photo/hd/orma_60_boats_4.jpg CLASS 40 - Telecom Italia © MOCHET Marcel / AFP Download http://media.rivacom.fr/event/jacques_vabre/photo/hd/class40_boats_38.jpg Pen Duick SA http://www.penduick.com Copyright © 1996-2016 - SEGEL.DE