Oceanracing 2007 - Transat Jaques Vabre 2007

Transat Jaques Vabre 2007
von Le Havre nach Bahia - Start 3. November 2007
www.jacques-vabre.com - www.transatbtob.com - Übersicht

16/11/2007
PR No.6
Friday 16th November 2007
Exit from the tunnel
FONCIA has made a superb comeback thanks to a more W’ly separation than its competitors, Michel Desjoyeaux and Emmanuel Le Borgne now in the process of brushing off the doldrums this Friday afternoon. They’ll now have to concentrate on extending their lead in order to protect themselves from the return of the chasing pack during this long tack towards Brazil.

Still nearly 1,200 miles to go and although the doldrums may now be done and dusted, there is still a lot going on behind them with a pack of seven boats hot on the chase not so far away...

The Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone has not been as fearsome as forecast, at least that was the case for Michel Desjoyeaux and Emmanuel Le Borgne, who judiciously tackled this “meteorological cesspit” via the West, at around 27° 30 W. In fact, positioned even further over towards South America, Jean Le Cam has also benefited from a vein of wind to rapidly extract himself from the doldrums and is up into second place this Friday afternoon… despite being down in seventh place yesterday! This scheduled deviation by Michel Desjoyeaux has therefore born fruit, whilst the big loss goes to Loïck Peyron, who opted for a way through at 24° West, and has ended up in a blind alley.

“The wind is becoming increasingly steady, in strength at least, and we have just changed the headsail. There’s glorious sunshine and the seas are fair! When you pass through the doldrums in rather unenviable conditions, you don’t really sleep. This time though, we continued making headway at over eight knots without having to change either our sails or our trajectory… As a result we were able to rest regularly with watches of one to one and a half hours. Looking at the chasing pack, we were able to opt to get downwind of them in order to better extract ourselves from this zone. I put in a waypoint a week earlier and I am proud to say that I passed within just four miles of this mark!"

FONCIA may now sail at a good pace again (over ten knots), a speed which should only increase over the coming hours with the Saint Helena tradewinds, which will kick in from the South-East at 12-15 knots, then twenty knots in the evening. Gradually, as the monohull closes on Brazilian land, the wind will progressively clock round to the East, then the North-East over the final 200 mile stretch of the course. As a result, there won't be any options up for grabs between now and making landfall and this final sprint will take on the form of a pure drag race… Solely the last few miles before entering the Bay of Tous les Saints may still have some surprises in store with more or less wind, depending on if the boats arrive by day or by night.

“If things go to plan then the final grand justice of the peace is the doldrums and now it’s a drag race. We have VM Matériaux downwind of us and the others in our wake: we’re in rather an enviable situation then, but there is still some uncertainty as to the last few miles from the finish. There’s not a lot else to do other than go fast! As regards health, everything’s fine as we haven’t really had big seas since Spain... The water is 29°C now and it’s a beautiful day: we’re not overly tired and Manu and I have fallen into a natural rhythm, to the extent that we don’t even have to be woken up. I think there will be a fair amount of time at the chart table though since we don’t have a router onshore.”

The radio session organised with FONCIA at 1500 hours this Friday, gave some school children from Port La Forêt the opportunity to ask some questions about life onboard; the latter having followed the construction of the boat in their home town. Michel Desjoyeaux relished answering questions about the division of watch systems with Emmanuel, the choice of routing aboard, the current sailing conditions and about the end of this 4,330 mile course…

Ranking on Friday 16th November at 1600 hours:
1- Michel Desjoyeaux & Emmanuel Le Borgne (FONCIA) 1,194.7 miles from the finish
2- Jean Le Cam & Gildas Morvan (VM Matériaux) 0.7 miles back
3- Bernard Stamm & Tanguy Cariou (Cheminées Poujoulat) 28.8 miles back
4- Marc Guillemot & Charles Caudrelier (Safran) 43 miles back
5- Mike Golding & Bruno Dubois (Ecover) 56 miles back
6- Kito de Pavant & Sébastien Col (Groupe Bel) NL
7-Armel Le Cléac’h & Nicolas Troussel (Brit Air) 103.2 miles back
8- Samantha Davies & Jeanne Grégoire (Roxy) 139.5 miles back
9- Yann Eliès & Sébastien Audigane (Generali) 143 miles back
10- Loïck Peyron & Jean-Baptiste Le Vaillant (Gitana 80) 149.4 miles back.

***FONCIA
Present in over 500 sites around Europe (France, Switzerland, Belgium and Germany), the FONCIA Group is the leader of property management and transaction for habitation in France. FONCIA’s savoir-faire is based around 4 complementary areas of the property market: the management of joint ownership, rental management, rental and sales.
Team FONCIA Press Service Agence Blanco Negro 01 47 72 81 41 Stéphanie André Mob: +33 (0)6 84 79 76 01 / Laurence Dacoury Mob : +33 (0)6 18 41 30 28 presse@teamfoncia.com www.teamfoncia.com

The sun rises over the Atlantic, but still no wind! Off Morocco Frugal meal for Michèle with a constant eye on the trimming Mediterranean, Atlantic, same battle?

The Mediterranean clearly doesn't have the monopoly on convoluted, tricky weather situations. A number of skippers in the fleet must be feeling disappointed after these first 24 hours in the Atlantic, particularly as the forecasts for the next few days don't seem any the more cheerful. Slowly, sometimes very slowly if we look at the averages racked up by the nine monohulls, the boats are slipping along on an Atlantic, which is just as calm as its little sister the Mediterranean.

When discussing the developments over the coming days with Dominique, rapidly contacted this afternoon, the skipper couldn't hide his pessimism having just been pouring over the latest grib files.
“We’re becalmed and it’s set to last for a good while. Normally we drop down towards the tradewinds under spinnaker but here we're upwind in the calms. We really feel like we're on a razor's edge. We know that in these types of conditions, 10 to 15 miles separation can make all the difference. The files are continuing to contradict themselves and provide us with a multitude of different routing. We’re ending up having to improvise a bit! According to certain files we’re even going to get hit by a fine little depression forcing us to sail close-hauled near the Canaries.
We’re spending our time at the helm trying to get the most out of each little breath of air or at the chart table trying not to miss any weather links. Conditions are more tiresome emotionally rather than anything else. You ask yourself ten thousand questions and sometimes you end up losing sleep over it!"

As regards the monohull’s slight S’ly separation, the skipper doesn’t seem to be particularly worried by it. In fact, since this morning, the routes of all the boats seem to have converged. Temenos II is continuing to tail Estralla Damm, the latter positioned just 8 little miles ahead.
At the 1500 hour ranking, Temenos II was in 4th place, 87 miles from the leader.

Kate Jennings Expression. P.O. Box 26, Dartmouth, DEVON. TQ6 0YG United Kingdom +44 (0)7795 116699