17 May 2008
Suspense in the blackout
- Unstable winds overnight and hard work for some, stable conditions for a few
- Suspense building for the 0600GMT Sunday positions
- A private party on board Telecom Italia
- Check the Class40 positions and breaking news for updates as the position blackout lifts at 0600GMT (0700BST) tomorrow (Sunday) morning
Day 7 of The Artemis Transat and the skippers are sailing in the middle of the North Atlantic wearing a tactical blindfold. At 1800GMT (1700BST) on Friday evening, a 36 hour position blackout descended and the entire fleet of IMOCA Open 60s and Class40 yachts are currently racing without incoming satellite position reports and the skippers have no information as to the whereabouts, heading or average boat speeds of the other competing boats. Effectively, any current strategy is based entirely upon weather analysis and for a day and half, the high-tech world of offshore racing has warped-back three decades to a period when experience, instinct, weather-lore, boat handling and an element of luck were supremely important. For the Class40 yachts, this data drought has arrived as the fleet pass through a zone of light, fickle and highly unstable wind.
Pre-blackout yesterday, the fleet was strung-out in a line stretching 180 miles north-south and had divided into three distinct groups: a northerly group of four boats including the race leader, Giovanni Soldini on Telecom Italia; a southern duo of French skippers and a five-boat pack in the middle. Christophe Coatnoan on Groupe Partouche was the most northerly skipper in the fleet as the blackout dropped: "The wind is really unstable at the moment," he confirmed via satellite phone this morning. "I just hope it's the same for everybody. The conditions since entering the ridge have been exhausting: constant sail changes, handsteering always." Coatnoan is frank about receiving the first position report on Sunday morning at 0600GMT: "This blackout is quite something and I've no idea where the other boats are. I really don't know how we're going to come out of this tomorrow morning."
In the middle group, Miranda Merron entered the blackout in 3rd place and reported from 40 Degrees early this morning, although she was cautious over revealing precise speed and wind data: "As it is blackout, I will just confirm that 40 Degrees IS going upwind, though there isn't that much of it. And it's drizzling! Lots of tea drinking and not much sleep going on! Just keeping the boat moving is non-stop work." Halvard Mabire entered the blackout in 5th place on Custo Pol, 8 miles behind Merron: "I've got around 4 knots of boat speed at the moment," confessed the 52 year-old Solitaire du Figaro and Whitbread Round The World Race veteran this morning. "It was a really, really, bad night. Totally unstable wind..very hard work." Mabire also admits that he is constantly learning about his Pogo Class40: "I'm still discovering a lot about the boat. At the moment I'm not quite comfortable with Custo Pol upwind."
While the index body of the middle group - Beluga Racer, 40 Degrees, Fujifilm, and Custo Pol - were tightly packed with just 9 miles separating the four yachts, Simon Clarke trailed the block of Class40s by 34 miles just pre-blackout in 11th place on Clarke Offshore Racing. Far from being downhearted, the English sailor was on top form this morning: "A really cracking night's sailing with the wind in the right direction. Full water ballast, all the sails stacked up to windward and beautifully flat water. At one stage the wind was up to 16 knots and I thought I'd have to take in a reef." However, his impressive overnight gains diminished at dawn: "The wind isn't where it was forecast to be," reported Clarke. "It's from 284° although the forecast was 210° and instead of 9 knots, I've got 5-6 knots." However, there is one significant bonus for Clarke Offshore Racing: "The autopilot works fine upwind," he continued. "We had a lot of dramas with it downwind. Every time the wind went up by 2 knots, the pilots gave up and the boat would wipe out which is not ideal and caused all sorts of issue."
In the southern pairing of Louis Duc on Groupe Royer and Benoit Parnaudeau with Prevoir Vie, Duc - the youngest sailor in the fleet - shared his thoughts earlier. "I've just finished tacking to reconnect with the rest of the fleet," he confirmed this morning, without revealing boat speed, wind speed or the wind direction. "The blackout is a great idea and not checking the positions is less stressful. It means I can just get on with sailing the boat." Asked for a prediction of the positions post-blackout, the 24 year-old from Normandy was cautious: "I don't want to make any bets about tomorrow. We're all pretty much in a straight line north-south, so anything could happen. For the moment, I just want to keep the boat moving."
Confused? No idea where the Class40 fleet may be? Check The Artemis Transat website for updates and positions after the 36 hour blackout is lifted at 0600GMT (0700BST) on Sunday morning.
A fiesta on Telecom Italia and high hopes for new wind
Celebrating his 42nd birthday during the blackout, Giovanni Soldini had an intimate, private party on board Telecom Italia. "I didn't really have a party, but I did drink bottle of wine," he told the race office this morning in high spirits. "It's a little bit more than usual. Normally I only have a glass. Since the start, I've now finished two bottles." While the party raged on the Italian Class40, conditions were excellent: "Last night was good wind. Stable and about 15 knots. The pilots were doing a great job, so I went to sleep." For the highly experienced solo sailor, the blackout is not a burden: "Obviously, to know where the others are is good, but we'll have to wait and see tomorrow." The lack of position information reminds Soldini of an earlier era of offshore racing: "Before, we were always without positions. Maybe we would get them once a week and they weren't usually very accurate. It wasn't a good system then." As a late birthday present, the Italian skipper is hoping for some new breeze: "I hope we will have some wind tonight, although I don't know really. We'll see. Maybe 6-7 knots. Not too much, but it's not a problem for me."
For Further information, please contact OC Events
T: +44 (0)870 0630218
E: info@ocevents.org mailto:info@ocevents.org
|
