Thursday 13th November – 1700 hrs
Gitana Eighty leading at Madeira
Setting out from Les Sables d’Olonne last Sunday at 1302 hours, the fleet of
Imoca monohulls, which now comprises twenty-six competitors, is slipping
along downwind in the tradewinds of the northern hemisphere, down the edge
of the Azores High. The frontrunners have left the island of Madeira in
their wake. Battling at the top of the leaderboard from the outset, Gitana
Eighty is leading the way southbound this afternoon. In its wake, Sébastien
Josse and Jean-Pierre Dick are keeping on the pace and Jean Le Cam is in
ambush.
Indeed Loïck Peyron and Gitana Eighty have been leading the dance for three
consecutive rankings today, which is certainly not down to luck: “You don’t
get anything without putting in the effort! The boats are noisy and
demanding and I have not yet managed to sleep properly since the start.”
With these words, the skipper of the monohull equipped by Baron Benjamin de
Rothschild explained that his look-out position in the cockpit was still
preferable today to his comfortable bunk down below.
The fierce gale which manhandled the fleet for the first few hours at sea
has certainly left its mark on the sailors in the Vendée Globe 2008-2009…
The most unfortunate of these have seen their round the world dream come to
a brutal end, whilst others have had to turn back to make repairs in order
to head back into the race, and the reindexder have made it through. However,
for those who are now slipping along in the Portuguese tradewinds, the jobs
list is a hefty one as Loïck Peyron explains: “Two broaches have left their
mark… During one of them, I damaged a starboard aft stanchion, which has
since been repaired and I almost lost my genoa. I also experienced some
problems with my automatic pilot, but it’s sorted itself out now.”
Psychological warfare or modesty… each solo sailor has been discretely
dressing the wounds on their various steeds. However, given the violence of
the elements in the Bay of Biscay few seem to have come off scot free. As
such, during the daily radio session at midday, Roland Jourdain and Vincent
Riou – to name but a few – told of the difficulties they’d faced.
After four days at sea, the head of the fleet in this 6th edition is passing
the Portuguese archipelago of Madeira. Sailing along a ridge of high
pressure on the eastern edge of the Azores High, the solo sailors are
exploiting the now steady NE’ly tradewinds in a bid to make the Canaries and
then Cape Verde, before lining themselves up to get through the first
Doldrums in this round the world. For the monohull in the colours of the LCF
Rothschild Group, along with its rivals, the current strategy is clear: make
as much headway as possible towards the equator.
The top four, led by Gitana Eighty, were grouped within 24 miles of each
other at the 1600 hour ranking. Though Loïck Peyron, Sébastien Josse and
Jean-Pierre Dick have opted to leave Madeira to port, Jean Le Cam has opted
to pass to windward of the island.
Ranking on 13th November – 1600 hours (French time)
1. Gitana Eighty (Loïck Peyron) 22,570 miles from the finish
2. BT (Sébastien Josse) 13.6
3. Paprec Virbac (Jean-Pierre Dick) 18.2
4. VM Matériaux (Jean Le Cam) 24.1
5. Véolia Environnement (Roland Jourdain) 52.9
(…)
Abandons: Groupe Bel (Kito de Pavant), Aquarelle.com (Yannick Bestaven),
DCNS (Marc Thiercelin) and Hugo Boss (Alex Thomson).
The long road
It was at 0425 hours this morning that Cheminées Poujoulat crossed the start
line of the Vendée Globe for the second time following a titanic amount of
work achieved in record time. This race against the clock, which began
onshore on Sunday evening, was simply a prelude to what Bernard Stamm is
currently engaged in on the water.
There were some nocturnal and fairly surreal to-ings and fro-ings which took
place at Port Olonna prior to dawn today. Kito de Pavant and Yannick
Bestaven made it back to Les Sables and won’t be heading back into the race,
whilst Bernard Stamm cast off just half an hour later. For Cheminées
Poujoulat, the Vendée Globe began again at 0425 hours this morning. “The
whole team has done a superb job day and night since I returned to port on
Sunday evening to repair the damage. I’m three days behind and I’m heading
out into a zone of high pressure, which isn’t great. That’s just how it is
though. We’ll see what happens as it’s a long road”. A good sport and all
too aware how lucky he is to be heading back into the race, Bernard Stamm
insisted on thanking all the people who had come to offer their support,
beginning with his partners. “In addition to all those who have been working
on the boat, I’ve received considerable moral and material support and I
want to thank everyone involved. I’m obviously referring to the
representatives from Cheminées Poujoulat, as well as the CCI, the town of
Les Sables, those in charge of the port and Sophie Vercelleto from the SAEM
Vendée who has also played a big part”.
After exchanging a few words with Kito, his less fortunate friend, Bernard
left the pontoon to head offshore, accompanied by ten or so launches. He was
also applauded by the crowds who had come out, despite the late hour, to
welcome in both Bestaven and De Pavant and bid farewell to Cheminées
Poujoulat.
At the 1100 hour ranking this morning, Cheminées Poujoulat had a deficit of
957.6 miles on the leader, Gitana Eigthy, and 430 miles on Foncia, his
‘pacesetter’. The 60 foot Imoca was making 12 knots of boatspeed in 15 knots
of NW’ly wind, whilst off Portugal, the tail end of the fleet was being
considerably slowed. Meantime the leaders are already powering along towards
the Canaries.
Translated by Kate Jennings – Expression
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