Friday 12th December 2008
Michel Desjoyeaux aboard his 60 foot monohull FONCIA
A busy week with the TAAF!
- Wind shadow beneath Kerguelen…
- Two icebergs!
- The cold: the current enemy.
Michel Desjoyeaux aboard his 60 foot monohull FONCIA has once again pulled
off a blinder. 10th last Friday and now a week on, Michel is at the front of
the fleet in this sixth Vendée Globe. And the figures are as breathtaking as
the breakers: over 100 miles gained in seven days on the race leaders, a
successful giant slalom from 10th to 2nd place, 400 mile days covered with
average VMGs of 18 knots. And though Desjoyeaux reindexs the master of his
own destiny, and will likely continue in this manner, today he is the
gamesmaster in a way. Positioned to the north, he is leading the way in that
particular pack, when just 30 days ago he was astern of over twenty boats.
Feeling good, sailing according to his polars, the skipper of FONCIA is
currently facing the wind shadow of the Kerguelen archipelago. We can well
imagine that this phenomenon wasn’t forecast… 2nd in the early hours, he’d
slipped down to 4th place this Friday at 1600 hours. “Nothing catastrophic”,
he confirms. The former “Desolation” archipelago is a long way from his
local Glenan Islands in Brittany, which he knows like the back of his hand,
and the Antarctic climes have dealt him an odd hand, for now at least…
TAAF day!
The TAAF or French Austral and Antarctic Territories have slowed Michel’s
progress at the top of the podium. 13 knots of VMG in the middle of the day
in contrast to his earlier 18 knots. He explains: “I must be in the wind
shadow of Kerguelen. I was stupidly ejected from the system which I was in…
I was slipping along well and then I went a bit too far north and here I
am…” Michel was taken by surprise and he recognises this, but he’s clearly
keeping a keen eye on the others. “Jean-Pierre Dick took a good option 5 or
6 days ago. He is currently continuing to capitalise on this. He’s going
quickly too and he’s not frightened to push the boat”. It’s an intriguing
situation given that FONCIA is set to rapidly get back into a steady air
flow and devour the miles once more. headway will be made on a long port
tack (wind coming from the left) towards the Australian ice gate, where
speed will be essential and the options aren’t likely to be numerous in the
grib files. We’re going to have to react quickly again and really be on top
of things… The minute there’s a light patch you climb up on deck and hoist
the sail. With squalls approaching, you anticipate what might happen so as
not to break anything. You reduce the sail area and hunker down, whilst
keeping control of the automatic pilot which is within reach so as to
optimise the boat’s course and the wind rotations. Nothing very novel… “It’s
been a good 3 or 4 days since I touched the helm… She’s making headway on
her own” says Michel.
“51°09.04S and 61°02.07 E at 10h05UT”
It’s this type of position that you note in your log book and rapidly
communicate to Race Management. And it’s also this type of sighting that
will reindex engraved on Michel’s mind forever, he who with two
circumnavigations of the globe under his belt had never encountered an
iceberg. “I admit that I wasn’t in a rush to encounter an iceberg… However,
I have to say that it’s magical, it’s superb… If I hadn’t been racing I
would have stopped off to have a closer look at it. The visibility was
good... I knew that there was a potential risk of ice in this region. The
organisation which is in charge of surveying this (CLS, a branch of the
CNES, who surveys the locating of large icebergs) had spotted something, but
they didn’t know if it was ice or a fishing boat. At one point, I was in the
process of looking at something on the computer and I glanced out of the
portlight on the roof. I then saw a slightly odd wave which stayed in the
same place. I went up top and I saw a patch of turquoise blue with little
pieces of ice around it. I took the helm just in case I had to avoid one in
the short seas. It measured half a mile across. That was the first and then
half an hour later I saw another one, which was a lot smaller… You could see
a few tops of ice that were sticking out above sea level. They were on the
same trajectory. I conveyed all this information to race management so as to
warn my friends. I looked at it for a good few minutes as there was fairly
good visibility whilst reindexing on the deck just in case. However, if I’d
used my thermometer to detect the presence of icebergs, it would have served
no purpose. The temperature hadn’t budged even a degree!”
His way of making himself feel at home…
All this begs the question… now that he’s back at the front of the fleet in
this Vendée Globe, will Michel Desjoyeaux change his way of sailing aboard
his 60 foot monohull FONCIA? “It’s true that I’ve pushed the boat harder
than the others. What’s changed in my way of sailing now? What’s changed in
my way of sailing is that it’s cold (laughs). Right now, it’s 8°C, but last
night it was 3°C. You’re dressed in four layers on top and three bottom
layers… You put your gloves down below and you take them off when you have
to go up top to manoeuvre. The water last night was at 4.7°C… The first
thing you do once you’ve completed manœuvring with soaked sheets is to
immediately dry your hands so as you don’t get cold. Just 3 or 4 degrees
difference between day and night and it’s incredible how the body reacts.
You can feel it immediately! I am even compelled to rinse my jackets so they
dry quicker, because they’re so caked in salt…”
Cold, wind which often reindexs trapped at 30/35 knots and manœuvres exposed
to the waves, which break on deck creating a deafening racket that
reverberates around the living space: the South is wearing and grating. Yet
Michel feels good there.
Further quotes from Michel…
Bunk… “Do I sleep well? I slept right through the night. Here, day breaks at
1830 UT… I had a taster of my bunk 3 days ago and it was on the right side.
However it’s not practical. I prefer to lay on the pouffe at the foot of the
companionway. The bunk will be something I’ll use in the climb up the
Atlantic.”
A garden named storm… “Fortunately I have a garden shed, though all the
sheets are wet and the water is cold. Right now if you don’t want to
manœuvre, you don’t even go there… nobody’s going to say anything! (laughs).
8 years ago, I told myself that if I returned here one day, it would be with
a covered boat. When I see today that there are only two covered boats where
you can shelter I just can’t believe it…”
Remember… “You think of the first circumnavigators who didn’t have any
fleece layers… how they must have suffered?... They didn’t have all these
technologies here. They were completely crazy. Alongside them, what we do is
mere child’s play! We don’t have to wonder where on earth we are given that
we haven’t seen the sun for a week and then we get just a 10 minute clear
spell to recalculate our position. Right now we’re working on an 8 or 10 day
course… The Golden Globe was only 30 years ago! There weren’t any weather
forecasts. The only forecasts there were related to whether the barometer
dropped or not!”
Ranking on 12th December at 1430 GMT
1 – Jean-Pierre Dick (Paprec Virbac) 15,164.3 miles to the finish
2 – Mike Golding (Ecover) 46.2 miles from the leader
3 - Jourdain Roland (Veolia Environnement) 51 miles
4 - Desjoyeaux Michel (Foncia) 66.1 miles
5 - Josse Sébastien (BT) 106.4 miles
www.teamfoncia.com
Translated by Kate Jennings – Expression
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