Vendee Globe 2008/09

www.vendeeglobe.org - Übersicht Vendee Globe

Friday 30th January 2009
A FINE VOYAGE…

- A hard ETA to pinpoint
- Capricious weather
- Beware: containers across the route

With 378 miles devoured in 24 hours at an average of 15.8 knots VMG, you could certainly say that Michel Desjoyeaux isn’t sparing the horses on his 60 foot monohull FONCIA. Trimming, repositioning in relation to the low evacuating itself to the NE of FONCIA, routing to anticipate his approach to Les Sables d’Olonne, not to mention the telephone calls with the media: the job-list is increasing and now punctuates the days aboard the white monohull.

Add to this the far from easy conditions for sailing and rest and you have the full grasp of what’s happening 650 miles from the French coast. The air is blue and Michel doesn’t disguise his delight at the prospect of getting back on dry land: “Oh yes, I’m thinking about terra firma! The days and nights are complicated at the moment! Who would have thought we’d have conditions such as these on rounding the Azores High… Where’s the conveyor belt we all dream of? Since crossing the equator, these are the conditions we’ve been facing… The NE’ly tradewinds blew up in our face and now we’ve got hard nights… It’s time we brought this to a close”.

Foto: Yvan Zedda / FONCIA

Vincent Curuchet/DPPI

There’s silence as Michel looks outside. “It’s in the process of calming down gradually but we’ve still got 20 knots for now. I had one or two squalls last night. I’m making 15 knots of boat speed so the 20 knots of days gone by are over. I’ve got another squall to contend with and then I’ll have to hoist more sail area”. In the meantime FONCIA is devouring the miles while she can, well aware that the conditions will become calmer as she nears her final destination. Indeed, traditionally the name of the game is to hook onto the train of lows slipping across the North Atlantic and contend with the power of the winds which propel you downwind towards the pontoon. Here though, the skipper will have to deal with a complicated zone of light winds prior to hitting an E’ly wind rotation. It’s not an easy situation to cope with, and it’s even more difficult to hazard a precise ETA…

Sunday, but when?…
“Given the models from 30/01 at 0000 hours and the positions at 0800 hours, Foncia’s ETA is: between 1st February at 0000 hours UT and 1200 hours UT”. The message from the Vendée Globe Race Management is clear… an arrival for FONCIA spanning 12 hours. And Michel certainly wouldn’t contradict this estimate: “I’m running the models and trying to make an ETA but I can’t disguise the fact that I’m pulling my hair out about it. One routing scoops me up near the Cantabrian Mountains (North coast of Spain) passing offshore of Arcachon, the Baleines lighthouse on île de Ré and then île d’Yeu. Another has me finishing via the Glénan Islands… To be blunt, I don’t really know. I’ll finish when I finish… Finishing early in the morning to suit the tides would be ideal, but right now I’m beginning to smell trouble about that…
It’s tenable for Sunday but it’s hard to say if it’ll be the morning or the evening tide”. It has to be said that the weather situation is far from clear and though finishing in an E’ly breeze might suggest clear skies, this would force FONCIA to round off her circumnavigation of the globe close-hauled. “Make sure you kit yourself out in your woolies. You’re going to have to wrap up warm on Sunday, it’s going to be freezing!…” warns Michel thoughtfully. And though we recall that the skipper of FONCIA did allude to an arrival around the hour of Mass some days ago, this is still within the realms of possibility. “I even warned Brother Jean-Marie de la Chaume (a region of Sables d’Olonne near Port Olonna) who asked me the question via internet on the Team FONCIA website: duties may well be disturbed. I suggested he come to the finish with his parishioners so as to enjoy the festivities!”

Beware: danger!
And though it’s only natural for Michel to cast his mind to the finish, he hasn’t lost sight of the fact that the race will only end once the finish line is crossed. Now free of the competition and the contact racing with a fellow competitor, the immediate danger will be the ocean itself which has retained, like a lot of inhabitants of SW France, the traces of damage caused by last week’s violent storm. Blocks of wood which have fallen from cargo ships, containers which have fallen from floating cathedrals, rivers which are sweeping along debris and other tree trunks ripped up from the earth, the Bay of Biscay and the commercial shipping lanes may still have some nasty surprises in store, which Michel is only too aware of. Indeed there will be one such emergency to contend with during the course of today: “We’ve been warned about the presence of containers at 43°26 N and 14°01 W, which fell into the sea on 25th January. I’ve noted their positions and they’re across my route in 78 miles time! I’ve looked at the winds to estimate how they’ll drift and I reckon they’ll be heading towards the S, SE or even E. As such I’m going to sail above them. After that I’ll see what kind of trajectory I’m on…”

“A time for everything and everything in its time” Michel may well have added, as we recall that this victory, which is now within his grasp, has been forged little by little, mile after mile, since his restart on Tuesday 11th November. It has been a methodical and well-considered race to victory, where enjoyment has been the watchword aboard FONCIA with every passing day. “I’ve always felt happy on this circumnavigation of the globe!” And though a lot of people will ask him the recipe for this amazing comeback, the incredible takeover at the head of the ranking on Tuesday 16th December, the fabulously humorous night messages, the astonishing realism on this global meteorological chessboard, not to mention the constant sincerity of his words, part of the answer may lie in the sheer pleasure he has taken in being on the water. D-48 hours before we can ask him face to face…

Ranking on 30/01/2009 at 1430 GMT
1 – Michel Desjoyeaux (FONCIA) 535.7 miles from the finish
2 - Roland Jourdain (Veolia Environnement) 1,093.4 miles from the leader
3 – Armel Le Cléac’h (Brit Air) 1,447.3 miles
4 – Sam Davies (Roxy) 2,509.0 miles
5 – Marc Guillemot (Safran) 2,615.1 miles

Translated by Kate Jennings – Expression