17 November 2008
Day 9: Negotiating the Cape Verde Islands.
In brief:
- Gybing through the Cape Verde Islands - Loick Peyron regains control as BT sacrifices some miles to move west
- 2500+ miles has been covered so far -equivalent of a transatlantic race -and there is no let up in the pace
- Less than 30 miles separates the top 3 of Peyron, Le Cam and Seb as they pull away from the chasing pack
- A gybe - changing course which requires moving the indexsail and gennaker from one side of the boat - takes Seb around 1 hour and its pure hard graft...read more below.
- Watch today's video conference here http://www.btsebjosse.com/video.asp, you can see Jojo on top form as he copes with life at sea!
In detail:
Into the ninth day of racing and the combat at the front of the fleet is as close as ever after 2,500+ miles - Loick Peyron (Gitana Eighty) re-establishes his lead that he momentarily lost to Jean Le Cam (VM Matériaux) in second as Sébastien (BT) drops to third. This leading trio have been trading places since last Friday as they passed the Canaries and have never been more than 40 miles apart - in fact, the majority of position reports, issued four times a day, put them just a few miles apart. It is the equivalent of being within 5 seconds of your closest rival in the Le Mans 24-Hour Race!
The chasing pack of Jean-Pierre Dick (Paprec-Virbac 2), Vincent Riou (PRB) and Armel Le Cléac'h are 80-90 miles further back - although we suspect there will be a convergence further down the track as they negotiate the Doldrums later this week.
From Seb:"It's a difficult area [Cape Verde Islands], and I have a hard morning today. The lift never comes [ie the wind more from the east] and I had to gybe. What I am trying to do now is to go a little bit more in the west to enter the Doldrums"
These three French skippers chose slightly different tactical options in negotiating the Cape Verde Islands located 375 miles off the coast of West Africa - as they try to find the edge and keep control. Last night the three skippers headed between the two index groups of islands - Barlavento islands (in the north) and the Sotavento islands (in the south) - then Peyron put in a 'sharp right hand turn' gybing round the northern side of island of Sao Nicolau, whilst Seb and Le Cam continued south. This move cost Peyron his lead but by the 1000GMT positions this morning he was back in control having straight-lined it south, whilst Seb has had to put in a number of gybes keeping north of the islands of Fogo and Brava whilst getting in some miles to the west.
Seb will have been working hard over the last few hours performing numerous gybes - gybing the boat takes Seb approx 1 hour and it involves furling the headsail, dumping the water ballast, moving the stacking system across (most time consuming and tiring), performing the gybe ie change heading and adding the new ballast.
Cape Verde Republic
. Uninhabited until the Portuguese settlers came in 1456
. Portuguese colony until the 1975 declaration of independence.
. The archipelago consists of two island groups: Barlavento in the
north, Sotavento in the south.
. Volcanic origin - the last eruption took place in 1995 on Isla Fogo
(literally "volcan island")
Credit Photos:
Photo1: Jean Marie Liot/ DPPI/ Vendée Globe
Photo2, Photos 3: Thierry Martinez/ SeaCo/ BT Seb Josse
High-resolution images of the BT Open 60 are now available for download via the media website http://www.btsebjosse.com.
Julie Royer
BT Team Ellen Communications Manager
Email: julie.royer@ocgroup.com
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