25 November 2008
Day 17: Saint Helena, the great moving hurdle
In Brief:
- How to negotiate the Saint Helena High Pressure system? Decision to be taken by Thursday evening.
- What is that Saint Helena High anyway? Read our feature here
- From tomorrow on, we will be sending out a morning update, in plain text format and easily read on a variety of devices (Blackberry, PDA etc). If you do not wish to receive it, click here mailto:unsub@btteamellen.com?subject=no more morning email
In detail:
Straight down or to the south - east? In other words, will the position of the Saint Helena high pressure system allow the frontrunners of the 2008 Vendée Globe fleet to shorten the route and head straight to the entrance of the roaring forties, lying some 1200 miles away, or will the system stand on their path, as it usually does, forcing them to stick to the west of the direct route?
The question is on everyone's mind today, as it conditions tactics for the coming days, and could generate a turning point in an otherwise relatively stable situation in terms of rankings and distances to the leader. Yet as we've seen this morning, the Trade Winds are rather unstable and the leading pack, although still very close to each other, sometimes display different speeds which betray different conditions. Sailing less than 17 miles away from Loïck Peyron, Sébastien was according to the 10:00 GMT position report almost 2,5 knots faster. After having gained some 10 miles over 6 hours (between 4:00 and 10:00 GMT).
Having benefited from a slight shift to the east, the leaders have been able to ease the sheets a bit and see their speed increase, which has not been the case for their followers, and during today's official audio session with the race organisers Vincent Riou explained it was hard to feel the boat suffer upwind in these rough sea conditions. For Jean Le Cam, in 8th position, conditions are also "very wet" but as far as tactics are concerned, he seems to be quite determined: "the routings are clear, we have to go south because there will be wind like that for the coming days. The guys in front will bump into some lighter airs." Then tactical battle is on, and it's now a matter of getting to the roaring forties and the first ice gate in leading position!
Named after the St Helena island, a British territory located in the South Atlantic and associated with Ascension and Tristan da Cunha, the anticyclone is the southern counterpart of the Azores high, well-known to us Europeans. Read the full article here
Photos Credit: Thierry Martinez/ SeaCo/ BT Seb Josse
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Julie Royer
BT Team Ellen Communications Manager
Email: julie.royer@ocgroup.com
Tel: +44 7501 723 121
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