Vendee
Globe - Turbo Golding Foot Down The Horn
At
0515GMT today when Jean le Cam rounded Cape Horn,
Mike Golding in Ecover was lying in third place
closing fast on the Vendee Globe race leader.
This
morning Golding reported that he was sailing in
30 knot northwesterly winds that were regularly
gusting to 40 in an incredible sea. “It
is very frantic. It has been a mad night and it
is still pretty mad. The sea keeps changing –
it is very strange. There are moments when I feel
in control and there are moments when it is totally
out of control. I spend a lot of time above 20
knots and times doing 27-28 knots. It is mostly
the sea state. I have got more sail up than I
should have for 40 knots, but that doesn’t
seem to make a lot of difference. Even in 30 knots
of breeze I can be doing 27-28 knots. It is just
a mad surf at the moment.”
Normally
Iridium satellite phones successfully cut out
background noise, but today it was possible to
hear Ecover occasionally roar down the waves.
Golding
was concerned about how hard he was pushing given
the conditions. “It is a pivotal point.
I sat there and waited for the 0400 polling praying
that Vincent [Riou on second placed PRB] had slowed
down and the %&$$£ hasn’t. So
I am left with little choice: keep the pedal down.”
But
the harder he pushes at the moment, the more miles
Golding stands to recoup on le Cam. In contrast
to the conditions Golding was experiencing this
morning le rounded Cape Horn in a wind that had
dropped to just 5-10 knots. As a result from being
256 miles astern of le Cam at 0400 today, six
hours later Golding had closed to 181 miles, with
more to come over the course of today.
Golding
is also expecting the wind to drop considerably
for him as he approaches the Horn and he says
this makes it hard to predict exactly when he
will round. “I could be there in 10 hours,
but the reality is that the breeze is going to
run out. The forecast is for it to be pretty light
when I arrive so that could be quite slow that
section. But whatever, the quicker it comes the
better. I wouldn’t mind if it slows down
a bit there.”
In
any round the world race Cape Horn is the most
significant part of the course. Lying at 55deg
58S Cape Horn lies at the north of a 500 mile
wide north-south channel through which the Pacific
Ocean funnels into the Atlantic. The Pacific also
has to funnel vertically as the seabed suddenly
shelves here from 4km to 200m.
“You
can get very big waves and very bad storms associated
with the area and so it can be a very dangerous
passage around the headland itself. It has a strong
reputation for that reason,” explains Golding.
“Historically many ships have been lost
there, never mind small lightweight sailing craft.”
With
Jean le Cam rounding 5 days 10 hours ahead of
Michel Desjoyeaux’s 2000 record and the
latest generation of Open 60s having better upwind
potential to improve their performance on this
final run back up the Atlantic, so Desjoyeaux’s
overall Vendee Globe race record of 93 days 3
hours and 57 minutes looks under considerable
threat.
Golding
says that the record is of little concern to him,
but expects the initial section of the Atlantic
to be slow. “It doesn’t look especially
fast going north. Obviously the pace has been
pretty high. We have had five boats pushing really
hard. Now there is three of us all pushing really
hard. We are all really motivated and that is
going to keep the pressure on. As far as a prediction
is concerned – I don’t track the record,
but sub-90 days would be nice.”
Source : Vendée Globe 2004
www.vendeeglobe.org
