Vendee
Globe - Mike Still A Threat, Conrad Approaching
The Horn
After
72 days of racing the leaders are in fairly beefy
trade winds 300 miles East of Recife, on route
to the equator. The Riou/Le Cam/Golding trio are
currently making incredibly similar progress,
trying to hold onto both their heading and their
speed in capricious winds. They should have slightly
more pressure and stability as the day goes on,
with the squalls gradually becoming less frequent.
Le Cam is continuing to place his hopes in his
position 200 miles to the East of the leader,
Mike Golding just a 100 miles behind him, following
in the Riou’s wake closer to the Brazilian
shores. The meteorological enigma of the Doldrums
is set to spice up the action for the front of
the Vendée Globe fleet in 2 to 3 days’
time. In 6th place Jean Pierre Dick has high hopes
of hoisting his mainsail before nightfall (since
repairing his boom) while Australian Nick Moloney
is focusing on hoisting his energy levels, North
East of the Falklands, exhausted from the adrenalin
rush that was the Southern Ocean. Conrad Humphreys
is set to be the 9th competitor to be delivered
into the Atlantic tomorrow lunch time and clearly
it cannot come too soon after a frightening hatch
implosion flooding part of Hellomoto. He is currently
235 miles from Cape Horn, while American Bruce
Schwab is 400 miles away. Virtually mid Pacific
the backrunner of the fleet Karen Leibovici has
a deficit of 6132.7 miles on the leaders.
The
familiar clear, matter-of-fact voice of Vincent
Riou (PRB) today is synonymous with his 126.1
mile lead of the Vendée Globe fleet. “Everything
is going fine under the sun and squalls. The wind
is more established today. The choice of passage
for the Doldrums has not yet been decided but
I think I’m ideally placed whether it be
28 degrees West or 30. We’ll see what happens
when I get there but I’m not worried about
it. I’m going as quickly as Jean, to the
rhythm of the squalls. He’ll gain a few
miles on me when I begin to stall in the Doldrums
but I’m not looking at what he’s doing.
I am confident in my course. To mark him would
be a serious mistake. In such weak trade winds,
Jean is having difficulty making headway on me.
As for Mike Golding, there is no way you can rule
him out of the equation. You still have to keep
your eye out for the English skipper.”
Jean
Le Cam (Bonduelle) also echoed these sentiments
about the English threat, and clearly for him
Mike is still very much a pretender to victory.
“I don’t know what will happen, but
there will clearly be a winner, and someone in
second and third and that could be any one of
the top three. I would have preferred better established
trade winds. It wasn’t forecast to be like
that. That’s the unknown quantity in the
weather. You have to constantly reanalyse the
weather situations. The Doldrums are a real shambles
and the situation in the North Atlantic is also
very unusual. The more unstable the situation,
the more opportunities I’ll have to come
back on Vincent the Terrible. There aren’t
many flying fish and I’ll soon be putting
the radar back on for the shipping. It’s
funny, the last boat I saw was PRB during the
descent of the Atlantic.”
Just
over a 100 miles behind Le Cam, Mike Golding is
experienced enough to know that the race isn’t
over until it’s over and is giving it everything
he can to get back on the duo. “I feel ok.
I’m back on it, trying not to lose more
ground” said Mike Golding this morning.
“I’m looking for any opportunities
that come my way. I still have squalls and there’s
one in front right now. The situation is more
stable though with the squalls less and less frequent,
at around 3 hourly intervals. I’m as confident
as I can be and driving as best I can. The boat
is at 100% though I’m a little nervous of
1 or 2 things. I’m hoping the time will
come when I can get back into the race properly.
Anything’s possible. All the boats are tired
and we’re all looking forward to the finish.
The North Atlantic looks quite quiet which means
we won’t have a very fast passage. That
may be in my favour. Jean is in a good position
for the next 24 hours at least. In around 2 hours’
time I’ll have lighter winds while he will
be more lifted. I think Jean is as well lined
up for the Doldrums as we are and it looks like
we’re all aiming for the same gap. He’ll
be on the other side from Vincent and it’s
not clear which is better. My motivation is that
I have no other alternative! There is no time
to reflect, you must look forward. I’m counting
my blessings as a lot of very good things have
happened (excluding my halyard breakages). The
general condition of the boat is very good and
a nice cup of tea serves well in every disaster!”
Dominique
Wavre on Temenos continues to lead the attack
in the chasing pack, Sébastien Josse (VMI)
just 3.3 miles behind him, understandably tetchy
about their duel believing himself to be considerably
less equipped for the battle. The focus on Virbac
Paprec for Jean Pierre Dick is on getting the
fixed boom back into position and finally hoisting
the mainsail, while recharging the batteries is
a must for Nick Moloney, in every sense of the
term.
After
Joé Seeten’s passage of the Horn
yesterday evening it is Conrad Humphreys who is
less than 24 hours from deliverance into the Atlantic
and clearly it cannot come too soon. “At
1945 GMT, I opened the internal hatch to the aft
rudder compartment and suddenly became engulfed
in icy southern ocean. The water level inside
the compartment was at least half a metre and
I could see exactly where it was coming from.
A small plastic hatch that gives access to the
life raft box had imploded from the force of the
waves hitting the stern of Hellomoto and the water
level was rising...fast. I had no time to think,
I had only a few minutes at best before the auto-pilots
electronics, gyro compasses and communications
aerials where all under water. I ran back through
the hull, visualising what I would need...Bilge
pump hose extension, bucket, something to block
the hole up with, survival suit.... I ran the
hose and grabbed some batten lengths. There was
no time to put the survival suit on, so I plunged
back into the icy water and searched for the hatch
that had been blown off the life raft box, finding
it right in the aft section by the port rudder
quadrant. The water level now was above the doorway
and water was running into the next compartment.
The auto-pilot electronics where being splashed
by the surge of water inside and much of the wiring
was already underwater. The bilge pump was running,
but not sucking and I could hear the motor running
dry. I had to reduce the level of the water and
the only way left was to open the hatch onto the
deck and start bailing as fast as I could..."
(See www.vendeeglobe.org for whole quote).
The
Vendée Globe – 100 % adventure!
Quotes
from the Boat:
Nick
Moloney (Skandia): “I'm completely out of
it. I don't know how I let myself get to this
point. I’m totally exhausted. I'm not sure
what I am doing, very frustrated, but I'm wired
and can't sleep, worrying about job list, but
everything I touch turns to rats”
Sébastien
Josse (VMI): “I waited until I was sure
to have to touched the wind shift before tacking.
I went deeper than Dominique to track it down
as I can’t afford to make multiple sail
changes. The wind is gradually clocking around
to the right and will enable us to climb up towards
the equator. I hope I can stay on this tack for
a while, head down, flat out on a straight line
like a boar. I’m not grading myself in relation
to Dominique. I’m not racing with him. I’m
in the same system as him and we have the same
destination with fairly similar Finot Designs
but that’s where the comparison stops. I
am no longer armed to fend him off. We won’t
let each other go until the Doldrums but after
that I won’t be able to follow him anymore.
At the moment, there is perfect sunshine to charge
my batteries so I’m only helming in the
morning and in the evening.”
Jean
Pierre Dick (Virbac Paprec): “I am expecting
the seas to calm a little and I’ve got my
overalls on. My objective is to fix the boom back
together and hoist the mainsail before nightfall.
It’s not going to be easy, especially placing
the mainsail back on the boom, as it’s heavy
(around 160 kg). After that, I hope above all
else that the repairs will hold! I don’t
think I’ll be able to push things as hard
as I did before but I’m still looking forward
to having my mainsail aloft again. I’ll
finally be able to finish off the bottle of champagne
that I began when I round the Horn. After that
I’ll have to dive into the weather charts
as it looks pretty tricky ahead. I’ve worked
the weather systems to my favour since the Cape
and I’ll now have to add a bit of speed
to that strategy! It’s been luxurious aboard
for the past 2 days as the batteries can charge
up better than they did in the Southern Ocean,
I even left the electronics on last night to track
the wind shifts. That enabled me to make a couple
of gybes to get back onto a direct course and
be more reactive with the automatic pilot.”
Anne
Liardet (Roxy): “What is good when you see
a clear horizon is that you can read the future
while looking behind you...Yes, my future is behind
me because what is in front has already passed,
but at the same time, what is in front is also
the future. They told me that the Vendée
Globe was physically hard, but they didn’t
tell me I’d have to do some intellectual
gymnastics on the “spatio -temporal-weather"
theme, which I’m not necessarily trained
in. For the moment, the reading of my immediate
future (are you still following me, you at the
back ?) tells me that there is something climbing
and that it may well be the wind...22-23 knots,
I will drop the gennaker as I want to save it
for light winds of the Atlantic (for the future
which is ahead of me, if you follow). Complicated
eh? Well, try putting yourself in my shoes with
only one and half neurones left as of result of
thinking solely of « BOAT ».
Benoit
Parnaudeau (Max Havelaar-Best Western): “I
really got shaken up three days ago. It’s
calm now. I’ve got 8 knots and not a great
swell. My time on the water is beginning to drag.
I’d like to round the Horn quickly, perhaps
in two or three days’ time. I’ve got
quite a hefty job list to do at the moment, especially
on the ballast pumps. I am satisfied with the
boat. It goes through the water well, a bit of
a submarine at times. I’m comparing my course
to that of Titouan Lamazou in 1989, which motivates
me.”
Source : Vendée Globe 2004
www.vendeeglobe.org
