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The Race - Torture session for Innovation Explorer
Author: Pierrick Garenne
How do you say "in a bad mood" in Patagonian? Innovation Explorer, becalmed more than 1500 miles of the Argentinean coast, is straining at the reins. Imperturbable, a huge bubble of high pressure has parked itself right over the heads of this Americano-Swedo-Italo-Gaulois crew, and for once they
would just love the sky to fall on their heads. 236 miles behind the leader yesterday, 510 miles today at the same time. A real torture session whilst Club Med and Team Adventure greedily swallow up the miles. 593 miles in 24 hours for Club Med, a little less for Team Adventure. Both these sprinters are now in the Roaring 40s. Warta-Polpharma is continuing her descent along the coast of Brazil and Team Legato is crossing in slow motion the Equator.
"We've had some fresh visitors", wrote Grant Dalton in his daily mail. They are albatrosses. I think they were rather surprised at this strange thing hurtling alongside them at 30 knots!" Since last night, Club Med and Team Adventure have locked onto a 25 knot Southwesterly and are at last in the "real" roaring forties. To put it clearly, they have managed to pick up a first front and have been steaming along at almost 25 knots average. "The sea was a little difficult last night", said Franck Proffit (Club Med) during the daily chat session. "We have a steady 25 knots of wind gusting to 37 knots for half an hour before falling to 28 again. Getting 600 litres of water in the face and sailing with one's eyes glued to the helm is, you have to admit, a little scary!" But at this game, the Dalton-Proffit Club Med is in her stride and today is 150 miles ahead of Cam Lewis's Team Adventure who has not slowed down either. "Cam has been attacking like a madman since last night" concluded the co-skipper of the leading boat. And he is really hanging in there! Slightly further North, he is holding onto the leader, which all the same clocked 593.4 miles in 24 hours (from 1100 GMT yesterday to 1100 GMT today). This beats the preceding "record" of the event that was held by Team Adventure with 588 miles. These two protagonists are waging a real match race in a stadium swept by XXL size wind and waves.
And it's only just the beginning. Because if the winds should "fall" slightly to 20 knots during the afternoon, a little surprise "made in the Southern Ocean" is awaiting them for tomorrow evening. "It's going to be a baptism by fire for these catamarans in the race", said Gilles Chiori from Mйtйo Consult. "Winds of 50 to 60 knots are expected tomorrow tonight. To avoid these powerful winds, they will be pointing a little towards the North to cope with slightly lighter winds and not such a rough sea".
And what about Innovation Explorer? Radio silence at today's chat session. It's not the day to go bothering them! The truth is that they are seriously bogged down. The bubble of high pressure has decided to go on stand-by over the heads of this crew, and they won't be out of their ordeal before this evening. And in the meantime, the gap is widening and widening. Innovation Explorer should at this rate be 700 miles astern by this evening. All smiles aboard Warta-Popharma pursuing her rapid descent along the Brazilian coast. Dariusz Drapella's morale is high: "It's our days at the moment. We're hoping to beat our personal record today. Tony has still not crossed the Equator and Loпck is still parked. For us it's a hell of an opportunity to narrow the gap.".
And Dariusz is right of course, even if he is trailing Innovation Explorer by 1100 miles. As for Team Legato, she's struggling, average speed 1 knot at 0700 GMT, 5.6 knots at 1100 GMT, a painful crossing of the Equator for Tony. But it's being done in fine humour, the bottles of champagne, after Tony's birthday, are still ready in the cooler.
The anecdote and figures of the day:
This morning between 0700 and 0800 GMT, Club Med passed latitude 41°21' South. Just 17 days ago, the maxi catamaran co-skippered by Grant Dalton and Franck Proffit crossed the same latitude but North, on the offset course at the start in Barcelona. So it has required 17 days and 18 hours for the leading boat to cover 6300 miles through the water at an average speed of 14.7 knots, or 4982 miles closer to home at an average of 11.7 knots (calculated using a theoretical distance to cover of 23,300 miles from Barcelona to Marseilles. The difference being that racing yachts don't always take the shortest route but have to tack and gybe to the whims of the wind).
Did you know: The Southern Ocean (cont'd)
And what about the atmosphere? The Southern Ocean is synonymous with cold, with temperatures hovering between 5 and -5°C. The sun can offer some magnificent light effects but when the lows roll in, the sky becomes overcast with a thick layer of cloud preventing any warming sun's rays from
penetrating. Beyond the Screaming 50s (latitude 50° South), the maxi-catamarans must also expect to cross paths with icebergs that have broken away from the ice floes and which drift with the currents. Absolute danger, because if they were to hit one, however small, it could burst open
a hull or rip off an appendage (rudder or daggerboard). In order to prevent such an encounter, they all have alarms on their radars that warn them of any eventual presence of icebergs. Certain crews, like in the last Whitbread (crewed race round the world in stages), also wear at night infrared glasses to identify small blocks of ice on the surface called "growlers"" which are not picked up by their "electronic crewmember". One of the best indications that they are entering a risky zone is the water temperature. If the water is usually around 5°C, a sudden drop in temperature would indicate the entry into a zone where icebergs and growlers might be present. Normally.
Quotes:
Dariusz Drapella (Warta-Polpharma) during the official 1300 radio session: "Where do I come from? I'm a merchant navy officer and I've sailed on much bigger boats. The last boat that I commanded was 200 metres long and sailed in the Irish Sea. It was a passenger ferry, I was mate on the Dar Mlodziezy that carried 3000 m_ of sail and I covered more than 26,000 miles on her. Lots of different boats! I've also been to the Antarctic and I know what it's like. I know what to expect.".
Franck Proffit (Club Med) during the official 1300 chat session: "Nicholas Pichelin has done a good job on the design of the harness we wear now as soon as we go outside. This harness, apart from it's primary function, also carries a torch, a personal beacon, a knife, and all sorts of things useful in case of a problem!".
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