© Central Lechera Asturiana
The fast moving front which has presented leaders Virbac-Paprec 3 and Foncia with a slingshot move south east, today allowing them to satisfy the requirements of passing the first security gate, but it has spirited the leading duo even further from the third placed MAPFRE and even more from the main body of the 13 boat fleet, which may still have a further encounter with the persistent high pressure system spreading again across the South Atlantic.
Since they returned from ‘invisible’ mode this morning, Foncia have been consistently around 27-28 miles behind leader Virbac-Paprec 3, running a nearly parallel course some 25 miles to the north of the blue and white hulled IMOCA Open 60 of Jean-Pierre Dick and Loïck Peyron. As the front moves away from this afternoon and evening they will gybe in succession for the SW’ly winds behind the front and focus on the quickest course to the second gate on a fairly direct course.
Though they are now some 517 miles behind the leaders MAPFRE have strengthened their position in third place. Iker Martinez and Xabi Fernandez have 160 miles in hand over fourth placed Estrella Damm, and the top Spanish duo will likely continue with brisk SW’ly breezes for a further 24 hours, allowing them to move still further ahead of those behind and give them a fighting chance to keep pace with the runaway leaders.
But behind them the high pressure in the South Atlantic will try and snare three quarters of the fleet, as the window of opportunity presented by the westerly breezes of the last 36 hours closes on the fingers of these chasing duos. In the wake of the depression, light winds will return, even headwinds for some in the north which are still trying to break into the 40’s latitudes.
For them it has become increasingly important to keep spirits up, to roll with the punches which come their way this early in the race. Such was the reminder of Boris Herrmann (GER) who was linked up live by video today from Neutrogena in eighth place to Europe’s biggest, and one of the world’s largest boat shows, the annual BOOT boat show in Dusseldorf:
“It’s always hard to keep smiling when you lose. But on the other hand you need to have fun onboard on a trip like this. And we’re still having a lot of fun.” Remarked Herrmann, “We had some issues but managed everything okay. No temporary chewing gum solutions, quite sophisticated work. We do use the chewing gum to have something to bite on because we’re both hungry all day.”
But finding it hard to put on a brave face this afternoon are the Central Lechera Asturiana duo Juan Merediz and Fran Palacio. Though they are no strangers to adversity, having fought a tough battle to be ready for the race start after losing their mast of the Owen Clarke designed former Ecover 2/Mutua Madrileña four weeks before the start whilst off Lisbon, the duo took a hard decision to go for a technical stop in Cape Town to make a repair to their keel ram hydraulics. The duo, on their first round the world race, have sailed a solid and often astute race down the Atlantic, but will have to divert from their present duel with Hugo Boss.
Juan Merediz explained:
“We’re disappointed, annoyed but still our spirits are OK. What I’ve worried about from the first day was to start and make it back to Barcelona. This is just something unfortunate along the way but we have to do it for safety. It’s another hurdle in the way and it’s on our way to the Southern Ocean. Afterwards we will keep going the same, redoubling our efforts. Unfortunately we will lose more time getting to Cape Town than with the actual repair. The keel gives the power to the boat and right now the power is compromised. The most important thing is to keep fighting.”
The stopover will cost them miles on their near rivals, but the actual repair should only take a matter of two to three hours.
Quotes
Michel Desjoyeaux (FRA) Foncia:“Here we are, visible again. We have removed the white cloak of secrecy. We were about ten miles to the NW of the west point of Gate 1, so we have fulfilled our requirements there and now we are free to do what we want. Anyway down to the south there is an iceberg so we stay more in the north this time. For the moment the weather is favorable to take a fairly direct route and the next gate is pretty close.”
“We are in a NW’ly which is not very strong, the sea is not very organized but we have a blue sky so it is really nice. We will gybe this evening. I am not so focused on the weather today but I know a little about what is happening.”
“ Virbac-Paprec 3 has been further south since before Gough Island and the difference between us stays the same. They will have to go through the gate while we have already done this. Since they are a little ahead they will gybe a little later.”
“ We saw a lot of birds around us when we passed near Gough Island. There are some little Albatross but not many and they are not very big.”
“ What has changed a lot in the southern seas is the sea temperature, it is still 17C. When you maneuver, handling ropes and sails you would not believe you are in the Roaring Forties. We have a big sun. It’s like August in Ireland.”
Kito de Pavant (FRA), Groupe Bel:“Last night was a bit rough after we got into the wind. There was a lot of work, strong winds and a lot of sail changes because we need to change gears to adapt for the changes in wind.”
The sea is quite organized but its not very comfortable for us because we are now sailing to try and get through a fairly tight weather window. Given the conditions now we have broken out the dry suits again and hats, which is a change from our bad habits of being near naked on the boat.
So much can happen, so we try to sail the boat both fast and safe, but that is a difficulty we have at the moment, getting the balance between the work we do, going fast and saving the boat.
Stealth mode, we think, is of little interest to us just now. We all have the same tools to choose our course so I don’t think really we have options to stray from it. We have to keep up the rate but of course with different conditions we don’t have exactly the same timings.
It is going well at the moment, but I feel like we should really not hang around here because there is a risk of being caught again by the high pressure ridge’s area of light breeze, but we can’t go faster than the music!
Yesterday when we were under spinnaker it is was good, sliding along. It was nice with no gusts. The temperatures are lower now so it is cooler and wetter on deck.
I talk to Seb a lot about the Roaring Forties because he is very knowledgeable. We have not yet seen any Albatross. Seb has a lot to tell me about the birds, and his experiences with big voyages like those of De Kersauson, Bruno Peyron and Franck Cammas. It is good to see how he prepares and sets things up, and that is reassuring for me.
Seb still has the beard and wants it to stay. The seals around our necks irritate with the beard so it is not that great.
We are now almost two days behind the first two. Pachi and Toño have come back very hard since they were behind at the Equator, they have found some shortcuts to take and we have been slower on the road.
Estrella Damm had a slightly better position and so they had the chance to escape. But it is always a good challenge and we often go faster when there is a boat just in front.”
Juan Merediz (ESP), Central Lechera Asturiana: “We’re disappointed, annoyed but still our spirits are OK. What I’ve worried about from the first day was to start and make it back to Barcelona. This is just something unfortunate along the way but we have to do it for safety. It’s another hurdle in the way and it’s on our way to the Southern Ocean. Afterwards we will keep going the same, redoubling our efforts. Unfortunately we will lose more time getting to Cape Town than with the actual repair. The keel gives the power to the boat and right now the power is compromised. The most important thing is that the boat is secure and safe and that we are both well. We will keep fighting on.
We have plenty of spares onboard and Fran and I did ask the team what has happened because is something that usually never fails. And this part which is essential and never fails it actually failed. We are perfectly fine, the boat has a sprained ankle and limps a bit.Once in Cape Town we don’t have to haul out the boat and we’ll have the best help to fix it. And if we can do it in 2 hours and 45 minutes then that’s better than 3 hours and 15 minutes. It all helps.
We are quite lucky on the positive side. We dismasted one month before the start, and not five minutes before the start, otherwise it would have been too late to be ready for the start. And of course this has happened before getting to Wellington so we don’t have to take the 48 hours penalty, just break from the optimum route a bit. We hope that the high pressure systems let us through.”
Boris Herrmann (GER) Neutrogena: “We have only 14 knots of breeze right now, and it looks like we missed the edge of the deep pressure system just by a couple of miles. We thought we would make it and get the fast lane. But with the distance lost to Mirabaud in the last skeds it seems they are but we not. We acted quite unlucky so far with parking wherever there was a hole. This is pretty frustrating. But we’ll continue fighting as hard as we can and hope to catch up in the Southern Ocean. This will be our time to come.”
”The temperature came down rapidly in the last 24 hours from 30 to only 15 degrees Celsius. After sunburned a lot with hardly any shadow onboard during the day we feel better now. We had a brilliant night before with moon shine and 20+ knots of wind, but it’s gone by now. We are desperately missing stronger breezes. We’ve just changed from the genoa to the smaller jib to point higher, but it looks like we’ll re-change soon. The wind is not stable anymore.”
“We’re wondering what the advantage could be for us to change into ghost mode. But for now there is no passing lane in sight. We need to catch up on ‘Mirabaud’ to maybe continue undercover and have a chance on overtaking them.”
“It would have been smart to choose the ghost mode at Gibraltar to not shown everybody we were sailing backwards for 24 hours.”
“We had some issues but managed okay on everything. No chewing gum solutions, quite sophisticated work. We use the chewing gum to have something to bite on because we’re both hungry all day.”
“It’s always hard to keep smiling when you lose. But on the other hand you need to have fun onboard on a trip like this. And we’re still having a lot of fun.”
Ranking at 1400hrs UTC Tuesday 25th January
1 VIRBAC-PAPREC 3 at 18 708 miles to the finish
2 FONCIA at 27 miles from leader
3 MAPFRE at 517 miles
4 ESTRELLA DAMM Sailing Team at 672 miles
5 GROUPE BEL at 689 miles
6 RENAULT Z.E at 743 miles
7 MIRABAUD at 850 miles
8 NEUTROGENA at 914 miles
9 GAES CENTROS AUDITIVOS at 948 miles
10 CENTRAL LECHERA ASTURIANA at 1133 miles
11 HUGO BOSS at 1190 miles
12 WE ARE WATER at 1317 miles
13 FORUM MARITIM CATALA at 1394 miles
RTD PRESIDENT
From Barcelona World Race
