© Mirabaud
At last conditions are stamped with some of the south’s usual hallmarks: some desirable, some not so desirable. Of course such a stable Sunday is entirely transient and in different sections of the fleet already the prospects for change are looming.
Closing fast on the longitude of Cape Leeuwin, just over 1000 miles ahead of them this Sunday afternoon, Jean Pierre Dick and Loïck Peyron have seen their lead grow by a further 45 miles since 0900hrs UTC this morning and now the French duo have more than 617 miles of a lead over second placed MAPFRE.
Their passage up to the Cook Straits, 3300 miles ahead, looks like it might be blessed with a decent transition all the way up to New Zealand.
Virbac Paprec 3will pass ‘through’ the country where she was built, and was launched in May last year. Indeed it will be the first a kind of homecoming salute for no fewer than seven of the IMOCA Open 60 fleet racing which were built in New Zealand.
While there may be a certain satisfaction to be locked into the progression of the favourable systems, at the moment there seems to be little prospect for wholesale gains or losses. The key focus for many crews today was to enjoy the conditions and to focus on sailing their boat to maximum potential.
Almost exactly in the middle of the fleet are Dominique Wavre and Michèle Paret, sixth from 12 and with close to 1580 miles deficit to the leaders and a 1725 miles margin to 12th placed We Are Water. Veteran Wavre and Paret was finally rewarded with a dose of southern ocean surfing today, the fast conditions which have not so far been granted to the duo, who finished in third place in the first edition of the race.
They have been valiantly holding off Neutrogena, Ryan Breymaier and Boris Herrmann, but the American-German pairing had closed to within two miles of Mirabaud’s sixth place this afternoon.
Wavrereported this morning:“There are wonderful surfs and then other more difficult moments because the sea is crossed and choppy . There’s great swell, 3 or 4 meters high. The boat is nice to steer but we have to manage our tiredness because it is quite hard work to steer in this wind. There are pleasurable moments and long nice surfs. On the GPS its 25 knots for the fastest surfs but it is difficult to sustain high speed averages.”
Of the invigorating tussle with Neutrogena Wavre highlighted:
“ It’s an amazing fight, we communicate via email, we check our info together and it’s cool to have a boat close by, it’s motivating and stimulating at the same time. And Boris and Ryan are real nice guys so it’s really cool to have them close by!
We saw them the day before yesterday, under spi, on a parallel course to ours.”
And with the respite in the weather, there comes the opportunity to simply default to enjoying the basic satisfaction of being outside and 100% in charge of making the boat go fast. For Pachi Rivero and Toño Piris that meant resting the autopilot and spending some quality hours on the helm of Renault ZE Sailing Team, enjoying the unexpected sunshine on their patch of the south Indian Ocean.
“It’s a fantastic day in the South,” remarked Piris who last raced in the southern oceans in 1997 on Chessie Racing,in the Whitbread Race “We have good speed with the big spi up and good waves and now Pachi is working at the helm. After such a long time reaching and with water pouring on the boat, during which the pilot was the boss, we now take advantage of the conditions to steer by hand as much as we can”
“ We have gone more to the South to look for some more wind and we have found it. Now we have to study the next weather files because we are heading.”
On tenth placed FMC, there is an interesting cultural mix, not just between the laconic Breton Ludovic Aglaor, an experienced co-skipper who is a veteran circumnavigator, and the young Catalan Gérard Marín, but their different sailing culture so far has been from different ends of the spectrum – Aglaor on giant multis and Marín on 6.5m Minis. On the IMOCA Open 60’s their cultures, experiences and backgrounds are blending to form a strengthening unit..While Race HQ in Barcelona basked in warm sunshine, Aglaor was even satisfied to have some typically Breton weather:
“ We already had a lot of sunshine in the Atlantic, so personally I really looked forward to finding a French Brittany atmosphere once again! The more so because the sun with the depleted ozone layer is not so good: aggressive and a bit dangerous. Three or four days ago I was sailing with a naked torso and in the evening my back was a bit sunburned, and my skin is not particularly sensitive.”
Quickest boat this evening is still Hugo Boss, Andy Meiklejohn and Wouter Verbraak, also satisfied this Sunday to have the powerful beast trucking fast on the heels of a proper southern ocean low, the native territory of the Juan Kouyoumdjian design. They are the only boat to have gained on the leaders over the last 24 hours.
Toño Piris (ESP) Renault ZE Sailing Team: “It’s a fantastic day in the South, we have good speed with the big spi up and good waves and now Pachi is working at the helm. After such a long time reaching and with water pouring on the boat, during which the pilot was the boss, we now take advantage of the conditions to steer by hand as much as we can.
We have gone more to the South to look for some more wind and we have found it. Now we have to study the next weather files because we are heading straight to the next gate and the strategy is to keep the boat numbers as high as possible.
It is not very cold yet, at least not seriously cold; we are quite a bit north because of the new position of the gates. It’s a bit like spring, when you never know what to wear, because if you put on too many clothes you end up too warm when you are doing maneuvers, but if you put on too little you can get very cold.
The books we will take out when the good weather comes, maybe when we go up the Atlantic again, at the moment there has really been no time. Between maneuvering and the routine maintenance work, when you have a moment you immediately try to rest and get some sleep.
The music helps us to unwind: Coldplay, Sabina, U2, Coltrane…
If you are have too big sails, and a big squall comes in, you can feel insecure because problems can appear quite suddenly, so yes you are scared, you are afraid of breaking and having to give up the game”.
Dominique Wavre (SUI) Miraubaud:“There are wonderful surfs and then other more difficult moments because the sea is crossed and choppy . There’s wonderful swell, 3 or 4 meters high. The boat is nice to steer but we have to manage the tiredness because it is quite trying to steer in this wind. There are pleasurable moments and long nice surfs. On the GPS its 25 knots for the fastest surfs but it is difficult to reach high speed averages. Steering with a wheel at the back is great. On the one hand there is not much protection so it’s difficult, but on the other hand it is the best vantage point to negotiate the waves. We will gybe at the end of the day or during the night to go up to the Amsterdam gate and after that I can’t say, but at present looking two days ahead seems more than enough. It’s an amazing fight, we communicate via email, we check our info together and it’s cool to have a boat close by, it’s motivating and stimulating at the same time. And Boris and Ryan are real nice guys so it’s really cool to have them close by! We saw them the day before yesterday, under spi, on a parallel course to ours. We are sleeping about 4 to 5 hours every 24 hours; it’s difficult to say really because it’s in bits and pieces, short naps here and there, in order not to leave the other one too many hours at the helm.Tomorrow should be a good day, but I am afraid that after that we will find light conditions.”
Ludovic Aglaor (FRA) FMC:“ We already had a lot of sunshine in the Atlantic, so personally I really looked forward to finding a French Brittany atmosphere once again! The more so because the sun with the depleted ozone layer is not so good: aggressive and a bit dangerous. Three or four days ago I was sailing with a naked torso and in the evening my back was a bit sunburnt, and my skin is not particularly sensitive. We had quite a few miles since the beginning of the race but this time we have not allowed the system to fool us and we have managed to get wind and here we are waiting for the next Southwest; it is arriving. For us the front has passed already, conditions are lighter and the pressure is going up so we are going to slow down but in any case we will have more wind than the guys behind. Last night the sea was crossed and at the beginning we had to slow down because it was a bit bumpy. We advance at 11.14 knots, on a direct route, so it’s not bad at all! Here we are in a bit of a basin, and you get shaken from all directions; I don’t expect the big swell until the Pacific. We have the luck to be quite up North so it is not very cold yet, but humidity is starting to seep inside the boat… Yes, the first time in the South is a bit weird, but Gerard is adapting quite well. Anyway, there’s not much choice, it’s not like you can go further North to find summer conditions again…!”
Standings at 14hrs Sunday 6th February
1 VIRBAC-PAPREC 3 at 14739 miles from the finish
2 MAPFRE at 617 miles to leader
3 ESTRELLA DAMM Sailing Team at 685 miles
4 GROUPE BEL at 757 miles
5 RENAULT Z.E at 1005 miles
6 MIRABAUD at 1587 miles
7 NEUTROGENA at 1589 miles
8 GAES CENTROS AUDITIVOS at 2243 miles
9 HUGO BOSS at 2354 miles
10 FORUM MARITIM CATALA at 2838 miles
11 WE ARE WATER at 3080 miles
12 CENTRAL LECHERA ASTURIANA at 3311 miles
RTD FONCIA
RTD PRESIDENT
From Barcelona World Race
