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2010/02/10-18h32
High havoc
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| Jules Verne Trophy 2009 - 2010 |
| It's been a difficult day with a tricky night in prospect after ten days at sea! While Groupama 3 is approaching 35° South,
the weather situation isn't really playing ball for the next 24 hours, with conditions forecast to be pretty unstable as regards
the wind. As such Franck Cammas and his men are constantly having to adapt to the irregular breeze by zigzagging between the
zones of high pressure.
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The clock is ticking and the miles are slipping by in a negative sense: the lead Groupama 3 had over the Jules Verne Trophy
reference time has melted in the tropical sunshine, plummeting from over 600 miles to less than 300 miles... And it's going
to get worse before it gets better! Indeed, the Saint Helena High has split into several cells and Franck Cammas and his nine
crew are having to deal with zones of high pressure, which are imploding on site, only to reform again a little further down
the track... It's hard to establish a strict plan of campaign when the wind is disappearing into thin air!
"Fortunately
there were some good wind rotations to play with last night: we were able to cover a fair few miles towards the South until
morning. We've been able to make headway with some fairly unstable local phenomena, which is allowing us to drop down nicely
under gennaker. We've only had gybes to do, but no sail changing manoeuvres. We had to be on the look-out the whole night
so as to get the very best out of the shifts. It's a race against the clock with a zone of high pressure that could well swallow
us up. It's a bit tense on board, but we're doing what we can!" indicated Franck Cammas at the 1130 UTC radio link-up
with Groupama's Race HQ in Paris.
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Attacking the front!They're going to have to keep champing at the bit and remain particularly vigilant in order to gradually make up ground towards
the South to escape the high pressure metastasis. There are nearly 300 miles to go before they can open up the throttle in
a very S'ly depression system, associated with around twenty knots of W'ly wind. Already Franck Cammas and his men know they're
going to have their work cut out to round the Cape of Good Hope as fast as Bruno Peyron in 2005 (14d 08h 19'). However, as
long as they're only a few hours behind on entering the Indian Ocean, it'll be game on once again! One thing for sure is that
the crew are going to be under great pressure over the coming hours...
"Since lunchtime we've been sailing
in a light 9-10 knot SW'ly breeze. The sea is already being a little influenced by the effects of the swell from the Deep
South so we're `swaying' about a bit. We're still seeking to gain ground to the South as quickly as possible so we can hook
onto the lows. However, the first front with SW'ly winds won't hit us till Thursday evening: the tricky section is between
now and midnight! We'll just have to hope that we don't fall into a wind hole, which would put us behind the front..."
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