Les trimarans de 60 pieds ont pris le départ du HAvre mercredi matin à 10 heures

Photo : G.Martin-Raget/Royale Production

"We’re in 25 knots of breeze from the SSE but the wind is fluctuating from 20 - 30 knots in seconds," said Franck Proffit, co-skipper on Groupama. "It’s not easy to manage the boat as the hull lifts up quickly and you have to stay on the helm to react instantly to these changes in wind strength. So we haven’t eaten or slept much…"

Sixty odd miles to windward of Groupama and in Belgacom’s NW is newcomer to the podium rankings Banque Populaire, in second place now. "We’ve got 30 knots right now and we haven’t slacked off one second since the start," puffed Pascal Bidegorry, co-skipper with Lalou Roucayrol. "Today will be critical, we can’t miss a beat as we pass through two small low pressure systems ahead of us, so the first one to reach the favourable winds will hit the jackpot ! It’s especially important to get well positioned at such an early stage of the race now that without the Ascension Islands marker we have less chance to make any comebacks."

The fleet are awaiting a rotation of the wind to the WNW after the low pressure system moves over them. The trimarans out to the West, including Bayer CropScience, Sergio Tacchini, Biscuits La Trinitaine, Foncia & Gitana, are reaching this shift first before the leaders who have taken a more middle (Groupama) or even easterly (Belgacom) position on the course. There is 172m between the boats furthest East and West.

At 0720am GMT Giovanni Soldini and Vittorio Malingri (TIM) heard a big crack on the boat and discovered a crack in the rear beam between the float and central hull, and is taking in water. They have no more electricity, and are now heading at 4 knots towards Portugal in a 25 knot Southerly wind. "Everything is okay, but our feet are a bit wet now !" said Soldini. They have not declared that they are retiring, and are currently 200m West of Vigo.

MULTIHULL OPEN 50

The 50ft multihull Mollymawk skippered by British duo Ross Hobson and Andi Newman made a small technical stop in Brest Brest #brest to fix a problem with their Standard C communication Communication #Communication equipment (obligatory to have working for the race). They set off again and are trying to catch the Monohull Open 50 fleet as already the ORMA multihulls have overtaken them.

MONOHULL OPEN 60’s

Phase 2 of the Transat Jacques Vabre Transat Jacques Vabre #TJV2015 has begun for the Monohull Open 60 fleet racing directly south in a NW breeze at around 16 knots average boat speed. This long-awaited wind finally kicked in for the front runners after coming through the last obstacle in the form of a small low pressure cell, which generated unstable winds for several hours before the end of last night. Ecover (Golding/Thompson GBR) is still leading, but the best boat speeds over night came from the boats over to the West as they reached these new winds first. As a result Sill (Jourdain/Thomson FRA-GBR) has risen back up to third and lies now 80 miles from the front, and Cheminées Poujoulat-Armor Lux (Stamm/Lebas SWI-FRA) recorded the top average speed in the fleet of over 16.7 knots.

"We’re on the way back up, but it’s not enough to catch Ecover up, as the leaders have also taken off too. It’s hard to compare downwind boatspeeds with the new boats when we are down alongside them and not in the same weather exactly. We’ll have to find another tactic to pull up to the front," said Stamm this morning. "For now we’re going at 15 knots average speed in the 20 knot NW breeze, and can smell the South - flying fish appearing, although the temperature is still fresh." Alex Thomson on board Sill rationalized the hours to come before the fleet hit the Trades, as he and Jourdain try to come back into contact with the leaders : "In the short term we will hit some light weather first, but Ecover will fall into it as well, and we will then hopefully get the new breeze from the West first as well, to get us on the highway to the Trades and on a better sailing angle than Ecover."

Mike Golding has an eye on the Anglo-French duo, but is masterfully covering all bases with such a commanding lead : "We’ve been monitoring Sill’s progress in the west as time moves on, any benefit she may have will diminish and in fact when we look at their routing, we think they will have a problem later on unless they come down. I think we’re in a good spot, we’ll just have to wait and see. Think Sill’s wind is temporary, right now we’re on starboard gybe and think reality is that they are far enough back, that we can do a number of things to counter it if they start to gain on us too severely."

Still with a look in on the front of the fleet is Team Cowes in 6th position 161m behind the leader and in PRB’s wake. Co-skipper Sam Davies remains optimistic despite a temporary downslide in terms of miles from the leader : "Unfortunately for us, the boats in the west have so far got away with it, and we didn’t gain much there, but we continue to push hard and try and get a few extra miles in every day. It is going to be a hard race. We are hooning now…"

This wind will progressively shift to the North and then North East for 15 - 20 knots around the latitude of the Canaries, which are 400m down the track. As the fleet pass to the East of Madeira, the leading two boats Ecover and Virbac (Dick/Abiven FRA) are maintaining similar average speeds as those behind but certainly not outstripping them on this point of sail. Now is the time for the chasing pack to try and make their comeback before reaching Cape Verde some 1,000 miles down the route

MONOHULL OPEN 50’s

In the 50 foot monohull fleet, leader Storagetek (Guillemot/Salnelle) is also approaching favourable winds, and keeping an eye on Hellomoto (Humphreys/Larsen) to their North West as the three remaining boats are overtaken by the ORMA multihulls off the Portugese coastline.

Conrad Humphreys on Hellomoto at last was able to send in some good news : "We have a working pilot ! Having averaged little more than a few hours sleep since we left Le Havre the thought of having to race the whole way to Brazil without a working autopilot was too much to take. Sleep, speed and course were sacrificed to fix the clutch on the pilot and now we have him driving us along nicely at over 10knt. Position wise we are still sticking to our game plan. The two southerly gales we have experienced have meant vigilance is still the major player on our cards. We know that when it comes to off wind trade sailing (when they eventually appear ?) we are as quick as any of the 50 footers. Therefore we bide our time making sure that no one steals an unassailable lead before the long awaited downwind blast."

WEATHER FORECAST

Today : Monohulls reached a 20 -30 knot NW breeze, and can head directly towards Brazil at high speed. The 10 - 15 knot NE trades are not far down the track. The multihulls will have left behind them the transition zone between the low and high pressure systems and be sailing in a 10 - 20 knot NW breeze.

Saturday : The leading monohulls will enter the NE trades, but those behind may get caught in Southerly winds generated from a final low pressure system circulating at 38 N parallel. The Multihulls will not escape this last depression and will face the Southerly winds yet again. So their best bet is to go looking for the NW breeze and then again be soon on the trade winds highway.

POSITIONS at 13:00 hrs GMT 07/11/03

MULTIHULL OPEN 60
 Pos. / Boat / Name / Latitude / Longitude / Speed / Hdg / DTF / DFL
 1 BELGACOM ;40 29.56’ N ;13 52.36’ W ;9.7 ;201 ;3515.2m
 2 BANQUE POPULAIRE ;41 03.36’ N ;14 25.20’ W ;9.0 ;201 ;3534.7m ;19.5m
 3 GROUPAMA ;41 39.44’ N ;15 46.88’ W ;10.1 ;247 ;3542.0m ;26.7m   MONOHULL OPEN 60
 Pos. / Boat / Name / Latitude / Longitude / Speed / Hdg / DTF / DFL
 1 ECOVER 33 24.28’ N ;19 51.48’ W ;16.1 ;186 ;3010.2m
 2 VIRBAC 33 28.56’ N ;18 22.50’ W ;17.2 ;185 ;3030.5m ;20.4m
 3 SILL 35 31.64’ N ;21 43.36’ W ;15.1 ;198 ;3091.1m ;80.9m
 4 PRB 35 06.32’ N ;19 48.84’ W ;15.5 ;204 ;3103.5m ;93.3m 
 5 VMI 35 51.88’ N ;18 38.28’ W ;14.6 ;201 ;3170.1m ;159.9m

OPEN 50 MULTIHULL
 1 MOLLYMAWK ;44 33.84’ N ;7 43.00’ W ;13.5 ;216 ;3904.1m

OPEN 50 MONOHULLS 
 1 STORAGETEK ;40 47.72’ N ;14 37.56’ W ;7.2 ;263 ;3516.8m
 2 HELLOMOTO ;41 12.44’ N ;15 27.64’ W ;8.0 ;206 ;3523.2m ;6.4m
 3 DEFI VENDEEN ;42 09.64’ N ;14 17.20’ W ;8.0 ;257 ;3597.3m ;80.5m

 abandoned CIMENT ST LAURENT
 abandoned OBJECTIF 3
 abandoned PINDAR
 abandoned ATLANTIC NATURE
 abandoned LABESFAL