Ellen’s speed abates as finish line looms

by Kingfisher Challenges on 8 Feb 2005 Slow and sleepless night for B&Q skipper Ellen MacArthur as she tried to get through the weather transition into the new and more favourable breeze.

Ellen only made 100 miles distance towards the finish in the last 24 hours, and at times during the night was actually sailing away from the finish.

It is not surprisingly her lead on the record has dropped to 1 day and 8 hours. In comparison, Joyon on his 90ft multihull IDEC, was storming to the finish line clocking up 400+ miles in the same 24-hour period.

Things can change quickly when MacArthur's
'virtual' competitor is having the opposite conditions to her - fast and in the right direction! B&Q was pushing eastwards most of yesterday as the northerly gale at the weekend slowly abated.

The breeze was forecast to shift into the east and then south-east in the hourly hours of this morning. The transition proved to be elusive with massive wind shifts of up to a 100 degrees forcing Ellen to tack the boat through the wind 11 times - one tack taking her towards the finish, the next away.

It wasn't until just before sunrise that Ellen made what she hoped was the final tack to the north, although the permanence of the new wind direction is yet to be confirmed.

Hopes of making finish line off Ushant this afternoon have all but disappeared although current routing models suggest crossing the line later tonight is still possible - current ETA between 2300GMT and 0600GMT.

Still 217 miles to go and with breeze in the 8-15 knot range this morning, Ellen will be anxious for south-easterly wind to become more stable and stronger, so she can power on towards the finish line that is so tantalising close but yet still so far away.

The new best 'guess' for actually arriving in Falmouth will be Tuesday morning at present, all being well onboard.

Ellen attacked the difficult sailing conditions of last night with a viewpoint that it was her last night at sea, and got just 15 minutes in total of sleep. The bad news for her this morning was that it doesn't look like it will be the last night.

Getting some kind of naps will be critical for her today with extra vigilance also being required as she tracks across the Bay of Biscay quite close the route the cargo ships take from Finisterre to Ushant.

On a call this morning Ellen admitted that she was really looking forward to seeing her family and friends, but that seeing land again would be a strange concept after so long at sea.
From Ellen:

’The last 24 hours have been absolutely horrendous. We've had everything from full on gusts of 40 knots in the tail end of a storm, we've had huge sea states at the end of yesterday after the storm in the north, we sailed out of that sea state during the night still with some very strong gusts and we had to tack in a small low pressure system, off the north of Spain and that's proved very, very complicated.

‘What we thought would be one tack on a shift off to the north ended up being seven tacks during the night. I had 100 degree wind shifts which lasted for 45 minutes which meant I had to tack and then came back again. It's been very, very variable very, very tough. And unbelievably cold out here.

’There is definitely still a chance to break the record as long as I don't hit anything or break anything between where I am now and the finish line. If all goes well it looks like I should be finishing during the night, tonight.

‘Obviously looking at what we had last night we got held up by about six hours, and the winds should not be that strong on the way up the Bay of Biscay so it all depends on what wind we have and what direction it chooses to blow

’I'm absolutely exhausted, I had about 15 minutes sleep I think through the night, there has been ships everywhere, rain squalls. We had the wind direction changing. At one point the boat tacked itself because the wind shift was so great so! It's been a full on night and I am very, very tired.

‘I was hoping to be in before sunset tonight but that looks absolutely impossible now, so I'm just going to have to hang in here and just try and hold on until the finish.

’Getting to land is a strange thing to say because it's been a long time since we've even seen land. We didn't see Cape Horn, all I've seen have seen are the Islands in the South Atlantic.

'There's not been a lot of land sighted from B&Q so the thought of coming back to land is pretty novel in itself.

‘I'm very much looking forward to getting in, to seeing all the team, my friends and family and all the supporters. I can't wait to get in. It's been a very, very long trip and an exceptionally hard one. I'll be glad to be crossing that finish line and finally feeling a little bit of relief.’

FRANCIS JOYON 24 HOUR RUNS

Francis Joyon's 24 hour runs. These are VMG distances, ie distance sailed towards the finish, not through the water:

26.1.05 IDEC 162 miles / B&Q 388 miles

27.1.05 IDEC 130 miles / B&Q 367 miles

28.1.05 IDEC 232 miles / B&Q 258 miles

29.1.05 IDEC 257 miles / B&Q 317 miles

30.1.05 IDEC 300 miles / B&Q 374 miles

31.1.05 IDEC 299 miles / B&Q 398 miles

1.2.05 IDEC 278 miles / B&Q 412 miles

2.2.05 IDEC 221 miles / B&Q 305 miles

3.2.05 IDEC 212 miles / B&Q 154 miles

4.2.05 IDEC 162 miles / B&Q 154 miles

5.2.05 IDEC 284 miles / B&Q 248 miles

6.2.05 IDEC 383 miles / B&Q 327 miles

7.2.05 IDEC 400 miles / B&Q 100 miles

8.2.05 IDEC 439 miles

9.2.05 IDEC 345 miles

[dates normalised to Ellen's]

KEY DATA DAY 71 0710 GMT:

Distance ahead: 585 miles

Time ahead: 1 day 8 hours [representing 66.67% of time remaining] calculated using the time it took for Joyon to get to the same Distance to Finish as Ellen's current position

Lat/Long: 45 10 N / 007 22 W

Average Boat speed: 8.95 knots (heading NNE)

True Wind speed: 15.5 knots (direction E by N)

Distance sailed so far: 27,133 miles at an average speed of 13.9 knots

(data communicated by Thrane MiniC via BT Business Broadband)

Update based on data recorded 0710 GMT. Check http://www.teamellen.com for the latest data updated hourly