Four boats have line honours chance - EDS Atlantic Challenge

by Kingfisher Challenges on 25 Aug 2001 With only a couple of hundred miles to go, the 2400 miles of surfing and hard racing almost seem irrelevant as any of the front 4 boats have a chance of taking line honours for leg 5 of the EDS Atlantic Challenge

KINGFISHER and ECOVER were sailing in sight of each other during the day yesterday, but split tacks during the night with Nick Moloney choosing a more southerly route. Only a couple of miles separate the leading 3 boats, with SILL having charged up from behind to also be within striking distance.

Drama onboard KINGFISHER in the early hours of this morning as the wind kicked in from the east and the forward water ballast was pumped in [adds pitching stability to the boat...stops her slamming quite so much in the waves]...the hose on the intake blew off its fitting, effectively leaving a gaping hole in the bottom of the boat. 'Pretty shocking at the time...but all ok again now' a relieved Moloney said this morning in his daily call in to the shore team.

Drama yesterday also for Josh Hall's GARTMORE who after a collision that ripped out the port rudder and broke the stock managed to still maintain one of the highest speeds in the fleet as he sailed up with breeze - despite having to keep the boat flat to maintain the other rudder in the water. [Open 60s have one either side, when they heel only one is in the water]

If you are in the UK or receive a BBC signal, watch out this Sunday at 1305 UK time for a BBC2 Grandstand programme on the EDS Atlantic Challenge, featuring some stunning images from the boats during the 8000 miles of hard racing since the beginning of July.

After 4 days of two-up training onboard the 60 foot trimaran FONCIA-KINGFISHER, which included sailing alongside the J Class yachts yesterday off of Cowes, Ellen and Alain have arrived in Le Havre this morning. Ellen was hoping to meet KINGFISHER at the finish of the EDS race in St.Malo, but the light winds have put paid to that. She will be sailing on invitation this weekend on Lake Geneva on Alinghi, the radical multihull owned by Swiss America's Cup syndicate boss Ernesto Bertarelli along with her Vendee Globe adversary Michel Desjoyeaux. Both Mich and Ellen will return to Fecamp, near Le Havre, early next week for the next 9Telecom ORMA Grand Prix multihull event.

As we near the finish there will be more regular updates directly on the web at http://www.kingfisherchallenges.com - as well as some photos from the team sent through during the night...

Listen to the latest audio from KINGFISHER by downloading :
In Realplayer http://64.23.31.209/clients/kf/latesta_uk.ram
Or Download in mp3 at http://64.23.31.215/cgi-bin/ftp/1/2408a_uk.mp3
Communications sponsored by British Telecom http://www.btopenworld.com

EMAIL FROM KINGFISHER LAST NIGHT

Time GMT : 17:43:51
Position 49° 48.8N 009° 39.8W
Heading/speed 91 6.01
Wind from 172 at 5.5 knots
Sail configuration is Full main Genoa
17:30

150miles west of lands end

Not yet 100 percent confirmed but 99.9 percent sure that we have Ecover in
sight. Cannot quite locate the Eco Moose.

Yoo Hoo! Were back!

What an amazing boat race.

Sill is possibly settng herself up for a very strong finish.

Leg 5 EDS Atlantic Challenge.....yep, its 'full on'

Nick and team

NEWS DIRECT FROM KINGFISHER THIS MORNING

Towards mid afternoon yesterday, we discovered that we had a visual on Ecover about 5 or 6 miles away . She was just visible, a small spot on the horizon throughout the afternoon, during the last remaining hours of day light we managed to sail a tad hire, she became more and more visual all the time.

In the evening we were within a mile of her, we could see them working on deck, the light shining on the sails and we could see the foredeck guys at work, It was amazing because 3 days ago when we saw each other last we thought we would not see them again we were both stonking so hard we were having problems with our mast and we knew Ecover was pulling away at full speed.

We were extatic to see them again. We have been charging ever since we rolled past Fila and now we throwing evering we have at Ecover trying to lead her into the finish, it's full on !'

Position updated at :
http://www.edsatlanticchallenge.com/en/default.asp?pg=/en/viewer/raceviewer.htm
For further information on the race visit http://www.edsatlanticchallenge.com

POSITIONS : 24th August 2001, 10.43 GMT

1 Kingfisher , Ellen MacArthur / Nick Moloney, 195 miles from the Finish
2 Ecover, Mike Golding, 7 miles behind leader.
3 FILA, Andrea Scarabelli, 17 miles behind leader.
4 Sill Plein Fruit, Roland Jourdain / Gael Le'Cleach, 21 miles behind leader.
5 Gartmore, Josh Hall, 186 miles behind the leader
6 Alpha Graphics, Helena Darvelid, 646 miles behind leader.

LEARNING AND UNDERSTANDING: fog

Considerably reducing visibility, fog is dreaded just as much at sea as on land. Formed by droplets of water in suspension in the air, fog is in effect a cloud in contact with the ground. With a high rate of relative humidity when the temperature falls, the water of the ground or the sea evaporates and the water vapour condenses, forming a white mass that we call fog when the visibility falls below 1 km, and mist when it is between 1 and 5 km. At sea, this lack of visibility can prove to be dangerous in areas of heavy shipping or in the high latitudes where icebergs may be present. This is why boats are equipped with radar for detecting an object on the water within a radius of several kilometres. Contrary to fog on land that dissipates as the sun comes up, fog at sea disappears when the wind changes direction and pushes the cloud towards warmer waters.

Not Racing
La Rage de Vivre, Loic Pochet / Patrick Tabarly

Regular updates at http://www.kingfisherchallenges.com
Official race site http://www.edsatlanticchallenge.com