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Sail-World.com : La Solidaire du Chocolat - Retirements as weather plays havoc
La Solidaire du Chocolat - Retirements as weather plays havoc
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La Solidaire du Chocolat. The three retirements overnight were Yvan Noblet and Damien Guillou on Appart City after sustaining mainsail and rudder damage, the American pair of MacKenzie Davis and Brian Harris (AmHas) who retired with profound electrical problems, and Brits Richard Tolkien and Neal Brewer (Orca) leaving the race with structural damage around the mast foot.
'We are retiring due to electronics problems with the charging systems, autopilots and wind wands,' explained skipper MacKenzie Davis. 'All are well. We are headed back to La Trinite sur Mer and do not require assistance.'
Yves Eclaret and Lionel Regnier on Vale Inco Nouvelle Calédonie have a damaged mainsail and are trying to make repairs in La Coruña. 'Our main is detroyed between the second and third reef. Without a proper repair, we had to race to La Coruña with just staysail and three reefs…not so bad when there were gusts of 40 knots! We have got the whole repair underway. A vehicle was ready and to take the mainsail to the sailmakers and as soon as it dried out, work began. We hope to be back at sea on Wednesday night, but this pit stop might cost us 24-30 hours.'
Patrice Carpentier and his Mexican co-skipper, Victor Maldonado, on Crédit Maritime are making autopilot repairs in Camarinas just north of Cape Finisterre.
Leading the fleet in the 1200 GMT position poll this morning, Bruno Jourdren and Bernard Stamm on Cheminées Poujoulat passed the cape earlier this morning and are furthest west in the fleet, 180 miles off Vigo with Thierry Bouchard and Oliver Krauss in second place on Pole Sante Elior-Mistral Loisirs in second and Tanguy de Lamotte and Adrien Hardy on Initiatives-Novedia in third furthest inshore with just 18 miles separating the leading trio.
A group of four boats are still manoeuvering around the cape led by Mike West and Paul Worswick in 14th place, 65 miles offshore on Keysource, six miles ahead of fellow Britons, Stephen Card and Shaun Murphy in 15th place on ORBIS who have tacked away from Finisterre to clear the headland. In 16th place, Jacques Fournier and Jean-Edouard Criquioche on Groupe Picoty are also on port tack gaining some sea room from the cape.
Due south of the group, a cluster of yachts - 40 Degrees in 12th place, Adriatech holding 11th place and Desafio Cabo de Hornos in 10th - are separated by by less than a mile, while furthest south in the fleet, Giovanni Soldini and Pietro d’Ali on Telecom Italia trail the lead boat by 65 miles in 7th place.
Having survived the icy blasts of a cold front on Monday, the fleet have more heavy, upwind sailing ahead. Weather models suggest that the wind will turn from the current westerly 20 knots to a south-westerly of 25-30 knots and above at around 1500 GMT today before building and turning westerly later tonight. So far, there is no sign of any benign, Trade Wind sailing for the 37 yachtsmen and one yachtswoman of the Solidaire du Chocolat fleet. As Tim Wright, skipper of Sail4Cancer, commented this morning, 'You really have to wonder what you’ve done wrong!'
Tim Wright (skipper of Sail4Cancer): 'We’re doing fine. Obviously, it has been quite lively since soon after the start and fairly steady upwind conditions. We got through the front on Monday night and we’ve been trucking-on southwards trying to get some west in. There’s quite a lot of squalls out here. Not your champagne downwind sailing. We expected the Trade Winds to be quite far south, but there’s not much of those right now. We’re getting some new GRIBs down and seeing what the best option is and just hope that there’s a high to jump onto, but it seems to have disappeared and there’s another Low Pressure system forming at the moment. Everything is fine on the boat and we’ve just battened down the hatches a short while ago and it is all in pretty good order. Touch wood, everything is fine. We’re in this to try and get a good result, so we’re watching the position polls fairly closely. Watching how everyone else is lining up and trying to push on. Shaun is in good shape. He’s on the helm at the moment and we’ve just come through a bit of a meaty squall, so we’re a bit moist! We’re going to try and get some kip as there’s some more weather coming ahead. We’re still stonking through about 20-25 knots at the moment, up to 30 in the squalls. You really have to wonder what you’ve done wrong!'
Felipe Cubillos (skipper of Desafio Cabo de Hornos): 'Everything is OK here, but we have some big waves. One of wind instrument wands doesn’t work, but the other is OK and is working again, so we are very happy! My head injury? My head is still crazy after all these years! Nothing serious. My main concern was when I came below, my face was covered in blood, but fortunately I couldn’t see myself, which was good! We’re doing OK and I think we’ll pass a few boats in the next four hours. For the next 24 hours, the wind will increase, which isn’t very good news. I’m just wondering what we are doing here. I’m dreaming of being in a house, with a TV, with my dog, living by internet and watching these crazy guys sailing!'
Miranda Merron (co-skipper 40 Degrees): 'It has been pretty wet and we really love upwind sailing! The inside of the boat is pretty wet and we’ve found a few new leaks. It’s fine, but we’re not looking forward to the next few hours. There’s a nasty little low heading our way, so hopefully we’ll get through that unscathed. Not really a bundle of laughs at the moment. We’d like to do something smart, tactically, but at the moment we’re just sort of surviving. Peter is doing alright and I’m just about to take over from him at the helm. During the day we’re handsteering and using the pilot at night, but it depends on the sea state.'
Paul Worswick (co-skipper Keysource): 'We are OK on board. Been pretty horrible again the last 24 hours and niether of us feel great, but I guess were not alone there! Jobs list is getting longer but it has been so rough that we have put off tackling the electronics issues until we get to calmer weather. We have been using our back up pilot since Monday but only has standard compass and NMEA network is down, so we have no instruments. Been sailing her on boat speed for now and manually plotting our position on Deckman. Hope we can get this working in the coming days we miss the wind info…that’s for sure! Today we are focusing on getting some rest and food and keeping rolling and hopefully staying in touch with the main body of the fleet. So, basically a very tired, old and wet West and Worswick.... with no wind which is most unusual…'
by Sail-World.com/La Solidaire du Chocolat
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2:35 PM Wed 21 Oct 2009 GMT
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