Sail-World.com : Artemis Transat blackout ensures suspense
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Artemis Transat blackout ensures suspense |
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'Whales at sunset Photo: Sam Davies / Roxy (copyright) - The Artemis Transat 2008'
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Day 7 of The Artemis Transat and the skippers are sailing in the middle of the North Atlantic wearing a tactical blindfold. At 1800GMT (1700BST) on Friday evening, a 36 hour position blackout descended and the entire fleet of IMOCA Open 60s and Class40 yachts are currently racing without incoming satellite position reports and the skippers have no information as to the whereabouts, heading or average boat speeds of the other competing boats. Effectively, any current strategy is based entirely upon weather analysis and for a day and half, the high-tech world of offshore racing has warped-back three decades to a period when experience, instinct, weather-lore, boat handling and an element of luck were supremely important.
For the Class40 yachts, this data drought has arrived as the fleet pass through a zone of light, fickle and highly unstable wind.
Pre-blackout yesterday, the fleet was strung-out in a line stretching 180 miles north-south and had divided into three distinct groups: a northerly group of four boats including the race leader, Giovanni Soldini on Telecom Italia; a southern duo of French skippers and a five-boat pack in the middle. Christophe Coatnoan on Groupe Partouche was the most northerly skipper in the fleet as the blackout dropped: 'The wind is really unstable at the moment,' he confirmed via satellite phone this morning. 'I just hope it's the same for everybody. The conditions since entering the ridge have been exhausting: constant sail changes, handsteering always.' Coatnoan is frank about receiving the first position report on Sunday morning at 0600GMT: 'This blackout is quite something and I've no idea where the other boats are. I really don't know how we're going to come out of this tomorrow morning.'
In the middle group, Miranda Merron entered the blackout in 3rd place and reported from 40 Degrees early this morning, although she was cautious over revealing precise speed and wind data: 'As it is blackout, I will just confirm that 40 Degrees IS going upwind, though there isn't that much of it. And it's drizzling! Lots of tea drinking and not much sleep going on! Just keeping the boat moving is non-stop work.' Halvard Mabire entered the blackout in 5th place on Custo Pol, 8 miles behind Merron: 'I've got around 4 knots of boat speed at the moment,' confessed the 52 year-old Solitaire du Figaro and Whitbread Round The World Race veteran this morning. 'It was a really, really, bad night. Totally unstable wind..very hard work.' Mabire also admits that he is constantly learning about his Pogo Class40: 'I'm still discovering a lot about the boat. At the moment I'm not quite comfortable with Custo Pol upwind.'
While the main body of the middle group - Beluga Racer, 40 Degrees, Fujifilm, and Custo Pol - were tightly packed with just 9 miles separating the four yachts, Simon Clarke trailed the block of Class40s by 34 miles just pre-blackout in 11th place on Clarke Offshore Racing. Far from being downhearted, the English sailor was on top form this morning: 'A really cracking night's sailing with the wind in the right direction. Full water ballast, all the sails stacked up to windward and beautifully flat water. At one stage the wind was up to 16 knots and I thought I'd have to take in a reef.' However, his impressive overnight gains diminished at dawn: 'The wind isn't where it was forecast to be,' reported Clarke. 'It's from 284° although the forecast was 210° and instead of 9 knots, I've got 5-6 knots.' However, there is one significant bonus for Clarke Offshore Racing: 'The autopilot works fine upwind,' he continued. 'We had a lot of dramas with it downwind. Every time the wind went up by 2 knots, the pilots gave up and the boat would wipe out which is not ideal and caused all sorts of issue.'
In the southern pairing of Louis Duc on Groupe Royer and Benoit Parnaudeau with Prevoir Vie, Duc - the youngest sailor in the fleet - shared his thoughts earlier. 'I've just finished tacking to reconnect with the rest of the fleet,' he confirmed this morning, without revealing boat speed, wind speed or the wind direction. 'The blackout is a great idea and not checking the positions is less stressful. It means I can just get on with sailing the boat.' Asked for a prediction of the positions post-blackout, the 24 year-old from Normandy was cautious: 'I don't want to make any bets about tomorrow. We're all pretty much in a straight line north-south, so anything could happen. For the moment, I just want to keep the boat moving.'
A fiesta on Telecom Italia and high hopes for new wind. Celebrating his 42nd birthday during the blackout, Giovanni Soldini had an intimate, private party on board Telecom Italia. 'I didn't really have a party, but I did drink bottle of wine,' he told the race office this morning in high spirits. 'It's a little bit more than usual. Normally I only have a glass. Since the start, I've now finished two bottles.' While the party raged on the Italian Class40, conditions were excellent: 'Last night was good wind. Stable and about 15 knots. The pilots were doing a great job, so I went to sleep.' For the highly experienced solo sailor, the blackout is not a burden: 'Obviously, to know where the others are is good, but we'll have to wait and see tomorrow.' The lack of position information reminds Soldini of an earlier era of offshore racing: 'Before, we were always without positions. Maybe we would get them once a week and they weren't usually very accurate. It wasn't a good system then.' As a late birthday present, the Italian skipper is hoping for some new breeze: 'I hope we will have some wind tonight, although I don't know really. We'll see. Maybe 6-7 knots. Not too much, but it's not a problem for me.'
IMOCA Open 60 fleet.
The 23 skippers still in the race have conditions that one expects on The Artemis Transat – wet, cold, upwind, foggy, all the shades of grey you can imagine as Loick Peyron mused at this morning’s brief call to Gitana Eighty. Grey yes, but black also, as since last night at 1800GMT the 36 hour positions blackout has kicked in. Instead of the 2 hourly position updates that the skippers normally get during the day now they get nothing – no information at all about where the other boats are. Not even the race organisation communication team have the information – just like in the old days!
Whilst the timing of the blackout has not come at a time that gives any major strategical options for the leading group (have a look at Jean-Luc Nelias’s daily strategy update, it doesn’t mean that nothing has changed. And there is some certainty that the front-runners will be keeping their foot to the floor during the black-out to try and steal some miles without their competitors knowing.
The leader at the time of the start of the blackout last evening, Seb Josse (BT), gave us an update this morning (good video conference. 'Port tack, 20 knots, wind is building, starting to get wet, the serious sailing has started!' In these conditions, the skippers must move and stack every bit of weight on the boat on the high side to help the speed of the boat. Of course with the blackout the skippers can’t tell how they are doing against the other boats; 'It’s a bit different today, as for sure normally we are tuning our boats with reference to the speed and heading of the other boats – today it has to be more on feeling, its interesting for sure.'
Loick Peyron (Gitana Eighty) likened the concept of the blackout to that of the Apollo spacecraft passing to the back side of the moon. 'As a concept its interesting, although the timing of this one is not going to leave many options for the leading boats at least'
Dee Caffari also spoke in video on how much the skippers’ day is driven by the position reports 'Its really compulsive viewing you can’t help but every 2 hours be hooked to the screen to see where everybody is, so its kinda weird not having that distraction today. So it is a case of sailing your own race, sailing with whatever weather you have, which I must admit has turned very wet, grey and miserable. But I’ll be really keen to see the positions tomorrow morning!'
Tomorrow is the 2nd anniversary of Dee Caffari’s (AVIVA) arrival back in UK waters after successfully completing her solo round the world record against the prevailing winds. Now just starting to bash her way upwind mid-Atlantic onboard her new IMOCA Open 60, Dee compared the machines – 'that boat was a bullet proof tank, these are not that at all – much more responsive, much faster and much more fun!'
Yann Elies onboard Generali, sent some images in that confirm the sudden change of ambience, 'now we are definitely on The Artemis Transat, I was beginning to think I was on a Jacques Vabre!'. Day 7, and finally the much promised greyness of the North Atlantic has swept across the fleet!
 | Onboard Generali Photo: Yann Elies / Generali (copyright) - The Artemis Transat 2008 - |
The blackout may well have even more significance for the second group, led by Sam Davies on Roxy, who was holding 6th place last night at the last position poll. With Akena just to her north, and Cervin and Safran crossing paths yesterday afternoon much further south, the next 24 hours could be decisive in terms of who will make it to the icegate first.
Love it or hate it, tactical options available or not, everyone will be waiting by their computers at 0600GMT tomorrow for the position blackout to end to see just how they have fared in this very grey 36 hours in the North Atlantic.
www.theartemistransat.com
Day 6 onboard Roxy in The Artemis Transat – Sam Davies’ daily log
'Today it is grey! You can tell that we are closing on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. Outside, the conditions go from thick fog to not so thick fog to drizzle, or a combination of the above ('frizzle', or 'drog' maybe!). There are 10 to 15 knots of wind, coming from exactly where I want to go! So, we are beating upwind.
I survived another tortuous night in the fog with no radar. There were two ships that I saw on AIS, but they were far enough away!
We are in the 'black out' now, which means we will not receive any position reports until Sunday morning (total of 36 hours), and therefore it is a mystery as to where we all are relative to each other! It is just an extension of the fog! I wonder if I would be in sight of anyone else if there was good visibility?
The one who is happy today though, is Lucky, my duck, because he enjoys wet and humid conditions, and doesn't mind going upwind either!'
 | Wet onboard Brit Air Photo: Armel le Cleach/ Brit Air (copyright) - The Artemis Transat 2008 - |
To follow Roxy and Sam Davies’ progress: www.roxysailing.com or www.samdavies.com
by OC Events and Sam Davies
10:40 PM Sat 17 May 2008 GMT
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