Route du Rhum - Swept up in the trade winds and off

by Oman Sail on 7 Nov 2014 After a frustrating night of light airs (seven knots) and slower boat speeds in the Route du Rhum, Sidney Gavignet was well rested this morning when he called, but chomping at the bit to get going again. He was wrestling with the transition zone and gybed before calling to try to hook into the stronger northerly that the larger of his fellow ‘Ultime’ Class competitors had managed to reach during the night, and by the end of the morning, he was back up to speed doing 20knots towards the Caribbean with the transition zone firmly behind him.

'I am well, the boat is also doing well – I hurt my arm quite badly during the rough stuff at the start of the race, it has been very swollen and painful, but today is the first day that it feels better, so things are looking up! I am very well rested; I just needed some wind and now I have it!' said the skipper this morning via sat phone.

Negotiating the transition to the trade winds is never easy as Sidney’s router Jean-Francois (Jeff) Cuzon points out: 'The two bigger ‘Ultime’ multis, Banque Populaire and Spindrift, managed to hook into the northerly during the night, they were positioned to the west on the edge of the high pressure and were able to get the higher winds sooner and to escape. The rest of the Class was bunched together within about 40 miles heading south – the wind was unstable and very light with a few squalls coming through.'

A well-timed gybe was critical: 'We needed to gybe at exactly the right moment to reach the wind zone. We positioned ourselves inside the others; in an attack position because the wind zone was not well defined at that point so we needed to keep our options open.

'We gybed, Gitana reached the wind before us, Idec was still in the transition phase, and Sidney had a very tough moment immediately after he gybed with barely a zephyr (3-5knots at the most) and a big swell right on the bow – the swell was good news as it heralded the wind to come,' explained Jeff.

Thirty minutes later, the northerly filled in and Musandam-Oman Sail was off again doing 20 knots!