Skandia holds strong in Vendee Globe

by Event Media/Sail-World on 19 Dec 2004 ’I feel better every time I progress on the cleanliness front,’ Nick Moloney said from eighth placed SKANDIA in the Vendee Globe as competitors head into their 42nd day at sea.

SKANDIA is holding on to the tale of seventh placed VIRBAC (Jean Pierre Dick) and holding off PROFORM (Marc Thiercelin), but it is PRB (Vincent Riou) in the lead still from Bonduelle (Jean Le Cam) and now VMI (Sébastien Josse) in third place with ECOVER (Mike Golding) fourth.

SILL (Roland Jourdain) is still placed at fifth until officially retiring from the race and is reportedly heading for New Zealand.
‘Don’t want to get too much further north, or I’ll never get out of there,’ Nick said in an audio conference overnight.

’I tough it out a bit in the mornings, feel pretty lonely, but we’re going quick at the moment, and I’m trying to stay away from light winds a little bit behind me.

’Just had a large hot meal, just need to be making miles in the right direction now. Worried about Marc [PROFORM] coming up behind me pretty quickly. I think I am making some gains as he tries to get up to the waypoint. It will be interesting to see if gybes to the south once he’s there, or whether he comes up to our line.’

Five days after the capsize of SKANDIA in the worst storm Nick has ever sailed in, life onboard is still dominated by the big clean up.

On deck and down below there are dozens of details to fix, kit to restack and dry, and still paper-maché everywhere! Nick is dividing his time between this and keeping the boat going fast.

Currently he is stuck further north than he would like, a result of his earlier caution in wanting to get further north of the depressions. It is a difficult tightrope to judge.

At the front of the fleet, PRB and BONDUELLE reached the half way mark overnight – a psychologically important milestone in terms of miles to go. Now ‘only’ 12,000 miles to go!!

SKANDIA has just under 2000 miles to this same milestone; one which will be very important to Nick as he continues to rebuild his confidence after last week’s shaking.

Gains made earlier by Mike Golding have evaporated overnight as VMI stretches out a 100 mile lead on the best placed non-Frenchman left in the race. Mike, forced to the north of the leading trio, is now 316 miles behind PRB which only has a 26 nautical mile lead on BONDUELLE.

Back on SKANDIA Nick says, ‘feel better every time I progress on the cleanliness front. Deck is clean but work still to do. Got everything I have onboard at the back of the boat for downwind trim, but everything is heavy as its wet. Hard to move it around. You make a dry place, and water comes out of bags and makes it wet again.’

SKANDIA DATA LOG 0930 GMT: data brought to you by BT Business Broadband, transmitted via Thrane&Thrane:

LAT/LONG: 43 41 S / : 95 19 E; less than 1000 miles from Cape Leeuwin longitude

WIND: 20 to 25 knots for the west north west, moderate sea

BAROMETRIC PRESSURE: 1005 mb
POSITIONS 1000 GMT 18th DECEMBER 2004
Lat Long Boatspeed

1. PRB (Vincent Riou) 53 43.80' S 155 26.76' 13.2

2. Bonduelle (Jean Le Cam) 53 24.56' S 155 05.48' 13.9

3. VMI (Sébastien Josse) 53 09.00' S 148 07.32' 11.7

4. Ecover (Mike Golding) 50 57.88' S 146 30.28' 10.3

5. Sill Véolia (Roland Jourdain) 49 15.42' S 144 56.52' 5.7

6. Temenos (Dominique Wavre) 50 55.80' S 121 10.44' 10.8

7. Virbac-Paprec (Jean-Pierre Dick)
46 47.80' S 109 19.24' 11.1

8. Skandia (Nick Moloney) 42 50.32' S 105 50.44' 14.6

For full reports, audio and more: http://www.nickmoloney.com and follow the links