Transat Jacques-Vabre- Update 09 November

by Event Media on 10 Nov 2005 Latest update on race progress and rescue/salvage status from the Transat Jacques-Vabre:

• Leaders at 14:44 GMT: Virbac-Paprec (IMOCA 60), Groupama-2 (ORMA 60), Gryphon Solo (Open 50 Monohull), Crepes Whaou ! (Open 50 Multihull)
• Rescues: Two crews from Foncia and Orange Project arrived in Brest at 1700hrs local time yesterday. A salvage operation for Foncia is underway today (details below) by the shore team.
• Damian Foxall update: Foncia co-skipper, Irishman Damian Foxall, was immediately admitted to hospital and monitored overnight after landing in Brest by helicopter. The X-rays and Doctor’s diagnosis show that he has not fractured his collarbone but has massive swelling and internal bruising to his right shoulder and ribcage.
• Sodebo update: The fishing vessel towing Sodebo broke down and so during a 4 hour manoeuvre in 3m high seas a new vessel, L’Agrian, took over the tow. Now they are proceeding towards Douarnenez at 4.5 knots and with 70m to go will reach port at midnight tonight.
• Stops & Restarts: With 4 abandons in the ORMA multihull fleet (Brossard, Sodebo, Orange Project, Foncia), now Adecco-Etoile Horizon, Open 50 monohull retires into Lorient; Artforms rejoined the race from Lorient at midnight after replacing their ripped mainsail with their old one; Galileo Open 60 reaches Vigo with broken boom at the goose-neck, which Walter Antunes hopes to repair and then restart tomorrow; Cheminées-Poujoulat en route to Vigo 70 miles still to go, with not only broken Fleet 77 dome but also a problem with their steering system. Victorinox 50ft catamaran left Roscoff this morning after successfully repairing their bow sprit. Défi Vendéen, Open 50 monohull, left Brest on Tuesday afternoon and is back into 4th place in Class 2 Monohull fleet. Branec IV is still heading slowly towards Le Havre with broken port hull.

After the survival conditions of yesterday it’s all change as the race really starts now in the new North Easterly breeze off the Portuguese coastline. Both ORMA and IMOCA fleets are converging today, hurtling south towards the Canaries, all the crews finally able to set their spinnakers and full mains, and also get repairs done to equipment and material which broke or disconnected during the violent slamming the boats endured during the front. With this wind shift to the North East, everyone in the fleet has at some point gybed onto starboard today and the speedometer has risen to between 20 – 25 knots for the 60ft trimarans, and 15 – 17 knots for the 60ft monohulls.

MULTIHULL UPDATE: ORMA 60 & CLASS 2

In the ORMA fleet of 6 trimarans still racing, Cammas and Proffit on Groupama-2 have cleverly aligned themselves over to the west in front of the route 2nd placed Banque Populaire is sailing on to cover their nearest rival 20 miles behind. In the Open 50 class, Crepes Whaou ! leading the fleet is up with the tail end of both 60ft fleets, 92 miles ahead of nearest rival Acanthe Ingenierie. Things are a little more complex in the IMOCA fleet, as everyone has their own way of seeing things…

IMOCA 60 CLASS UPDATE & OPEN 50 CLASS 2 UPDATE

As the monohull fleet are heading directly for Bahia, the dilemma is more whether to sail as close to the direct route as possible, in that round the Canaries offshore to the West, or to position themselves more in the East where the breeze is more established. Between these options, each team will also be playing with the wind shifts along the way. The forecast shows that the Azores High is extending and the best wind pressure is to be found off the African coast…

The first boat to gybe was Skandia (Thompson / Oxley) at the end of the morning, followed by Ecover (Golding / Wavre) not long after, then Pro-Form (Thiercelin/Drouglazet) at midday. The other leading boats, Virbac-Paprec, Sill &Veolia and Bonduelle waited longer on starboard tack, perhaps because they wanted to gain more westing and get closer to the direct route and position themselves to leeward of their rivals. But not too west in case they are caught in the extended grip of the Azores High. The game is to keep sailing on a fast wind angle as close to the rthodromic route as possible and retain the ability to loff the boat if the wind begins to die. These first gybes are revealing as to each team’s strategy in the long term.

Leader Virbac-Paprec (Dick/Peyron) is furthest in the West, with Sill et Veolia (Jourdain/MacArthur) inside them in 2nd, Ecover now to the east in 3rd with Bonduelle tracking 8 miles behind her wake in 4th. Golding explains how he sees things on the water: ‘It is definitely easier when you are ahead because you can dictate where you want to go. We are a little disappointed to have let Sill et Veolia and Virbac-Paprec get to the right of us in the gybing tactics - but that is the way of things, and we just have to think that what goes around comes around. We went as close as we dared to the high pressure system before gybing and managed to close the gap a little.’

The top 4 places are taken by the four new generation boats but 30m behind and leading the second generation boats is Skandia, the Anglo-Australian pair having a good duel with Pro-Form 10 miles behind. The all-female crew on Roxy are hoping to make their comeback after suffering various problems, including a lack of power for two days, which forced them to go ‘back to basics’ onboard as Miranda explained: ‘It was physically very tough yesterday with lots of manoeuvring, and due to the lack of power Anne and I had to relay between each other on the helm, and we were hand-steering a lot so it’s been really tiring. Roxy is a beautiful boat and we were doing really well until we got these problems, so we weren’t really doing her justice, but we will now!’

In the Open 50 fleet, Josh Hall and Joe Harris on Gryphon Solo are gripping onto the end of the 60ft fleets, also heading down the Portuguese coastline and trying to get some westing back into their route on a fast sailing angle as they clock the highest boat speed in their class 56m ahead of 2nd placed Vedettes de Bréhat. Stone and Owen set off on Artforms at midnight and have already got mostly across the Bay of Biscay, now 376m behind the leader but sailing 2 knots faster. Top 50 Guadeloupe, Defi Vendeen and Paul Metcalf and Ryan Finn on Polarity Solo are all passing Cape Finisterre.

FONCIA RECOVERY UPDATE:

Armel Le Cleac’h, skipper of Foncia, explains what is happening to recover the trimaran: ‘On Wednesday the shore crew will be heading out on a fishing vessel to the zone where the incident occurred. The Sarsat beacon is still transmitting. It can transmit for up to three days. The mast is broken of course, but when I left the boat, the faring, crossbeams, central hull and floats were still intact.’

On Wednesday morning, Foncia’s technical shore crew comprising Thierry Briend, David Boileau , Philippe Echassoux and a professional diver set out from Loctudy on a 70 ft long trawler ‘Damoclès’ with a view to recovering the trimaran . Project Manager, Alain Gautier, is coordinating recovery operations from Lorient : ‘It’ll take them about 36 hours to make it to the incident zone. The distress beacon is still emitting will enable them to pinpoint the boat’s position. They will try and right her in situ by filling a float with water and pulling hard on the other side. That should mean that the boat will suffer less when she is under tow. They should be returning to Lorient , at the end of next week’.

WEATHER by Louis Bodin

Wednesday: the fleet has been getting more Westing into their route to retain a good angle to the wind. This afternoon the wind should begin to rotate to the North to NE 5 – 15 knots. The average boat speeds will drop temporarily when this shift happens as the wind dies. Nothing certain yet because the NE breeze under the high pressure ridge level with south Portugal will fi