Estrella Damm gains on leader in TJV

by Estrella Damm Sailing Team on 22 Nov 2007 On the dawn of Day 11, Estrella Damm was met with both good and bad news when the morning position report came through on her on board computer. While skippers Guillermo Altadill and Jonathan McKee had closed the gap on the leaders they had slid down on the leaderboard into seventh overall, a bitter-sweet result after a hard night of sailing.

Overnight Estrella Damm took 10 miles off her distance to leading boat Paprec Virbac 2 but lost a position to Veolia Environnement who rocketed into third overall after sailing far west in a successful bid to gain places.

While Estrella Damm has lost a place, she is bunched in a pack and with less than 30 miles separating the fourth to seventh placed boats, any one could gain and loose places in the coming hours. Today has been a day of stop-start sailing with all teams spending time in windless areas, drifting along while the rest of the fleet pushes forward.

Jonathan McKee explains Estrella Damm's rocky passage through the Canary Islands: 'We had nice sailing on Tuesday, upwind in 15 to 20 knots approaching the Canary Islands. It seemed like we were sailing pretty well, but as we got close to the gate the wind went totally crazy, which is no surprise given that we were in the lee of a huge volcano. Somehow our approach wasn't as good as we thought. Even though we left it really wide, we got stuck in the lee for about 1 1/2 hours. Very frustrating! Finally we got through and suddenly it was blowing 25 knots. We struggled to get the big genoa down, to put a reef in and then a second reef as the wind picked up to over thirty knots. Temenos was right behind us through all this, and eventually passed us this morning. We were trying lots of things to keep ahead, but they slowly pulled away to a two-mile lead by sunset. It has been upwind for nearly three days now, when we normally would be running in trade winds. We are actually quite close to the African coast.

'We are trying to remain philosophical about everything. We are still learning the boat, we are still improving our navigation and so on. The guys we are up against are the best in the business. It was a very pleasant day today, we are a little closer to sailing around the world, and we are learning a lot, with lots of racecourse left to practice in.'

As the nine-boat fleet descends into the Atlantic, a change in the weather is expected tonight with the wind turning from the west to the NW then settling north at 15 knots tomorrow. Further south, a ridge is still present on the route of trade. The ridge should move toward the west during the night, allowing a recovery of the trade winds almost at the same time for the western part of the fleet.

Official positions (16:00 GMT)

1 Paprec Virbac 2 / 23,032
2 PRB / +28
3 Veolia Environnement / +44
4 Delta Dore / +84
5 Hugo Boss / +96
6 Temenos / +101
7 Estrella Damm / + 114
8 Mutua Madrileña / +126
9 Educación Sin Fronteras / +384

www.estrelladammsailingteam.com

www.barcelonaworldrace.com