The wounded Maxi-cat Orange grits her teeth

by Pierrick Garenne / Mer & Media Agency on 26 Apr 2002 The maxi-catamaran Orange's heading is gently taking her towards the NW... The Marseilles Giant is in a situation where she is forced to curve her route towards the American continent.

While the main reason is eventually to skirt round the Azores high to the west, right now she is being forced to cope with a 12-knot northerly headwind, which
means she has got to... beat. Just the point of sailing she hates and now fears in view of the damage suffered these last few days. So instead of lifting a hull, the giant must lift a foot... off the gas. Everybody's senses are on the alert, concentration at the helm is at a maximum and sail trim is a priority. The goal is to avoid slamming the boat in this wretched head sea...

We heard a little 'bang' during the chat session... 'Don't worry, the stick's still standing!' said Bruno Peyron. In fact, the little sharp noise was the boat slamming in the waves...'And that's exactly what we don't like,' continued the skipper. 'We entered the Doldrums yesterday and now we have a northerly, therefore a headwind, of 12 knots with a fairly strange residual seaway.
Normally, we should have an easterly which would correspond
more logically with the Northern Hemisphere trades and here we have a headwind bang on
the nose...'. It wouldn't be quite so important if it wasn't for that nasty little low brewing off
Dakar, a source of disturbance for the famous NE trades...

But while Bruno remains calm, one can feel and one knows that it's just the sort of sailing
conditions they don't need. This headwind with the seaway that goes with it is not at all to
the liking of the maxi-catamaran Orange, which should be feeding on leading winds and
following seas to spare the half cracked titanium ball on the which the mast is supported.
So the crew are forced to reduce sail by taking a reef in the main and sending up the
staysail, just when they should have everything aloft. Diabolically frustrating...

'The situation is dramatically simple' conceded Bruno philosophically. 'We have no options
to try because we must fetch the leading winds where they are. We're going to do a big loop
to the west hoping that we can sail in beam winds in the trades, then pick up the leading
winds that are turning round the high'. Needless to say that the maxi-catamaran Orange will
not be making a straight track towards Ushant like Olivier de Kersauson did or even Club
Med did towards Barcelona. This big loop should take them close to the Caribbean arc.
'The extra distance will effectively be the next difficulty to come,' said Philippe Péché, who
sounded disappointed. 'And we estimate that we'll be doing about 25% extra distance to
get back to France'. But never mind, Bruno, more decided than ever, concluded: 'And if we
have to loose one or two days, we'll loose them. What's important is finishing and bringing
home the Jules Verne Trophy!'

Quote / unquote...

Bruno Peyron: 'At any minute we could change decision in view of the problem. And the
fact of going so far west will take us within 1500 miles of the Caribbean. For safety reasons
it's always good to know!'

Philippe Péché : 'Yes, of course it's frustrating. Last year with Team Adventure in The
Race, we attacked ten times harder and we were flying a hull upwind in this same place! It's
infuriating...'


Translation David Palmer / SeaSpeak