La Solidaire du Chocolat - Reaching conditions at last

by La Solidaire du Chocolat on 1 Nov 2009 he northern group in La Solidaire du Chocolat fleet have found fast reaching conditions, after 12 days of racing.

Overnight, the breeze shifted southerly and in the 0800 GMT position poll this morning, the boats are picking up the pace with Tanguy de Lamotte and Adrien Hardy on Initiatives-Novedia furthest south in second place making the best average at 10.5 knots, currently 24 miles behind the race leader, Giovanni Soldini and Pietro d'Ali on Telecom Italia. Trailing the leader by 62 miles, Damien Seguin and Armel Tripon in third on Cargill-MTTM and Bruno Jourdren and Bernard Stamm on Cheminées Poujoulat in fourth are separated by under one mile.

In the southern trio of Class40s, Erik Nigon and Marc Jouany on Axa Atout Coeur Pour Aides overtook David Consorte and Aubry Arnaud on Adriatech when Consorte and Arnaud made the decision to dive south on Friday night as the boats finally dug into the North-East Trade Winds. Nigon and Jounay currently hold 13th place, with Adriatech in 15th while Mike West and Paul Worswick in 16th on Keysource are furthest north in the trio and are averaging the fleet’s highest speed at just over 11 knots.

Paul Worswick (co-skipper Keysource): 'All well on the boat, still making good speed west, think that we will be going a little faster today in the bigger winds. Yesterday was all quiet, we were making good progress then lost some breeze so took a dig south for more - feels like we've found plenty this morning - no idea how much, but probably early too mid-twenties at the moment. Finally passed 4,000 miles to go so at the current rate of progress we only have another 48 days to go!!!'

Miranda Merron (co-skipper 40 Degrees): 'Something quite novel is going to happen today, which is that after the better part of two weeks going upwind, we are going to be reaching - the wind going into the southeast. This means miles in more or less the right direction (ie the gate at St Barts), and a bit faster. It's almost sunrise, and there is not a cloud in the sky at the moment. It is very wet on deck, though the sea state is improving after another rough night, which was nicely lit up by the moon - just not quite enough to see the waves properly. Allegedly, conditions are only going to get better (we may even eventually find the Trade Winds...), which is just as well, as there is a great deal of drying out and housekeeping to be done. The beanbag has developed a leak, and so there are polystyrene balls everywhere as well. Catching up on sleep is also high on the list after yesterday's crash course in the black art of electronics - thanks very much to Alex, and Rob at B&G for your help!'

Erik Nigon (skipper Axa Atout Coeur Pour Aides): 'It’s Christmas, Easter, Showtime, my 21st birthday, 50th anniversary etc. all rolled into one. In short, we’re ‘in the zone’ and it’s paradise. Imagine you own 530hp Ferrari or an Aston Martin, but you spend your life grid-locked in town or stuck on B roads with, maybe, the occasional burst of speed on a four-lane motorway. Then, in a dream, an Enzo appears and says to you: ‘Come with me and for one week you can blast around a Formula 1 circuit’. So, for one exceptional week, you can test-out the beast on a racing circuit!'

Top three on 31/10/09 at 16H (UTC)
1 : Telecom Italia + 0 milles
2 : Initiatives – Novedia + 12.19 milles
3 : Cargill-MTTM + 60.12 milles