Transat B to B - Daytime conditions onboard Gamesa + Video
by Gamesa Sailing Team on 14 Dec 2011
Gamesa Sailing Team - Transat B to B 2011 Gamesa Sailing Team
Gamesa is now eight days into the Transat B to B which takes them from St Bathelemy to Lorient, France. Mike Golding, skipper of Gamesa, shares the latest video diary of the daytime conditions on board.
Currently lying in fourth position, with 1,335nm to the finish, Golding is heading towards the 'weather gate', imposed for safety by the race organisers, off the northwest coast of Spain.
Experiencing weather that he has only seen twice before, and only then in the Southern Ocean, the conditions tonight [Tuesday 13th], he said, were pretty horrible. 'It feels like we are right on the edge all the time. It's not the mean wind speed which is the problem, it is the gusts that we are experiencing.
'We can be sailing along in 25-26kts and then have gusts of 35-40 for up to five minutes, which means you wake up on your ear and consequently find it really difficult to sleep. I was worried about it the first couple of times it happened and reduced sail but was losing miles so the Solent was furled away and the A7 [fractional gennaker] came out.'
Golding and the seven other skippers in the Tranast B to B are due in to Lorient, in Brittany, from Saturday 17th December.
Mike Golding
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