Sea, Sail & Surf newsJules Verne Record
Kingfiser 2 still 11 hours behing Géronimo
mardi 4 février 2003 –
The Doldrums are as they sound - an area of little or no wind that sits near the Equator. Currently, KINGFISHER2 is on track to cross the Equator between 26 to 27 degress west. From there they must work out how to cross the giant anticyclone spreading across the entire South Atlantic (St.Helena high) that is blocking their route to the south.
It now looks almost impossible for KINGFISHER2 to break the existing Ushant to Equator record Record #sailingrecord set by Geronimo (they would need to cross the Equator by 18:15:09 tomorrow) but it may be possible based on the current routing for Ellen and her crew to beat the time of 7 days 22 hours set by Orange last year and with some fast sailing even the ENZA time of 7 days, 4 hours, 24 minutes set by Peter Blake and Robin Knox-Johnston in 1994 (see below).
At 0700 GMT this morning KINGFISHER2 were 11 hours, 36 minutes behind the existing 64 day record Record #sailingrecord set by ’Orange’ but have closed up the gap on Geronimo to approximately 14 hours behind as KINGFISHER2 is sailing a more direct route than Geronimo was forced to, and therefore less miles. In the Southern Ocean Geronimo has been forced to sail north-east due to a deep depression making progress south impossible. http://www.grandsrecords.com
ANDREW PREECE : This afternoon we are expecting a GRIB file [weather prediction in a data format that is processed by the onboard routing programmes to Œsuggest‚ best route to follow] to come in from Meeno that will give us our first picture of the South Atlantic. It is pretty exciting to have left the UK winter only a few days ago, to be in our shorts now and planning for the South Atlantic in the next couple of days. Right now we are about 250 miles behind Geronimo’s pace but considering how much light air we have suffered over the last couple of days, we’re not unhappy. There are plenty of tactical possibilities in the next 10 days or so.
NIGEL KING : One aspect that has been a little disappointing has been the wild life, so far there have been very few sighting and have been very down on my previous races in the north Atlantic. The sight of a giant squid with a body length of around 1 metre was amazing [could be the anti-biotics at work].
Information Kingfisher Challenges
SUMMARY : 1500 GMT 4.2.03
Position : 14 29’ N 26 25’ W (163 nm South of northern most island of Cape Verde’s / 521 nm west of Dakar)
Av/Max boat speed in last hour : 23.65 / 31 knots
Av/Max wind speed in last hour : 22.47 / 30.5 knots
Wind direction : 056
Distance to Equator : 874 nm (theorectical shortest distance)
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