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Du grand large à la plage : Toute l’actualité des sports de glisse depuis 2000

Jules Verne Trophy

Last chicane before cape Leeuwin

samedi 30 mars 2002

The maxi-catamaran Orange continues to slalom in the Indian Ocean in the search for the ideal weather pattern. "We must be on our third system since the Cape of Good Hope", said Hervé Jan during today’s chat session. "During The Race on Club Med, we picked up a low around the Crozet Islands that took us all the way through to New Zealand !". Today, the giant from Marseilles is sailing in a 30/35 knot westerly and is facing up to "three different directions of swell". With triple reefed main and staysail, she is trying to lift her bows out of this sea that would so love to trip her up, and she is beginning to get into position to attack the Pacific Ocean in hopefully better conditions.

"We started the night with a nice and tidy sea enabling us to notch up the miles" declared Bruno Peyron. "But having dropped down to the south-east as planned, we have found a crossed sea obliging us to slow down somewhat". Because as Bruno reminded us and Hervé Jan explained at the chat session : "With a 25 knot wind and a flat sea, these boats can go at the speed of the wind. But in a rough sea you have to adapt yourself to the sea state if you don’t want to break anything". So the giant from Marseilles has slackened the pace. To do this they have shortened sail, going from double reefed main/staysail to triple reefed main/staysail, and are threading their way between two zones of wind estimated at about 50 knots, but because of this they are having to suffer a crossed sea pattern that is putting the brakes on their incredible capacity.

But nevertheless, the maxi-catamaran Orange has been brushing with 500 miles a day since yesterday and this morning at 0800 was 520 miles away from the latitude of Cape Leeuwin, the second great cape to be left to port. They should be passing it by the end of the morning tomorrow and the reference time set by Enza (Peter Blake) in 1994 of 29 days and 16 minutes should be bettered by a few hours. For this, the maxi-catamaran Orange must cross this imaginary line before Sunday 31st March at 2327 GMT to claim this new "record Record #sailingrecord " after the one set between Ushant and the Cape of Good Hope.

But even if this passage point remains mythical, Bruno is not particularly moved and is more concerned about getting into a good position for the next stage, the Pacific Ocean. He is aiming for an "ideal waypoint" that he places between 50 and 52° South below Tasmania and refers to the nice straight tracks of his colleagues in The Race who were able to sail at the speed of the lows... "But normality doesn’t exist in meteorology" said the multi-Cape Horner Hervé Jan in conclusion. "And that’s the daily lot of all sailors in the world..."

Quote / unquote...

Bruno Peyron :"In 1993 with Commodore, we had two very difficult days on entering the Indian Ocean. We had a three metre long crack in our hull side and it was at the same moment that Peter Blake abandoned. But I can’t remember having had such a lousy sea for so long, and it was not as complicated as what we’ve got at the moment !"

Hervé Jan : "We really have had some troublesome weather conditions and we’ve never had any nice successions of lows. We’ve had a low high up and another lower down and a high that was expanding behind with ridges interspersed between all that... Not really simple !"

Pierrick Garenne / Mer & Média / Translation David Palmer - SeaSpeak



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