Sea, Sail & Surf newsJules Verne Trophy
Orange’s heading is gently taking her towards the NW...
jeudi 25 avril 2002 –
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..."
Pierrick Garenne / Mer & Media Agency Translation David Palmer / SeaSpeak
Dans la même rubrique
Jules Verne Trophy : Orange crosses the equator five days ahead of Sport Elec’s time
East-West Atlantic record : Maiden II narrowly missed the record
Jules Verne Trophy : Orange back in the match
Jules Verne Trophy : 250 nm in one day again for Orange
