1876. Image copyright Marcel Mochet/AFP.
by Régis Lerat
In the variable conditions which are affecting the leading groups of the Transat Jacques Vabre IMOCA Open 60 fleet as the trade winds are decayed, small miles lost are quickly magnified and, conversely, small gains can grow with seemingly equal ease.
The undercurrent among most of the IMOCA fleet is everything from objective contentment to stoic resignation, but the difficult winds – still rising and dropping in velocity and shifting in direction, not to mention the odd wind sapping cloud more in keeping with the Doldrums, there are certainly no easy, rolling typically trade winds motorway miles to be had.
Safran of Marc Guillemot and Charles Caudrelier Bérnac had continued to profit overnight in better breeze, but during the day Groupe Bel have managed to pull back 10 miles to cut Safran's margin to 70 miles, whilst Mike Golding and Javier Sanso on Mike Golding Yacht Racing are 100 miles behind Groupe Bel.
But once the leading trio break into the Caribbean it would seem that there will be steadier, trade wind like conditions in through the weekend to a finish in Puerto Limon some time between Monday and late Tuesday.
Best gain of the day seems to have been the return of Yves Parlier – who has twice won this race – who is sailing with Pachi Rivero on the Spanish boat 1876. Their slightly radical northern position has paid a dividend with good wind pressure today as they try to work more south later in the afternoon from their polarised position. Up to fifth place in terms of DTF, distance to finish, their speed has been consistently good today but there is a big blocking ridge of light winds which may halt their advance.
Sanso admitted today that their hands had been effectively tied during Tuesday night and that they may have missed some opportunities to gain during a period of six or seven hours with electrical problems. As their engine batteries drained so their entire electrical management system shut down on them and they were left in with only the compass light to try and race with, while Golding fought to find a solution.
His Spanish co-skipper issued a reminder that 100 miles is a matter of only a few hours sailing in these boats. The final miles, where the Pacific weather systems sometimes battle with the Atlantic winds to cancel each other out. There may yet be a sting in the tail of this new course.
On Foncia, co-skipper Jérémie Beyou managed to retain his concentration throughout listening live to France's controversial world cup qualifying victory against Ireland. Without the benefit of video replay on board, Beyou was staying tight lipped about the another ‘hand of god' incident, but 290 miles ahead Golding and Sanso will be hoping that the French nation's November divine intervention allocation of is now used up at least until he reaches Porto Limon.
Alex Pella on W-Hotels described losing miles, as did Sam Davies on Artemis, as clouds vacuumed away the best of the breeze for hours at a time. As Dee Caffari and Brian Thompson slide away from W-Hotels, Aviva – in seventh – is proving a growing challenge to Roland Jourdain and Jean-Luc Nélias on sixth placed Veolia Environnement.
Javier Sanso, ESP, Mike Golding Yacht Racing:
“In the end there was very low battery and not enough to start the engine and after a series of back up systems did not work in the end we had to pull out one of the bank of really sophisticated batteries which have a complicated software management system, so that meant we had six or seven hours in the night when there was very, very tricky conditions. We lost a lot of ground on the leaders then, and we had only a little wind. Anyway that is the way it is.
“They may seem to be a little bit faster and us a little bit slower, but they are always running into more breeze. Maybe we did some sail configurations which were not perfect for the conditions for some time, and we realised that because we are always analysing what has been wrong with the speed, but we have been unlucky with the wind. And when you add in the electrics it all just adds up, you can see the losses, but also you can see that Safran has left from Groupe Bel.
“The opportunities are still there, it is a long, long race. There is a lot of miles to go. The wind will change but we have to keep an eye on Foncia, they are looking strong and are closing the gap. I think there are options are there but as time goes by there are less options. It could still be interesting at the end. You have to remember that 100 miles is nothing in these boats, a few hours.”
Pachi Rivero (ESP), 1876: “ We are going downwind with better speed now. We have good wind. Yesterday evening and night we were sailing upwind with good windspeed and now we are doing a good WSW and in a few hours we will gybe and go more South.
"We will change our heading depending on the windshift during the day, but most probably it will be in about 10 hours (from 7:30am) aproxximately. It all depends on the last weather files we get.We have good wind by now, quite good here. The conditions we expect as the cold front passes are lighter than now. We expect to have enough wind to arrive to the Mona Channel and catch up with the rest of the fleet. Hopefully we will be luckier than them and they would have less wind than ourselves, and we could get south in better conditions.”
Transat Jacques Vabre
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