Loick Peyron and Jean-Pierre Dick at dawn on board Virbac Paprec 3. Image copyright Virbac Paprec 3.
- Cape Horn Thursday for Virbac-Paprec 3 and MAPFRE
- Mopping up on We Are Water
- Central Lechera Asturiana due to arrive Wellington Thursday night FMC ready to leave Wellington Thursday morning
by Barcelona World Race media
Cape Horn is the round the world racer’s ultimate milestone. It is the time that the bow is finally directed in a northerly direction, what feels like homewards. In theory the wind ravaged Cape puts behind them the wild challenges of the southern oceans and starts the final long 10000 miles ascent of the Atlantic.
In fact for the leading Barcelona World Race pair, Virbac-Paprec 3 and MAPFRE, there is likely to be little change in the intensity of their individual attack. The wind conditions may progressively ease, but both teams know that every mile gained and lost is a valuable one.
The challenges of the southern Atlantic are often every bit as difficult as they were for the fleet on the descent more than six weeks ago. For example the 2004-5 and the 2000-1 solo round the world Vendée Globe races both saw huge miles caught up in the lower reaches of the Atlantic as the Saint Helena high proved especially slow for the leaders.
Both leading duos will be well aware of this as their next set of strategic challenges on their horizon, but tomorrow, Thursday, will be about the excitement of passing the iconic landmark and making sure they remain in the best possible shape for the big push up the Atlantic.
Virbac-Paprec 3 and MAPFRE at the Horn
For the leading duo, Jean-Pierre Dick and Loïck Peyron, it will be their respective third racing passages of Cape Horn, J-P passing in his first Vendée Globe in 2005 and subsequently en route to winning the first Barcelona World Race, whilst Peyron passed whilst en route to second in the first ever edition of the Vendée Globe. For the MAPFRE duo it will be Iker Martinez’s second but Xabi Fernandez’s third – having rounded twice in successive Volvo Ocean races.
After repositioning themselves slightly to the north early last night, the Spanish pair have so far been able to deliver some of the compression that Martinez spoke of yesterday, making nearly one knot quicker than Virbac-Paprec 3 over the course of the middle part of today. Both have been spearing east towards the Horn at between 18 and 21 knots with the full expectation of a passage of the promontory in breezes which will vary between just plain windy and very windy. They are still expecting the race’s final encounter with ex cyclone Atu, with MAPFRE expecting worse conditions, due to arrive at the Cape some five hours later. This afternoon there was 80 miles between them with Virbac-Paprec 3 due to pass between 0930hrs and 1030hrs UTC.
We Are Water: Mopping Up
Jaume Mumbrú sounded still slightly dazed but very resolute today nearly 24hours after being knocked down on their We Are Water. When he spoke clearly and lucidly of their incident, which he described as ‘for sure the hottest thing that has happened to us so for this race’ he revealed that their mopping up operation is still continuing progressively, they still have a lot of work to get through but ‘are back in the match’.
They were knocked flat by a powerful 1-2 combination of waves, taking ‘tonnes of water’ down the companionway.
We Are Water. Image copyright We Are Water.
Mumbrú recalled: “We were sailing in the bad part of the storm downwind, at an angle 135 degrees. We had only the main with three reefs with no sail at the front at all in 45 touching 50 knots, and the sea was very, very big, high waves with not a lot of distance between the waves. And on one of the accelerations of the boat we just crashed against the wave in front and the wave behind just lifted the boat and capsized us. We were completely over to one side, the water came into the boat and we had tonnes of water inside. We had a few seconds capsized, the boat came upright and from there on, it was just a case of getting the boat ready to get on with it and sail again.
It was the first really, really hot situation that we have been in like that.
Basically we had the boat stopped completely we had all this water inside, electronics were on and it was situation where we had to start making decisions how to put things back together. The wind was blowing at an incredible speed, outside we could not even move. Sometimes it was dangerous, it was the toughest situation since we left.”
He and co-skipper Cali Sanmarti are fighting to have their IMOCA Open 60 back in shape so that they can avoid making a technical pit-stop in Wellington. Forum Maritim Catala restart tomorrow after their 48 hours stop to fix their watermakers and hydrogenerators:
Gerard Marín said today: “From the psychological point of view, being on the water for so long is getting difficult, more so than I thought it would be.”
And heading for Wellington, with just over 100 miles to sail, is the jury rigged Central Lechera Asturiana which lost the top section of their mast yesterday evening.
Rankings at 1400hrs Wednesday 2nd March 2011
1. VIRBAC-PAPREC 3 (Jean-Pierre Dick - Loïck Peyron), at 7.274 miles to finish
2. MAPFRE (Iker Martínez - Xabi Fernández), at 80,6 miles from the leader
3. RENAULT Z. E. (Pachi Rivero - Antonio Piris), at 1.374 miles
4. NEUTROGENA (Boris Herrmann - Ryan Breymaier), at 1.415 miles
5. MIRABAUD (Dominique Wavre - Michèle Paret), at 1.609 miles
6. GROUPE BEL (Kito de Pavant - Sébastien Audigane), at 1.901 miles
7. ESTRELLA DAMM (Alex Pella - Pepe Ribes), at 1.967 miles
8. HUGO BOSS (Wouter Verbraak - Andy Meiklejohn), at 2.340 miles
9. GAES CENTROS AUDITIVOS (Dee Caffari - Anna Corbella), at 2.543 miles
10. FÒRUM MARÍTIM CATALÀ (Gerard Marín - Ludovic Aglaor), at 4.276 miles
11. CENTRAL LECHERA ASTURIANA (Juan Merediz - Fran Palacio), at 4.408 miles
12. WE ARE WATER (Jaume Mumbrú - Cali Sanmartí), at 4.965 miles
RTD FONCIA
RTD PRESIDENT
Quotes:
Pachi Rivero (ESP) Renault ZE Sailing Team:"Right now we're fine physically. We sleep, we keep the rhythm fine, within the usual realms of being tired and so on, but physically we are fine although we haven’t seen the sun for a long time.
"We gybed with the wind shift because we wanted to leave the center of the maximum pressure in the low. We have about 35 - 40 knots of wind from behind we are going downwind well, with a sea not too big but safe, most importantly, safe.
"We want to sail with Neutrogena on the same conditions, we seem very even. We hope to get out of this system better than them.
"At the moment Cape Horn is a bit far away, we have another very critical low and then we'll talk about Cape Horn and to get home. It's a little fruity this low, it has to go and set up right in front of us! ... will have to duel with it a bit or stop a bit to let it pass, cross through the middle, further north ... I do not know, but it's a pain in the ass!
"To me, Cape Horn is the father of all Capes, leaving the South. It is important to leave the South well, powerful and strong to face the way home.
"We feel really sorry about the incident Central Lechera Asturiana’s mast. They don’t deserve it, none of them. They made a huge effort and came very well from Cape Town. We are good friends with Juan and Fran and I'm sorry for them.
"The rudders are responding well, we're delighted. The one that was more delicate is doing a good job, is holding up and I think we won’t have any problems with them.
"The two pilots are going very well, both the mechanical and the hydraulic. Now we are sailing with the mechanic one with 35-40 knots. The hydraulic is fine too.
"Calm, wind, calm, wind ... is being quite rough the Pacific.
"It is too early to talk of a third place, What we have to do is sail, do well and we'll think about it past Horn. Then we will have the storms of the north. Until you don’t get home is not quiet. "
Boris Herrmann (GER) Neutrogena:“It is very rough, we have a big swell from the side. It is very dark and so I cant see what is going on so I try hard to find a good course to not launch off the waves because sometimes we hit 27 knots or something like that and between the waves the boat slows down and so it is not so easy to keep an even speed.
We decided to not be too extreme, not to take any risks, and we also gybed a bit later here so that we would have a little bit of distance to this low in the south, and we sail an angle not exactly on the rhumb line, a little to the north to not go in the very strong breeze, we have decent conditions, 42 knots right now.
It is not that far from Cape Horn now and so there is no reason to push the hell out of the boat right now.
Our energy is OK at the moment. It would be good if we could see some sun at one point, but I guess after the Horn in a few days there might be a chance, but it all grey and drizzle, I cant remember where we saw the sun the last time really, before New Zealand.
I am a bit tired of this grey horizon.
We have a big low pressure system passing to the south of us and we have to have a good look at that, I think that could bring another day or day and a half of good breeze, nothing very threatening.
We had a couple of mails of encouragement from Bilou two or three days ago.”
Jaume Mumbru (ESP) We Are Water:“We were sailing in the bad part of the storm downwind, at an angle 135 degrees. We had only the main with three reefs with no sail at the front at all in 45 touching 50 knots, and the sea was very, very big, high waves with not a lot of distance between the waves. And on one of the accelerations of the boat we just crashed against the wave in front and the wave behind just lifted the boat and capsized us. We were completely over to one side, the water came into the boat and we had tonnes of water inside. We had a few seconds capsized, the boat came upright and from there on, it was just a case of getting the boat ready to get on with it and sail again.
It was the first really, really hot situation that we have been in like that.
Basically we had the boat stopped completely we had all this water inside, electronics were on and it was situation where we had to start making decisions how to put things back together. The wind was blowing at an incredible speed, outside we could not even move. Sometimes it was dangerous, it was the toughest situation since we left.
We are both very tired. We have been working hard for the last 24 hours. We have managed to get the boat back sailing, and the minimum electronics to work, and then we had to gybe to get north, to try and get some north on this second front. After these 24 hours we are happy with the evolution, and we are tired, we try to recover, but we still have some tough conditions to go, but we hope to continue through the Cook Strait so we can have some rest, so our priority right now is to get some rest.
At the moment we are holding on to optimism, our hope not to stop, that is our objective. But that will depend on the evolution of the boat. We feel we are getting pretty lucky because we are managing to dry some of the stuff. Before it was the head of the engine, so we are keeping optimistic not to have to stop in Wellington.”
In French:
Enorme..."Hornesque" !
- Virbac-Paprec 3 à 385 milles du cap Horn
- ETA Virbac-Paprec 3 et MAPFRE : demain 11h (HF) et 15h
- Une succession de dépressions malmène l’ensemble de la flotte
- Un Pacifique d’écart entre Virbac-Paprec 3 et We are Water
We Are Water. Image copyright We Are Water.
Le Pacifique Sud a déterré sa hache de guerre. Aux quatre coins de la flotte de la Barcelona World Race, les équipages essuient, ou sont sur le point d’affronter, des conditions très musclées générées au passage d’un train dépressionnaire. Pour les duos de leaders, les derniers milles vers le rocher mythique s’annoncent de haute volée dans des vents et sur une mer qui font la légende de cette sentinelle aussi prestigieuse que redoutée. De quoi augurer un 62e jour de course riche en émotions fortes avec le « Horn » annoncé de Jean-Pierre Dick et Loïck Peyron, suivis de près par les pirates espagnols, Iker Martinez et Xabi Fernandez...
Bienvenue au pays de la compétition dans des conditions extrêmes. En ce début de mois de mars, tous les équipages sont logés à la même enseigne : celle du Grand Sud qui montre ses dents et sort ses vents violents.
De l’entrée à la sortie du Pacifique Sud
Même la mer de Tasmanie, dans les quartiers occidentaux du Pacifique, se montre d’une redoutable et tempétueuse humeur. Les derniers équipages ne sont pas épargnés au large de la Nouvelle-Zélande. Central Lechera Asturiana a démâté hier en début de soirée sur une mer très croisée, levée par un violent et mauvais coup de vent. Quelques heures plus tôt, We Are Water, la lanterne rouge de la flotte, subissait les foudres d’une vague énorme. Ces deux équipages espagnols font néanmoins contre mauvaise fortune grand cœur. D’un bord à l’autre, ils manifestent l’intention de continuer vaille que vaille ce marathon planétaire, qui n’a plus à faire la preuve de son niveau d’exigence. Au dernier classement, We Are Water, 12e et dernier concurrent pointe au large du cap Farewell en approche du détroit de Cook. Près de 5 000 milles plus loin (9 260 km), Virbac-Paprec 3 cavale à 18 -19 nœuds vers la sortie du désert liquide. Un océan, le plus vaste, les sépare. D’un côté comme de l’autre, il montre son plus hostile visage.
Un mouchoir de 40 milles dans 30-35 nœuds établis
Les récits du jour ne trompent personne. La voix fatiguée, les navigateurs témoignent des conditions éprouvantes, qui les obligent à faire profil bas pour ne pas risquer le diable d’une avarie sur la route du Horn. A bord de Neutrogena, Boris Hermann et Ryan Breymaier confient redoubler de vigilance, réduire la toile de leur monture qui s’emballe dans des surfs à plus de 30 nœuds. Même son de cloche à bord de Renault ZE, où Pachi Rivero et Tonio Piris expliquent, dans la pénombre de leur cabine de carbone, doser entre vitesse et sécurité pour défendre leur place dans ces conditions hostiles. 40 milles séparent les voiles de ces deux 60 pieds dans lesquelles souffle, cet après-midi, un flux de sud-ouest de 30-35 nœuds établis.
La course contre « Atu »
Pour les leaders, le rythme s’accélère encore avec la perspective de bientôt laisser bientôt ce Pacifique Sud dans les tableaux arrières. S’ils progressent cet après-midi dans 20-25 nœuds de nord-ouest, les prochaines heures s’annoncent sous très haute tension pour les deux équipages de tête. La faute à « Atu ». Le plus fidèle des systèmes dépressionnaires de la course ne cesse en effet d’imprimer sa marque sur les eaux qui mènent au Horn. Cette tempête se déplace très vite d’ouest en est : des quartiers où progresse aujourd’hui le milieu de flotte, vers le sud de la Terre de Feu où elle est attendue demain soir. Pour Virbac-Paprec 3 et MAPFRE, il s’agit donc de cravacher pour éviter le pire et se positionner en avant sur la bordure supérieure de ce vaste système. Quoi qu’il en soit, « Atu » annonce la couleur. Ce sera typique et local. 50 nœuds de nord, des vagues énormes : le garde-frontière à l’entrée de l’Atlantique ne fera certainement pas mentir sa réputation avec les passages de Virbac-Paprec 3 et MAPFRE annoncés dans des conditions... « hornesques ».
Sailing Estrella Damm. Image copyright Estrella Damm.
Classement du 2 mars à 15 heures (TU+1) :
1 VIRBAC-PAPREC 3 à 7274,4 milles de l’arrivée
2 MAPFRE à 80,6 milles du leader
3 RENAULT ZE à 1374 milles
4 NEUTROGENA à 1415,4 milles
5 MIRABAUD à 1609,1 milles
6 GROUPE BEL à 1901,6 milles
7 ESTELLA DAMM à 1967,5 milles
8 HUGO BOSS à 2340,8 milles
9 GAES CENTROS AUDITIVOS à 2543,9 milles
10 FORUM MARITIM CATALA à 4276 milles
11 CENTRAL LECHERA ASTURIANA à 4408,4 milles
12 WE ARE WATER à 4965 milles
ABD FONCIA
ABD PRESIDENT
Ils ont dit
Boris Hermann, Neutrogena :« On a la philosophie de préserver un peu le bateau. On a du vent de 30-40 nœuds et on se dit que c’est peut-être la dernière fois que l’on a autant de vent donc ça serait un peu bête de prendre le risque de casser quelque chose maintenant, à la fin du Sud. Nous avons une mer croisée, une houle de travers et ce n’est pas facile de faire avancer le bateau dans des conditions comme ça : c’est un peu brutal ! Nous avons fait d’énormes surfs parfois sur les vagues : plus de 30 nœuds ! »
Sébastien Audigane, Groupe Bel :« Nous avons un bon flux de portant 25-27 nœuds, ça avance bien sur Groupe Bel.Là, nous avons 25 nœuds de vent et la mer s’est arrangée. Il commence à faire froid, on met les capuches ! On est bien content d’être au portant, car ça faisait un petit moment qu’on attendait ça et Groupe Bel accélère bien depuis 24h, ça fait bien plaisir d’aller vite ! Nous avons plus d’avance sur Estrella Damm depuis quelques jours, effectivement, on espère creuser sur eux et revenir sur le peloton devant nous : avec Dominique Wavre notamment puis Neutrogena et Renault ZE qui sont un peu plus loin. »
Pachi Rivero (ESP), Renault ZE :« Pour moi, le Horn c’est Le Cap, le père de tous les caps, la sortie du Sud. C’est important de bien sortir du Sud, frais et dispo pour remonter à la maison. Nous nous sentons impliqués dans le démâtage de Central Lechera Astutiana. Personne ne mérite cela, surtout pas eux après tous leurs efforts, car ils sont revenus de loin après leur arrêt au Cap. Nous sommes très proches de Juan et Fran et nous avons beaucoup de peine pour eux. »
Jaume Mumbru (ESP), We Are Water :« L’incident s’est produit en quelques secondes. Le bateau est littéralement tombé dans un trou. Nous marchions à 18 nœuds et en un instant nous nous sommes retrouvés à 0 nœud et le bateau est parti au lof. La faible distance entre deux vagues et leur hauteur nous ont surpris. Le bateau accélérait beaucoup. L’eau est rentrée dans le cockpit. Sous sa pression, la bâche qui protège l’intérieur a cédé, et l’eau a inondé le carré et l’électronique. Nous nous sommes mis à la cape, comme l’avait fait Bernard Stamm lors de la Velux, avec trois ris dans la grand-voile et sans voile à l’avant. Nous avons pu ainsi stopper le bateau et vider l’intérieur puis sauver l’électronique. »
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