As Les Sables d’Olonne prepares, expecting to welcome the winner home this weekend, if there was anything resembling a false sense of security descending on the Vendée Globe then there was sharp reminder that the race is not over until the finish line is crossed today.
With less than 2000 miles to go Roland Jourdain called his shore team at around 0400hrs this morning to say that he had a problem with the keel of Veolia Environnement.
After a long night he had heard an unexpected noise which he duly investigated, stopping the boat and checking as much as he could. Indeed it was only when he sheeted back on and Veolia Environnement heeled again that he was immediately aware that his problem was with his keel.
Jourdain has been making between eight and 10 knots towards Azores islands, which are some 640 miles on his course to the NE. Indeed race leader Michel Desjoyeaux passed through them yesterday evening. Jourdain will make a fuller inspection when he reached Sao Miguel and then assess his options. The direct line course from the Azores to the finish is approximately 1200 miles, or twice the distance that the determined Jourdain aims to sail with his compromised Lombard design.
Until now Jourdain has had a remarkable race, the only skipper to have been able to pace race leader Michel Desjoyeaux since the pair assumed first and second positions respectively on 16th December.
Michel Desjoyeaux is now less than 1000 miles from Les Sables d’Olonne and was recovering this morning from a tough, squally night during which he saw 53 knots of wind – equal to the highest wind speed that he had seen so far this race. And another reminder that it is not over until the finish gun sounds. Desjoyeaux is now expected to finish in Les Sables d’Olonne Sunday morning.
Sam Davies emerged into the Northern Hemisphere in fourth place on Roxy at 1430hrs this afternoon, holding a small 90 miles advantage over Marc Guillemot (Safran) who has been finding the Doldrums going painful with his reduced sail area, but he anticpates that his position to the west of his British rival will give him first bite at the westerly winds when they come to him. Meantime Davies was not giving any thought to anything other than getting her Roxy back to Les Sables d’Olonne as safely and as fast as possible.
It is Thursday and Brian Thompson’s week has been filled with more work below decks than in the cockpit of Bahrain Team Pindar. Sunday and Monday were given to protracted alternator repairs, but since then it is has been continuous with repairs to his watermaker, and attempts to fix his Fleet 77 and Sat C systems, but culminating yesterday in a problem with one of the two starboard rams which cant and support his keel. A complex fix is required and so meantime it would appear that the Cowes based skipper must sail with a compromised single ram system due to the hydraulic leakage which occurred though a sensor cable. The British skipper had still managed to take time out to congratulate Rich Wilson for his rounding of Cape Horn.
Michel Desjoyeaux, Foncia: “I had a really s***y night Worse than in the Southern Ocean. The wind was all over the place, from the south south west to north west. It went up to 53 knots in the gusts and Foncia’s speed varied from 6 to 31 knots. In other words, you change a sail and ten minutes later, you need to change it again. It all started at nightfall, to the west of Sao Miguel. Now the wind is a little more steady, between 18 and 30 knots. Considering my current sailing conditions, it’s difficult to give a precise ETA. I can imagine finishing on Sunday at dawn, when the frost is on the ground. But I’m a bit slowed down and can’t keep up a steady average. If I’m slowed, I look like finishing in Les Sables with a variable south-easterly. If I’m slowed even more, I’m going to have to tack, which I’m not too pleased about, as I’m getting a bit fed up doing that. At the moment, I’m wondering whether Eole and Neptune aren’t a bit annoyed about seeing me get home early.”
Marc Guillemot, (Safran): “I’m 80 miles away from the magic line! I entered the Doldrums yesterday evening and even if there are still bright skies, I’m more or less in the middle. It is not very violent and there aren’t many squalls, but the speeds are closer to five than ten knots. I have the impression that we’re near the way out now. I can see a line of squalls off to my east, but once I’ve got by them, I should be picking up the North Atlantic trade winds. In short, I should be getting winds that are more favourable than for Sam, who is further east, but it’s going to be close. With Roxy, if we were neck and neck in the same conditions, I would not be able to perform as well. I keep forgetting that I don’t have as much power and am regularly surprised by my speeds, but of course, I have 60m² of sail less, which is a huge amount… Now we’re on the home stretch and that’s a good thing psychologically, as you can see the end coming up… But before that, we’re going to have to be patient. We mustn’t put the cart before the horse. I just have to keep the boat sailing well. Mich‘ is going to be finishing, but that’s part of the game. Personally, I had some very different experiences and know what is left to be done.”
Michel Desjouyeaux (Foncia) in English: “Actually we should have to gybe in the north of Spain, to come back to the Bay of Biscay. The wind will decrease from now to the corner of Spain. I’d like this to be the home strait but the weather was not in that mood last night. I hope it will change and them I will be on the straight line for home. In fact it will change, the weather does not look constant but I hope I will be early enough to finish that I will not finish having to tack. Otherwise it will not be very much fun for me.
My sails are common. The pilot I use are the same ones that some of the other competitors have. The only thing special I have and I use it most of the time is the last version of MaxSea Time Zero which is a software for routing, a routing process which now in this version is able to compute with sail sets (crossovers) and waves increasing or decreasing performances of the boat. In the next version, this is just the Beta version, we will have loss of performance due to sail change and also we have a confidence value to appreciate if the routing process is confident or not in fact with a level of 100% which is a good help to be able to decide in bad conditions and changing conditions.”
Brian Thompson, GBR, (Bahrain Team Pindar): “It is quite squally here. I am very near to Fernando de Noronha, a little Brasilian island which I am 42 miles from it, it is a wildlife sanctuary.”
“The squalls here are very slow moving. So when you get caught you are in there for a while. I also had a very busy night. A busy few days and a busy night.
One day was alternator all day. The next day was alternator all day. Third day was watermaker. And yesterday was the Fleet suddenly went down and the Standard C. So I had four days on the go with the tool box out all the time. Then last night around 11 or 12 I noticed that the keel had let itself down. And the oil had disappeared from the reservoir and the Starboard ram had just started leaking, not in a place which is really repairable. It was actually leaking from a sensor wire that tells where the ram is canted, rather than from a pipe that you could do up. So what I had to do was disconnect the pipe and empty all of the oil into a container. And now I am just using the forward ram and so I am going from a two ram set up to a one ram set up. And the ram makers are looking into whether I can repair it, but I think it is one of those jobs which is very complicated and best left to the workshop. So that took a few hours. I had to completely stop the boat for a few hours. Fortunately we were in the back side of a squall with no wind in it.
It is not something you can now push the boat to 100% with, so you’d have to be really careful with in the NE’ly trades to not load the boat. There is a pressure release valve which should unload it if it gets over 250 psi.”