At around 2100hrs last night, British yachtswoman Dee Caffari and her Spanish co skipper, Anna Corbella relinquished 8th place in the Barcelona World Race after a hard fought battle. The all female duo aboard GAES Centros Auditivos had been doing their upmost to keep closest race rivals Andy Meiklejohn & Wouter Verbraak aboard Hugo Boss at bay over the past week, however, the Juan Kouyoumdjian designed yacht has been enjoying greater speeds in the current conditions and has gradually been closing the gap.
Reporting this morning, Caffari said:
“Obviously we are disappointed to have dropped down to 9th place but at this morning’s rankings Hugo Boss are just fifteen miles ahead of us, so the fight is definitely still on. We are not quite half way through this round the world race and I know from my previous experiences that much can happen between now and the finish line. The current conditions will favour the heavier Hugo Boss IMOCA 60, so we will have our work cut out for us keeping pace with them.”
The Indian Ocean is not giving up the leaders of the Barcelona World Race to the Tasman and Pacific without one final scrap.
The final 24 to 48 hours in the Indian Ocean look set to be the toughest for Jean-Pierre Dick and Loick Peyron in first place on Virbac-Paprec 3, for MAPFRE and Estrella Damm.
Forecasts for this evening, tonight and into Saturday, suggest the leading trio might see very strong NW’ly gusts and big seas kicked up by the final big low pressure of the Indian Ocean, a vicious sting in the tail after what has proven to be a generally compliant, benign passage. The leaders had less than 300 miles of Indian Ocean this afternoon.
For Dick and Peyron there might be the relative luxury of their 452 miles lead, allowing them the option to moderate their speeds in the difficult conditions, but the battle between second placed MAPFRE and Estrella Damm remains as intense as ever, with the second and third placed Spanish duos still making very, very similar average speeds.
With their hands full in the brisk conditions, the leading duo may scarcely have the opportunity to enjoy the moment, possibly late tomorrow or more probably Sunday when they pass the theoretical mid point of the 25,000 miles course.
The leading trio are well into evolving their strategy for the Tasman passage to New Zealand and the Cook Straits which separate the North and South Islands.
This diversion out of the southern oceans and through the straits in fact adds only a further 500 miles to the direct orthodromic course, but it effectively brings with it a whole new set of challenges – the rhythm changing from ocean racing, to passage racing, to coastal racing and back down through the gears again. And of course it is a relatively sudden and tantalising flirtation with ‘real life’.
Still, the weather models do not agree on the exact timings of a high pressure system over the Tasman which will progress east across New Zealand, but it will be a very significant blocker to the fortunes of one or some of the top half of the fleet.
The days may not exactly be dragging yet for the duos, but for sure several of the skippers have been commenting recently on some of the friends, family and occasions they are missing.
Ebullient, upbeat and positively brimming today Pachi Rivero answered questions from a local Barcelona school with great enthusiasm, on weird and wonderful fish he had seen, what makes a great sailor, what his most difficult memories were, but he also commented that what he misses most, after six weeks at sea, is his own family
Jean Pierre Dickspoke yesterday about missing out on three months of the life of his young baby who was only four months old when he left Barcelona, and Estrella Damm Pepe Ribes saw he young son, also Pepe who was born three weeks before the race start, by video link four days ago. There were happy minutes today through for GAES Centros Auditivos when Barcelona’s Anna Corbella spoke with her family live on the Visio-Conference for the first time, including her lovely golden retriever Piula.
Corbella was clearly delighted, while her co-skipper Dee Caffari today remained objective about Hugo Boss finally getting the better of them, stealing eighth place on the leaderboard. She said:
“We are not that worried at the moment. I mean lets face it, if they are not that worried in these conditions when are they going to catch us. And we have a high pressure ahead and we have seen the results of a high pressure with these two boats before. They have been about one know faster than us most of the time recently, but I am pretty happy that there will be opportunities a little further down the line. They are not going to get too far ahead of us.”