Regatta-Pech
Auf ca. 900 sm hat sich der Rückstand der Renault Captur mit Jörg Riechers inzwischen vergrössert. Vorn liegt derzeit Bernhard Stamm mit der Cheminees Poujoulat. Regatta-Zweiter ist die weit im Süden segelnde Neutrogena. Anna Corbella liegt mit der Gaes auf Rang 3 und konnte sich entgegen meiner Prognose leider nicht verbessern. Es wird spannend zu beaobachten sein, ob sich der weitere, südliche, aber auch windreichere Kurs der Neutogena auszahlt.
Skippers quotes:
S©bastien Audigane (FRA) Renault Captur:It’s not that brilliant this morning, as we’re stuck in a calm and finding it hard to get out. We’re trying to make our way south and the wind can’t be far ahead of us now. We’ve had a lot of little repairs to do and can’t wait to do some real racing. I know we’ve been saying that since the start and I probably sound bitter.
We decided to get through the Doldrums quite some way east. We made our way more or less through that. Then, we had a few technical problems, in particular with the mast track, which was damaged. That slowed us down and we’re still paying the price.
We decided to take a more easterly route as we knew we wouldn’t be able to get through where the others were, because the route was going to be blocked by the St. Helena high. We thought we had found an escape route through it. It seemed to be working yesterday, but it hasn’t worked out. I think the two brothers are stuck in there too. There are still many miles left to sail… But it’s like the Berlin wall ahead, so that isn’t going to help us. There are small areas of high pressure forming between the lows. That could block the leaders, but I don’t really think that will happen. So it’s looking complicated.
Someone is stopping us from getting to the Southern Ocean, but we can’t wait to get down there. But we’re going to have to repair a few things and prepare the boat for that. We don’t want to take any unnecessary risks. Jörg can’t wait to get down there. We haven’t really talked about that though, as we’ve been focusing on getting out of here.
On the different boats:
“ I knew what the boats were like before we set off and I knew which boat I would have chosen. Armel’s boat (Renault Captur) is fairly powerful which was a different choice from the Verdier designs. The boat is nice enough. Before reaching the equator, we were able to push the boat a bit under gennaker. But it takes a lot of work to get her moving.“
Willy Garcia, ESP, We Are Water “ We are sailing down towards the Southern Ocean. We are sailing down to catch the strong westery winds in the south but at the moment we are in the light winds of the high pressure system.
We are alway looking forwards to the boat in front, Renault Captur, but One Planet One Ocean are not that for behind and so we have to look behind as well as forwards.
The best experience so far was the start when there were so many people were on the pontoon and they were on the pontoon. It was lovely. The worst thing was the Mediterreanean when we missed an opportunity to go with the fleet. And we took one day more to get out of the Mediterranean. That was the worst thing.“
Rankings at 1400hrs UTC Wednesday 21st January 2015.
1 Chemin©es Poujoulat (B. Stamm – J. Le Cam) at 18.969,0 miles to the finish
2 Neutrogena (G. Altadill – J. Mu±oz) + 192,8 miles to the leader
3 GAES Centros Auditivos (A. Corbella – G. Marn) + 377,8 miles to the leader
4 Renault Captur (J. Riechers – S. Audigane) + 961,7 miles to the leader
5 We Are Water (B. Garcia – W. Garcia) + 1.201,3 miles to the leader
6 One Planet, One Ocean & Pharmaton (A. Gelabert – D. Costa) + 1.354,3 miles to the leader
7 Spirit of Hungary (N. Fa – C. Colman) + 1.616,4 miles to the leader
