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Around Alone

Swiss skipper Bernard Stamm is looking over his shoulder

mercredi 6 novembre 2002 – Information Velux 5 Oceans

Around Alone Class 1 leader, Swiss skipper Bernard Stamm on Bobst Group-Armor Lux is looking over his shoulder. It’s hard not to when you are running a tight rope between ideal conditions and the possibility of getting trapped in a high pressure system, and your competition is bearing down on you waiting for you to make a mistake.


This afternoon Stamm checked in with his thoughts. "There is a risk that I’ll run into headwinds and have a real nightmare passing underneath the high pressure system to find favourable winds. If the system climbs towards me, I might well sail straight into a windless zone. What’s more, my rivals will come back on me with breeze behind. So the last 4 days have been all about getting as much sea between my boat and theirs. For now the South Atlantic High looks like it’s heading for the Indian Ocean and I have to take advantage of that, but it’s risky business."

Bernard has the most to lose because he will be the first boat affected by any sudden movement of the high. His nearest competition, second placed British skipper Emma Richards on Pindar, and close rival Thierry Dubois on Solidaires, are just waiting for something to happen. Dubois strategy has always been to push his opponents as hard as he can and wait for them to falter. That’s when he makes his move. Until now the two boats ahead of him, Bobst Group/Armor Lux and Pindar have sailed flawlessly, not leaving a gap for the wily Frenchman. The vagaries of the High might just change that.

Richard’s herself is equally anxious, but more about the repair on her gooseneck fitting than anything else : "Another 24 hrs passed quite uneventfully except for my hourly check of the gooseneck bolt and cracked arms holding it in place. It has not moved since I turned it back to its original max rotation over 12 hours ago ? still a part of my paranoid houry ritual though ! The wind has stayed over 20kts reaching so I have a reef in which takes a little pressure off my repair !"

Further to the north Class 2 leader American Brad van Liew on Tommy Hilfiger Freedom America was nursing a tired body. "Last night was one of the worst of my sailing career," he expressed in a satellite call this afternoon. "I have always disliked the Doldrums, but now I can truly say that I hate the place." Sometime after midnight last night Brad got caught in massive squall. "It was more of a weather front than a squall," Brad said. "The wind started to build and then before I knew it, it was blowing 55 knots from the southeast." I was in a full gale for five hours."

Despite the lousy night, Tommy Hilfiger Freedom America had recovered and was sailing in a steady southerly wind making good speed towards Cape Town. This is a lot more than can be said for the rest of the class. John Dennis on Bayer Ascensia emailed to say, "flat calm and hot all day today. 0.7 to 2 knots of boat speed." Things were not much better on BTC Velocity where Alan Paris was dealing with a similar situation. "BTC Velocity has 1.8 knots from nowhere in particular, and for most of last night the wind was less than 6 knots . This is painful. At 6 knots of wind speed we can move quite nicely, but with less than 2 knots, the boat speed is less than a knot."

The only Class 2 skipper who was smiling was Tim Kent on Everest Horizontal. His desperate move to the west has started to pay dividends and Tim has moved up from last in class, to fourth. His position is tenuous though ; he is only 3 miles ahead of Bayer Ascensia and 12 miles ahead of BTC Velocity. Still, Kent is looking ahead and not behind, and he has Spirit of yukoh and Spirit of Canada squarely in his sights. They are 50 miles and 60 miles ahead respectively. The Doldrums is always a big salt shaker that mixes up the fleet, so it will be interesting to see how the next 24 to 48 hours shape up.

Positions at 1400hrs UTC 6th November 2002

Class 1
– Boat, Time, Lat, Lon, DistRun, AvgBsp, AvgHeading, DTF (nm) DFL (nm)
– 1 Bobst Group Armor-Lux, 29 02.480 S, 15 17.320 W, 108.79 nm, 13.60 kt, 138 °T, 1745.39 nm
– 2 Pindar, 23 46.600 S, 16 55.120 W, 101.88 nm, 12.73 kt, 154 °T, 1998.31 nm, 252.9nm
– 3 Solidaires, 23 43.840 S, 17 46.600 W, 101.15 nm, 12.65 kt, 149 °T, 2034.53 nm, 289.1nm
– 4 Hexagon, 22 32.080 S, 23 01.000 W, 100.29 nm, 12.54 kt, 164 °T, 2304.14 nm, 558.8nm
– 5 Ocean Planet, 6 01.600 N, 23 14.520 W, 28.86 nm, 3.61 kt, 166 °T, 4447.93 nm, 2702.5nm
– 6 Tiscali, 43 27.320 N, 8 21.000 W, 0.00 nm, 0.00 kt, 0 °T, 6799.83 nm, 5054.4nm
 
Class 2
– Boat, Time, Lat, Lon, DistRun, AvgBsp, AvgHeading, DTF (nm) DFL (nm)
– 1 Tommy Hilfiger, 3 48.760 N, 26 34.080 W, 56.86 nm, 7.11 kt, 185 °T, 4231.88 nm,
– 2 Spirit of Canada, 10 27.120 N, 24 44.320 W, 44.02 nm, 5.50 kt, 223 °T, 4644.16 nm, 412.3nm
– 3 Spirit of yukoh, 9 18.440 N, 21 44.160 W, 34.80 nm, 4.35 kt, 219 °T, 4659.75 nm, 427.9nm
– 4 Everest Horizontal, 11 25.680 N, 24 26.160 W, 40.61 nm, 5.08 kt, 213 °T, 4705.37 nm, 473.5nm
– 5 Bayer Ascensia, 11 03.000 N, 22 15.800 W, 2.02 nm, 2.42 kt, 235 °T, 4733.58 nm, 501.7nm
– 6 BTC Velocity, 10 58.840 N, 21 46.160 W, 14.21 nm, 1.78 kt, 236 °T, 4743.92 nm, 512nm

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