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Jules Verne Trophy

Orange is reeling in about 500 miles every 24 hours

vendredi 22 mars 2002 –

As expected it was rather "severe" last nights with 45 knots of steady wind in a sea described by Bruno Peyron as "absolutely lousy !". The maxi-catamaran Orange is currently sailing on starboard tack (wind coming from the right) and is on an ESE heading. They are reeling in about 500 miles every 24 hours at almost 18 knots average hunkering down to a south-westerly wind of 40 knots, gusting to 45. "There’s no doubt, we’re right in it now !" said Bruno at the radio session.


The voice sounded far away and you could make out the sound of creaming water as it rushed along the maxi-catamaran’s side ... During the radio bulletin today, Friday 22nd March, Bruno was concentrated : he was listening as much to our questions as he was the shouts coming from up on deck. Because on deck it’s hot as we say. The wind is blowing at around 80 kilometres per hour and you have to be extremely vigilant both at the helm and with the trim of the sails. The boys are harnessed on, the helmsman watches the wave ahead as he catches it up, then rides it over while the deck watch have their hands glued to the sheets just in case they have to do an emergency "dump". The atmosphere is tense and you have to "shout" to make yourself heard over the noise of the shrieking wind and the waves as they explode on the bows and through the trampoline nets...

"We had any absolutely lousy sea last night" Bruno told us. "We’ve been in 45 knots of wind since last night ! We’re catching up our lost miles in longitude and we keep going from single reefed main / storm spinnaker to double reefed main / staysail depending on the strength of the wind. Otherwise all is well aboard". Indeed, the maxi-catamaran Orange crossed some pretty inhospitable territory last night. Apart from having to cope with the wind, the giant had to confront the Agulhas current that descends down the coast of Africa whipping up a nasty boat-breaking sea. And with the nasty sea comes another pitfall ; the Agulhas shelf. This continental shelf off the coast of Africa stops the Atlantic swell because the seabed rises from more than 5000 metres to "only" 770 metres...

This acts like a cauldron and the danger is omnipresent. "We went down the mine a bit violently in a surf at about 0800 this morning" continued Bruno. "We are constantly at between 20 and 32 knots and this time we must have gone from 30 knots to 15 instantly. And with the inertia everything went flying around inside. ’Vlad’ was preparing a meal and he redecorated the galley, I split my lip open falling over and Florent (Chastell) hurt his pelvis. We called Dr Jean-Yves Chauve on the telephone and at the moment Florent is lying down and resting".

And while the wind should progressively settle down to the south-west, it should be slackening slightly to 30/35 knots. The next symbolic stage will be passed within a few short hours because the maxi-catamaran Orange will be entering the Forties South, that’s to say the famous Roaring Forties !

Pierrick Garenne / Mer & Media / Orange

Map : Geronimo vs Orange

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