Sea, Sail & Surf newsJules Verne Trophy
Orange is less than 2000 miles from Cape Leeuwin
mercredi 27 mars 2002 –
The voice was distant, tinny and almost incomprehensible... with the giant cruising 220 miles to the north of the Kerguelen islands, the satellites are few and far between in the region making the Iridium link poor quality. Now the next passage point in their sights is far from being anecdotal because it is the longitude of Cape Leeuwin about 1700 miles away, the second great cape to be left to port after Good Hope.
"What we are sure about is that she isn’t a boat to beating to windward in and it’s good to be back in reaching winds, more normal for a round-the-world catamaran" declared Bruno, who sounded relieved to be out of this meteorological "mess". "We have got back to normal life on board because we can now concentrate on sail trim, helm control and tactics... We hadn’t forgotten about it before, but you have to admit that the weather situation was not very favourable !" And that’s the least one can say because after the storm, the headwind gave way to unstable winds before finally settling down to 25/28 knots of downwind conditions. "At last ! We have started our quest for speed again..." concluded Bruno, audible at last.
And if we look at the position reports, what do we see ? The giant from Marseilles is starting to get back to 400 miles a day while the average speeds are getting better by the hour. The heading remains ESE and the maxi-catamaran Orange is cruising along at about 45° South, which is still a very northern route compared to Olivier de Kersauson’s who passed the French Kerguelen islands 100 miles to their south. And while the next passage point is the longitude of Cape Leeuwin, Bruno Peyron and his pals will not be beating the Cape of Good Hope/Cape Leeuwin reference time recorded by brother Loïck Peyron and his crew (Innovation Explorer, which became Orange) in The Race, in 7 days and 14 hours. To beat it, the elder of the Peyron clan must pass the Australian cape by tomorrow March 28th at 1616. Mission impossible, but we can say that the stopwatch is ticking again !
Quote / unquote...
Bruno Peyron : "It is astonishingly mild here, even if that’s relative to the position we’re at (45° latitude south). But we’ve got north-westerly winds which are quite "warm". There’s also a bit of humidity in the air but living conditions are quite pleasant even though we are about 200 miles (less than 400 kilometres) from the Kerguelens !"
Pierrick Garenne / Mer & Média / Translation David Palmer - SeaSpeak
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Photo : JP Epron / Maxi Catamaran Orange
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Photo : JP Epron / Maxi Catamaran Orange
