Barcelona World Race Update 1: To the Canaries and beyond
22 November 2007
The first week of the Barcelona World Race was a challenging one for the teams, but perhaps not for the reasons they may have anticipated. Instead of facing tough conditions in a late autumn Atlantic, the teams were plagued by light winds in the Mediterranean and unusually benign winds after the Gibraltar gate.
Following an extraordinary start off the city of Barcelona, where over 600 boats paid tribute to the fleet by lining the borders of the race course, the nine-boat fleet settled into its first night at sea, where extremely light conditions posed innumerable problems.
“A great start but a painful awakening,” was the comment from Sidney Gavignet on Delta Dore on the first morning at sea. ” This weather is quite testing. I can’t say we feel at home on the boat just yet, it is going to take a while, and we will probably have to wait until we get past Gibraltar.We are waiting for a little more wind but it’s still doubtful.”
The first to get caught in the light conditions was Educación sin Fronteras who fell off the back of the fleet after being stuck in a win dless patch for much of the night. By the time the first position report was issued the next morning, skippers Albert Bargués and Servanne Escoffier were already dozens of miles off the pace.
Through the Mediterranean, the positions were shuffled time and again, but by the first scoring the gate - the Estrella Damm gate - near Gibraltar, it was Jean-Pierre Dick and Damian Foxall on Paprec-Virbac 2 who would sneak past PRB to claim the first stage of the race and the 60 cases of Estrella Damm beer. (No doubt their shore crew was as happy as they were!)
“Yesterday, upwind in the last stretch of the Alboran sea, we were following PRB and positioned ourselves right behind them for the last tack off Malaga - trying to catch a shift close to shore,” explained Paprec Virbac 2’s Damian Foxall. “That’s where we were able to overtake them…”
Into the Atlantic, the skippers would have been hoping they’d left the light airs behind. But that wasn’t to be the case. F ickle conditions continued and the best route down south towards the Canary Islands was far from obvious.
In third and fourth place into the Atlantic, Estrella Damm and Temenos II would fall victim to the wind gods over the coming days. Sailing a course that was between the two extremes of the west (like Veolia Environnement, Delta Dore and Hugo Boss) and the east, like Mutua Madrileña, the two would see boats race around them on both sides on the way to the Canary Islands gate.
By the time the fleet reached the Canary Islands, Paprec Virbac 2 and PRB still were at the head of t he fleet, but Delta Dore and Veolia Environnement, along with Hugo Boss, had made great strides to get back in the race challenging the leaders. In fact, Delta Dore would win the second stage for having the fastest elapsed time between Gibraltar and the Canary gate - incredibly, they were just one minute faster than Paprec-Virbac 2.
Following the Canary Islands gate, the fleet would have hoped to pick up the Northeast trade winds nearly immediately. Unfortunately for the sailors, this wasn’t the case. For race fans however, the unpredictable conditions provided another few days of tactical drama as the fleet pursued different options to get down south.
“We are sailing along the African coast in some light wind less than 5 knots. We didn’t have too many options from the Canaries,” said PRB skipper Vincent Riou, from his second place position. “Not all of us had the same wind.this is not magic, when you’re in this high pressure area you have to set your own objective which is your way out and you do your best with the conditions you have.”
The big winner in this game appears to be Veolia Environnement who took the most westerly route compared to the fleet. This has allowed them to shoot up to third place, and dramatically close the gap with leaders Paprec Virbac 2 and PRB who, like most of the fleet, sailed close to the African coast.
Finally overnight Wednesday night, the leaders hooked into the trade winds, as a relieved Damian Foxall on Paprec Virbac 2 reported.
“We’ve been fighting through light winds for the past two days to get where we are and more importantly to be the first to get into the trade winds and dive south. We managed, amazingly, with just a slightly different option to PRB, we’ve come out from two days of light and variably winds to come out with almost the same lead we had before. They’re also in the trade winds now and this morning this is now a case of trajectory and speed. We’re sailing in the trade winds now, 20 to 24 knots of wind and we’re doing about 17 or 18 knots of speed.”
The race to the next obstacle - the doldrums - is on. They’ll have to navigate this famed obstacle before reaching the next scoring gate at Fernando de Noronha off the coast Brazil.
Audio, video and still photos from the race are available at www.barcelonaworldrace.org
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