Sprint to the Pacific

  • Pacific by Tuesday for Cheminees Poujoulat
  • Third as hotly disputed as first
  • Book free Spirit of Hungary

Manoeuvres completed for the meantime, Barcelona World Race leaders Cheminées Poujoulat are making high speeds again as they sprint in a straight line east for their final miles in the South Indian Ocean. Bernard Stamm and Jean Le Cam should pass into the Pacific late on Monday night or early Tuesday morning.

While they had lost just a few small miles to their persistent rivals on Neutrogena until yesterday, the margin is climbing again for smoking Cheminées Poujoulat as their average speeds rose back above 20kts this Sunday afternoon. The Swiss-French pair who have lead since the demise of Hugo Boss on 14th January have built their lead up to 208 miles this afternoon ahead of Neutrogena.

The leading duo are now starting to experience strengthening winds and bigger seas as they come under the increasing influence of a big low pressure behind them which should provide them a fast slingshot ride into the Pacific.  Cheminées Poujoulat are straight lining east around 48 degrees south. Positioning relative to each other is now reversed as Neutrogenaare now on a course about 100 miles to the north of Cheminées Poujoulat.

Co-skipper José Muñoz reaffirmed that the strategy aboard Neutrogenareflects their routing decisions and takes little account of what their immediate rivals are doing. Altadill and Muñoz are well rested and ready for the next spell of intense, hard driving Southern Oceans weather. 
"We have always been doing our own race, obviously watching what is around us: the one in front, those who are behind, different conditions, and always looking four or five days ahead so we dont get ourselves too little or too much wind". Muñoz said.

Conditions have become more favourable at the front of the fleet for high speed reaching and so too in the lower rankings, Spirit of Hungary and One Planet One Ocean are now both reaching eastwards, parallel to the Antarctic Exclusion Zone.  After battling upwind in tough conditions for what seemed like days, Nandor Fa and Conrad Colman reported today that they are relieved to be back to Southern Ocean 'brochure' conditions, making good speeds in the right direction.

The third podium place is still under the same kind of dispute as there is over first and second. Renault Captur in fourth and GAES Centros Auditivos who have also been third since Hugo Boss lost her rig and previously fourth since the Med, have 240 miles separating each other. Seb Audigane and Jorge Riechers on Renault Captur have been quicker, eroding miles from Anna Corbella and Gerard Marín.

The Sunday crisis is Conrad Colman and Nandor Fa's. They share a problem with perhaps hundreds of consumers around the world as the charger for their iPad is broken. But for them 1400 miles from Cape Town and 3100 miles from Perth, Western Australia, there are no fast track 24hr deliveries and, for the meantime, no solution. Like their forebears hundreds of years ago, there are no more e-books and e-entertainment:

Colman reported today: 
" We measure our progress by dots on a screen and won’t see land again until we round Cape Horn in several weeks. I say this only because the charger for the ipad has broken, thus leaving us without books and can only turn around in circles with our own thoughts. It might make for an interesting social experiment… Put two people in a box for months on end and slowy remove outside stimulus and see what happens! I have clearly missed my calling as a social scientist/ evil genius !"

IMOCA Ocean Masters

Barcelona World Race