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2007/07/21 - 20h00
Groupama 3 on the hunt
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| New York - Lizard Point |
| With the 24 hour record in the bag and a new reference of 794 miles, Groupama 3 is continuing its course across the North
Atlantic. After setting out from New York on Thursday 19th July at 18:02'55'' UTC, in a bid to beat Bruno Peyron's reference
time - 4 days 8 hours 23 minutes 54 seconds, Franck Cammas and his crew were 1,530 miles from Lizard Point at 1630 hours.
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After an exceptional first day's sailing, the maxi-trimaran experienced a few difficulties last night following the breakage
of its port foil and less wind than forecast. As a result, Groupama 3 has a 23 mile deficit on Orange 2 this afternoon. However,
as the skipper of the Groupama trimarans specified at noon: "All is not lost... Once we've gybed at the end of the afternoon,
the boat will regain its full potential. It's a sprint and we're on deck on the attack!"
Deprived of its port
foil, broken yesterday shortly before 1900 hours UK time, Groupama 3 is displaying slightly below average speeds. In a few
hours time though - around 1700 hours UK Time - Franck Cammas and his crew will gybe back onto port tack, with the pressure
shifting to their undamaged starboard foil. From then on the maxi-trimaran will regain its full force: "Without our foil,
it's more difficult to get going and I think that we're easily losing two knots of boat speed, so we're really looking forward
to gybing! We've still got 5 to 6 hours before we can gybe and I hope that after that we'll regain our earlier strength"
confided Franck at noon.
The foil is not the only spanner in the works though... In fact, the crew of Groupama 3
is also up against a narrow and rather unusual weather window for a North Atlantic record attempt. For Cammas' men, the next
few hours and the coming night promise to be decisive: "The next few hours and tonight are very important for establishing
if we are going to be able to hook onto the depression system which is ahead of us. Right now we're waiting for the wind to
clock round enough for us to gybe and then we can head onto a port tack towards the depression. Once there, the wind will
shift round virtually to the North-West, filling in to as much as 30-35 knots. It's the position of the centre of this depression,
which will determine our speed over the end of the course. Ideally, this depression would be a little further North than it
is at the moment as that would enable us to have more favourable reaching winds to round off our attempt... That's what everything
hinges on!"
At the edge of the Azores High, Groupama 3 is currently modifying its course to track down the rotation
that will enable it to gybe at the end of the afternoon. In this way, after having racked up a 74 mile lead yesterday, the
maxi-trimaran will lose ground in its duel with Orange 2: "We know that we're going to lose some time and that Orange would
be way ahead of us tonight... the question is will we be able to catch up with it in what I hope will be stable conditions.
Winning is a long way off but so too is losing..." the skipper confided.
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