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2010/08/01-00h16
Anyone's game
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| Extreme Sailing Series 2010 |
| The least that can be said about the first day of varied races, both in terms of the course formats and the conditions on
the race zones, is that all the teams have had a slice of the action today. This slice has varied in size for everybody but
Oman Sail Masirah has seemingly enjoyed the largest portion and its consistent performance has led to it taking up position
as leader this evening. Ecover and Edmond de Rothschild Group complete today's podium. As for Groupama 40, she is currently
lying in fifth, in the middle of the fleet.
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 A new format has been adopted for this Solent-based event as the Extreme Sailing Series fleet begins its day with a coastal
course and then links onto a series of windward leeward courses a few hours later.
The first part of the day started
off badly for Groupama 40 as they were a little too quick across the start line and had to perform a penalty turn, which meant
that they were forced to the back of the fleet. "So as not to be overly penalised by the current from the rising tide
associated with light airs, we went as tight into the beaches, and hence the rocks, as we dared! Depending on the tide, the
gains can be considerable when you're in amongst the rocks. It was a bit down to pot luck as we didn't have any depth sounders
aboard.
Virtually all our competitors, ourselves included, hit and damaged gear. We didn't come off too badly as our
port daggerboard was only slightly damaged but nothing like as bad as what some of the other teams suffered." In the
end, thanks to an offshore option, Groupama 40 finished the morning at the foot of the podium.
On the five classic
Extreme Sailing Series courses, namely return legs between two marks right in front of the spectators, the crew of Groupama
40 proved to be a little less inspired, as we can see from the variations in the ranking: 6th , 5th , 3rd , 8th and 4th.
This
afternoon, conditions in the Solent were a little different to those encountered in the morning. The light airs gave way to
a wind oscillating between 15 and 20 knots and the current from the ebbing tide was stronger this time around. Back at the
East Cowes pontoon, the skipper from Aix-en-Provence couldn't hide his disappointment and certainly wasn't afraid to admit
that mistakes had been made: "We performed well at times but at the finishes Groupama 40 didn't rank well! We stupidly
lost places. We had a few issues with the manoeuvres, the transition phases and our positioning. Clearly we lacked control
in these conditions, in relation to the others. On such short courses, you have to pay for any mistakes in cash and then it's
easy to go from bad to worse. I can't be satisfied with today's result!"
The English stage of the 2010 circuit
is due to stretch as far as Thursday 5th August, so there are still five days for our four accomplices to make up some places
in the ranking. One thing for sure is that the crew of Groupama 40 will be keen to go out to the start with all guns blazing
tomorrow! The fun has only just begun then...
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