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2008/02/04 - 17h58
First albatross
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| Jules Verne Trophy |
| Sailing 70 miles to the South of Tristan da Cunha at midday, Groupama 3 is making headway at a cracking pace towards the Cape
of Good Hope, the crew able to admire its first albatross. However, though the weather situation is fairly favourable as far
as the tip of Africa, the atmosphere will change considerably in the Indian Ocean! Impossible to drop below the Kerguelen
Islands the giant trimaran will therefore have to extend its course...
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On Wednesday afternoon, thirteen and a half days at sea since leaving Ushant, here we have the forecast from Franck Cammas
this Monday lunchtime to reach the longitude of Cape Town. Still holding onto a lead of over 600 miles on the reference time
set by Orange 2 and despite the skipper's estimates of losing a few hours prior to this `second passage point', they should
remain around twenty hours ahead. For the "Indian Seas", the wind and sea gods seem less cooperative due to a hefty disturbance
circulating quite far North!
"After the Cape of Good Hope, we are going to be blocked at 40° South to let
a big low get past us. We'll have to remain to its Northern edge for quite a while without being able to slip along further
South. However, even at these latitudes, we will have big seas with a swell of up to seven metres! The situation is fairly
complicated but the routing is forcing us to adopt this longer route around the Antarctic" announced Franck Cammas
at the midday radio session.
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A meaty Indian Ocean!In this way, the wind will generate difficult seas for the giant trimaran, which will not be able to gain southing as a result
and will thus be prevented from shortening its course. Indeed, the closer the boat gets to the Antarctic, the fewer miles
it will have to cover to reach Cape Horn. Of course there is a limit, that of the ice shelf and its threat of icebergs, but
as a general rule, the sailors in the Deep South pass between the Kerguelen Islands (49° South) and Heard island (53° South)
and then attempt to remain for as long as possible between 50° and 55° South as far as the Macquarie Islands. The saving in
distance in relation to a course at 40° stretches to several hundred miles!
"We're going to cross the longitude
of the Cape of Good Hope on Wednesday afternoon with a fairly meaty entry into the Indian Ocean. We're going to select our
navigation zone so as to avoid the really big seas, but we're still going to get shaken about a bit for 24 hours... To pass
nicely across into seas on the aft quarter, we may well have to head a little further North. It's a bit frustrating as these
aren't the usual conditions you get when you cross the Indian Ocean! We'll just have to make do with it. Since the start,
we haven't had very favourable weather situations other than the E'ly tradewinds off Brazil... We've had to battle hard and
in this instance, being driven back to North of 40 degrees South, that will extend our course a great deal... We hope we'll
have some good periods of weather after that..." concluded the skipper of Groupama 3, who remained confident
nonetheless about the boat's capacities and that of the crew not to lose too much time in this lively start to the Indian
Ocean...
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