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2008/02/12 - 09h22
Difficult partition
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| Jules Verne Trophy |
| At the edge of a front, Franck Cammas and his crew are not benefiting from the stable conditions, which would enable them
to lengthen their stride: they must wait another day yet before the situation sorts itself out and allows Groupama 3 to regain
its thirty knot average speed...
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In sailing, you have to come to a compromise between the sea and the wind and play with the weather phenomena on the medium
term. However, sometimes the partition is hard to interpret, as is the case at the moment to the E of the Kerguelen Islands,
where Groupama 3 is just under a front. Indeed, there are thirty to thirty-five knots of N'ly, behind them there are
twenty-five to thirty knots of SW'ly and below, the breeze is oscillating between fifteen and twenty knots as it shifts round
to the W. And as this front is moving at almost the same speed as the giant trimaran, it's not easy to find a way out...
In
fact, Franck Cammas and his nine crew will have to wait for the front to crumble as it hits a big front positioned under Australia.
From Wednesday, the speedos will begin to spin again as Groupama 3 benefits from a good thirty knot NW'ly breeze on
manageable seas. The same day will also bear witness to their passage of the meridian of Cape Leeuwin, and most likely the
crossing of Orange II's course back in 2005: it will be extremely easy to give a precise figure to the distance between
the giant trimaran and the maxi catamaran. In addition, Franck Cammas and his men won't be very far (1,500 miles) from the
midway point in the course.
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