Saturday 6th February – Press release
JULES VERNE TROPHY
(CREWED ROUND THE WORLD VIA THE THREE CAPES)
Time to beat: 50 days 16 hours 20 minutes and 4 seconds
Groupama
Upwind delights
After crossing the equator at 0902 hours UTC this Saturday morning after 5
days and 19 hours at sea and with a lead of over a day in relation to
Orange, the maxi trimaran Groupama 3 has begun her descent of the Southern
hemisphere. Faced with SE’ly tradewinds and in a still, fairly calm sea,
Franck Cammas and his nine crew are making for the Brazilian coast at an
average of twenty knots.
The big glides under gennaker are over. So too are the storm squalls of the
Doldrums. The archives for this first intermediary time between Ushant and
the equator have been written now, with the 2010 version of Groupama 3
recording the second fastest time in maritime history. Her deficit amounted
to just 3 hours 44 minutes behind the best ever time, which was set back in
November 2009 by… Groupama 3: “We’re certainly very happy with this time as
it really wasn’t a simple task in prospect on leaving the Breton coast last
Sunday. It’s better than we could have anticipated at the start,” said
Franck Cammas during the radio link-up with the Paris HQ for the Jules Verne
Trophy.
He continues: “Nevertheless, we were caught out by the Doldrums, which
suddenly reawakened on us and proved complicated to negotiate with violent
squalls, storms and lightning. For seven hours the wind was constantly
turning and even dropped away completely at one stage. In the middle of the
night it wasn’t easy to zigzag between the squalls”.
An uncertain future
By managing to maintain an average of 22 knots (40 km/hr) since leaving
Ushant, Groupama 3 has continued to extend her lead on the current Jules
Verne Trophy holder: 1 day 7 hours and 49 minutes: “The weather forecasts
aren’t very favourable for joining up with the Southern Ocean. To avoid the
calm conditions, we’re going to have to get very close to the Brazilian
coast and drop down very low before we can hang a left towards the Cape of
Good Hope. We’ll lose a fair number of miles in relation to Orange but
there’s still a long way to go. We’re going to have to stay very
concentrated and be ready to snap up any opportunity that arises”.
On a technical level the skipper of Groupama 3 is confident: “We’ve been
right around the boat several times but we haven’t found anything
suspicious. Aside from the radar, which gave up the ghost for a few hours
yesterday but has worked well since, all’s well aboard and there are no
particular areas of wear. Having navigated through some pretty mild sea
conditions thus far is a good thing as the structure hasn’t been very put
upon.”
As far as the crew are concerned, Franck concludes: “They’re still racing
flat out. Life aboard is taking its course amidst an atmosphere of good
humour. It really is a fine team. In addition to that we are all clean as we
made the most of the squalls to have a good shower”.
Best passage time to the equator from Ushant
Groupama 3: 5d 15h 23’ (November 2009)
Jules Verne Trophy reference time to the equator
Orange 2: 7d 02h 56’ (January 2005)
The crew aboard Groupama 3:
* Franck Cammas, Loïc Le Mignon, Jacques Caraës, Stève Ravussin,
Thomas Coville, Bruno Jeanjean, Fred Le Peutrec, Lionel Lemonchois, Ronan Le
Goff.
* Stan Honey, navigator, off watch
Find all the latest about the Groupama trimarans on:
www.cammas-groupama.com
Translated by Kate Jennings – Expression
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