Vendée Globe

A little motivational spur, not that he was in need of any more mental drive, was provided yesterday by a prolonged call from the freezing wastes of the Indian Ocean to a Mike Golding/ Ecover/Vendee Globe themed activities morning at his five year old son’s Soren’s school in Warsash, Hampshire may have added an extra edge which propelled the British skipper into second place this morning.

On the call to Soren’s school, Warsash-with-Hook primary, Golding, who was sitting at his nav station in 35 knots of wind and 5 metres seas was serenaded with a medley of Christmas carols and a special Vendee Globe song. The youngsters, who are all following Ecover 3’s progress avidly, spent the morning learning more about the boat, the race and dressing up in different items that Mike would normally use or wear:

Speaking to his team at home in Southampton this morning he said, just moments afte surfing at 32 knots, Golding said:

“It was absolutely lovely, the school decided to go that extra bit and it is very motivating when you are a long way down here, away from everything.”

“It is very easy to sit here and think that everyone has forgotten you and you are sitting here bashing your brains out here for nothing, but when you hear your son and his school friends and the school supporting our efforts so vigorously it is really rather rewarding.”

Otherwise the British skipper, now in his best place yet in this thrilling race, explained:

“ I am pretty good, pretty happy with. I had a slightly confusing night because I saw everyone except for Jean-Pierre bearing up to the north very slightly and then in the middle of the night Bilou popped up on my radar and crossed ahead of me by about a mile, and again I was very confused and kept looking at the weather charts why they were all staying up there, and I could not see anything. I think what they are doing is they are putting their bows up to get a little more speed, which us giving them a little bit more speed but in the case of Mich I think he is way too close to Kerguelen, and I think that he has probably sailed into some lighter breeze behind Kerguelen. If that is true it will also affect VM Matériaux, BT and PRB and so a good bunch of there which I think might be slowed down, which might start to create a little bit of margin.”

“I slept pretty well last night, you kind of get used to it. It is so manic, a few minutes ago the boat was doing 32 knots, and so obviously you are pretty tense, but after a few times doing 32 knots your body acclimatises and your mind acclimatises and tells you it is OK, and soon you are just living a normal existence around the speed and the strain of it.”

Of the fleet leaders high speeds he said:
“ Funnily enough it is not wind related, I have between 25 and 30 knots and it is fairly consistent, steady averaging around 28 knot, but my speed is not controlled by that. It is controlled by the wave forms and direction. And right now, about five minutes ago, I passed over the Shelf at 200 metres as we go across the piece of shallower water as a consequence the seas are steepening up. So it is them that control the speed of the boat, and how you line up to them, how much, how brave you are with ballast, because if you run with less ballast, you go faster but are less in control. The reality is that if I reduced sail and slowed down I would be more out of control than I am. It is one of those situations where speed is your friend. You have to keep your foot down. You have to keep your speed up so that your rudder works better.”

“I have one reef in the main, and I have a masthead genoa, the R2, a cuben fibre reaccher which goes to the masthead and that is a hell of a lot of sail for what is 30 knots of breeze. It is certainly a lot in 35 knots when it is gusting up there!”


And of suring along at over 30 knots he said:
“ As I say the strange thing is that it feels OK, and I have been progressively using less and less ballast. I have two tanks of ballast in and if it drops off for a while then I drop a tank out and take the extra speed, but the boat is very lively when you take that ballast out. When I say it is lively it is very jerky, and you feel every bump in the waves. When the ballast is in then you feel more connected to the boat and to the water. There is no question that the boat is three quarters out of the water most of the time, we are sitting on the last quarter of the boat. I am fairly sure that you hear the keel root come fully out of the water because you can hear it stops making any noise. It is quite bizarre.”

He does not think, meantime, that the race 24h record is likely to fall in the immediate future due to the sea conditions:
“Probably not because the speeds are being controlled by the waves, and so we are not seeing any averaged over 20, and normally a speed record will start in relatively flat conditions. We have had quite steep waves over this period and so I think that the fact that we have broken 400 miles given the conditions, this is a game of being on the edge of control and who is prepared to be on the edge of control the longest and the hardest.”


For the moment Golding  has concluded that Desjoyeaux is quicker:
“I think the reality is, I came to the conclusion that all things being equal, Desjoyeaux seems to be quicker than the rest of us and that is a bit of a bitter pill to swallow. That is a function of the Open class, the boats are different, and Mich is a very, very talented sailor. So I think I had come to the conclusion that I was not going to go ballistic in the unt to get back past him. So it was a nice surprise to get back past him, to find ourselves bumped up to second place through what in effect is a tactical error.”


He has concerns that the prudent, safe and smart option may be costly in the long term:

“ You can adopt the safe and smart policy like Sebastien and that has cost him over a hundred miles, but the question is that really going to hurt you when reach the Atlantic. If he keeps going with that policy he will be two or three hundred miles behind. And then the question is can he make up that gap going up the Atlantic, the answer is he might well be able to, but every mile you fall behind the leader is a risk, but on the flip side if you have a boat like Mich and a sailor like Mich, who is consistently going quicker than you. You just can’t just push your boat until it breaks. You have to take your boat to its limit and then stop. Without putting too fine a point on it you have to wait for him to break. And that is not a foregone conclusion that it will happen, but if he keeps going at this speed it as likely as it is for us. You have to accept that this is Open class and at times they will display different speeds. I think in the Atlantic I would be more even with Mich, but then Mich is a very talented sailor, he would be hard to pass. There is a lot to be said for, as the leaders are doing, like Jean Pierre is doing, keep pushing and keep pushing, and you find that you get a bit of bungee cord which allows you to get a bit of a margin, and whilst the bungee cord has always worked in this race so far, it does not always work that way, and at some point it may go and they will not be so easily caught. The trick is to be on the right side of the bungee.”
 

Infos précédentes :