Vendée Globe

December 27. 2008 at 12:00Ice Gate modification

The Race Directors today informed the competitors that the East Pacific Ice Gate (Number 10) has been modified due to ice being detected by Sat radar on their potential route after passing the West Pacific Gate. The new coordinates are 44°00 South between 110°00 West and 102°00 West.
 

December 27. 2008 at 10:27Safran stops for repairs

Marc Guillemot (Safran) reached the Auckland Islands to the south of New Zealand this morning at 9h GMT. He has stopped in Sandy Bay, to the south of Enderby Island. It is already dark, but Marc must now climb his mast to repair his damaged mainsail track.
 

December 27. 2008 at 08:30Lazy jack repaired

"This morning I managed to climb up to the second layer of spreaders to deal with the starboard lazy jack. There was still a very heavy swell before the calmer conditions arrived as the wind backed to the NW. Then, I changed a broken batten. Finally, Fondation Océan Vital is back on course and I'm pleased to be able to see her logo again in the mainsail and I can finally get out my Christmas presents. So rather late, Happy Christmas to everyone. I'm exhausted. I need to get some rest now, especially for my right arm. Before resting I'm going to take care of some damaged solar panels. I'm going to have to limit my consumption still further."
Raphaêl Dinelli (Fondation Ocean Vital)

December 27. 2008 at 08:03Pacific war

"It's strange how there is so much subjectivity and everything is relative. This afternoon, a nice breeze on the water, brilliant sunshine, a few squally showers, heavy to very heavy seas, with waves reaching up to 9-10 metres, the equivalent to three floors. Now they're round 6m on average, and we don't take any notice. Wind: a bit, let's say 40 knots, often 45-48, squalls up to 53 knots, not km/h! White water, parallel to the wind, the crests of the turquoise waves as they break. Not easy though to find the right pace and sail to make headway. ET said: "Throw a bale of hay up and it will come down again." Coming down. Sailing downwind. We'll get there somehow. Somewhere out to the east. I said it was all relative... A day spent studying the sea. You know the squall coming up will have 55 or 51 knots, you know if you should furl the staysail or whether you'll stick it out as the front goes over in ten minutes. So I'm taking a sleep after dinner, there was 42-45 all the time. I wake up 40 minutes later, get up and look at the sea: It's really eased off! I'd say 25-30 knots, almost calm here. I look at the dials. It's eased off, but there's still 35-40. That's what the machine says, but I thought there was less. You get used to it... Pacific, means peace, anti-war?! The Roman said: «Si vis pacem para bellum». The sailor says "If you go to the Pacific, prepare the lowest reef"
Michel Desjoyeaux (Foncia) in his daily message

December 27. 2008 at 07:10Rich gets a black eye

"Well it was inevitable, the being thrown from the bunk, finally happened last night, and I had a one point landing on my left eyebrow after a fall of 1.5 meters with my head leading the way. Coming out of the bunk and through the opening in the bulkhead is as if your body is funnelled so that your head lands first. I'd had several good naps, this was the third, I awoke either in flight or on impact, scrambled to get up, onto the chart table bench, felt my head, no bumps, forehead, no bumps, then felt that it hurt just above my eye, felt there, not damp nor wet but soaked in blood, the whole left side of my face was dripping blood. On the floor, on my down booties, on my sea boots, went to the mirror, what a mess, didn't know what was underneath all that blood, took paper towels and cold water and started to gently mop up, and gradually got down to the core problem, a cut under the eyebrow about 1" (2.5cm) long. I tried to see if there was anything in it, but couldn't. Eventually got it to stop bleeding, then let it scab a bit, cut and put a bandage over it. A black eye is coming. We checked for double vision, after all my whole head took a real hit, no problem with the vision, that's good. Another gale is en route, this one looks severe, will try to get organized for it early, we've had a wind shift already, totally "unforecast" on grib files, so don't know what the future here holds."
Rich Wilson (Great American III)
 

December 27. 2008 at 06:25Sam back on the attack

"At last, the wind has shifted aft of the beam, after what seems like days of upwind sailing. That definitely wasn't in the brochure! What's more, the sun's come out, and the fire hoses have (temporarily) switched off, and it's actually quite pleasant on deck! Roxy's been averaging an easy 15 knots all day and so we're BACK ON THE ATTACK! The Wind Gods are definitely smiling on Roxy today! I actually feel rather guilty here enjoying the "summer sailing" I've got, when a lot of the fleet are suffering storm force winds and perilous waves. I am so sad for JoJo, who was having an amazing race, before his boat, BT, got "dumped" by a freak wave. I am in pain for him, I can imagine what a terrible feeling it must be to see potential victory snatched away from you in an unlucky handful of seconds. I really hope he manages to repair and get going quickly. He's one of my favourite three skippers in this race! Go JoJo - you can do it! Yet again, these are signs of how powerful this ocean is, and how fragile we are within it."
Sam Davies (Roxy) in her daily message
 

December 26. 2008 at 20:05Greatest distance over 24 hours

Over the past 24 hours, Armel Le Cléac'h (Brit Air) currently in sixth place, 310.4 miles from the leader, sailed the greatest distance towards the finish.  Between 19h yesterday and this evening, he covered 342.6 miles
 

December 26. 2008 at 17:45Not a typical Christmas

"Christmas Eve I was in the 60 knot storm and had to take the mainsail down for half of the day, then a lazyjack broke during the night, which is the rope that holds up the boom and the mainsail. The bit of broken lazyjack rope up the mast had tangled itself helpfully around the three parts of the main halyard. Without the lazyjacks the part of the mainsail below the reefs would just fall down on the deck if I hoisted the mainsail, and there was much too much wind to go straight to the full mainsail."

"On Christmas Day morning the wind had lightened and I needed to get the main back up. The waves were still quite large but the wind was a ‘mere’ 30 knots by this stage. I got my climbing gear ready and thought that only going up 10 or 12 metres would be relatively straightforward. Unfortunately it was not to be, and with the motion of the mast with just a headsail flying, and some problems with the climbing gear, I both failed to sort out the lazyjacks and I also got thrown around the mast quite thoroughly. I was wearing a wakeboarding wetsuit to protect my upper body and a helmet, both of which I was very thankful for. By the time I got down I felt like Muhammed Ali at the famous Rumble in the Jungle fight, getting pummelled by George Foreman for 15 rounds."

"When I got down I walked weakly down the sidedecks and crashed out on the beanbags, had a drink from the water bottle and just lay there recovering for a good while. Then I got as much food and drink as I could, to get my energy levels back up. It did not feel like the typical Christmas morning to me!"

"For the next few hours I worked on improving the mast climbing equipment, putting in non-stretch ropes instead of the very elastic mountain climbing ropes and then gybing the boat and setting up the equipment on the mast for the return fight. The wind was dropping as I was just in a high pressure ridge and the waves had decreased a little too. I did a trial run just going up and down 3 metres, to test the new equipment, then I set off on up to the level of the lazies with the new piece tied to my harness. I got up there quickly, did the job, and got back down within 30 minutes. Still got thrown around but it was infinitely better than the first time."

"Now I just had to splice up the lazyjack system which took a little thought and trial and error, but pretty soon I had done that enough to hoist the mainsail to the 4th reef and then refine it further. Again, fortune was benevolent as the wind suddenly dropped to 15 knots before a squall, so I seized the moment, turned the boat upwind and in a few passes, got the head of the main through the lazyjacks and up into the air."

"Then it was time to finish the lazyjacks and, as I was doing that, I looked up and there was another boat - Aviva, a mile away! I had not seen another boat or ship since seeing Temenos off Brazil some weeks ago. I went down below and called Dee on the VhF and we had a short chat before I got back to finishing up and then hoisting the mainsail. It was good to be sailing again, and during the night the wind increased and the boatspeed was in the high teens. I opened a few presents during the night and had a freeze-dried Christmas dinner and some mince pies, a small slice of Christmas."

Brian Thompson (Bahrain Team Pindar) in his daily message

December 26. 2008 at 16:37Water water everywhere

"The days and nights are full of 35-45 knots of wind, big seas, some as large as 25 feet I think, and babysitting the errant auto pilot, who for some reason loses the plot and decides to head north. Life on board changed drastically about two days ago as far as comfort for the skipper inside the cabin. I was in the cockpit and we came over the crest of this big 20 foot wave and
for some reason the pilot turned and went straight down the wave with the bow going into the trough all the way to the mast. I ducked down and grabbed something to hold onto as I knew there would be some heavy water following. After the plunge into the trough the boat stopped so suddenly that the boat slewed sideways and the rolling water came crashing over the side and into the cockpit. I found myself waist high in water for about 15 seconds before it cleared out the transom. The travesty of all this is that the cabin door was open as usual and when inspecting down below, I found that a lot of water had managed to come in the door and soak the cabin. Damage report: nav station soaked, computer making funny beeps and eventually lost the mouse and USP ports for charting software. All the instruments were soaked but I managed to dry them and keep them going for now. The real travesty was my bed; totally soaked. Both sleeping bags onto the floor and into the water, all my dry foul weather gear that I have been so careful about keeping dry, soaked without going outside."

"The mainsail is now down on deck as the three broken battens were shredding the sail. It was a tough decision to take it down but I need to fix the sail so we can race again. It may be a few days before I can get it fixed. Right now I have only the staysail up and we still are doing over 20 knots at times. I need the wind to come down so I can cut and fit some new battens and then climb into the mainsail and try and replace them. The pilots are not so happy but managing. I
tried switching to the backup pilot but cannot get the wind instrument for that pilot to work. The pilots need the true wind reading to operate well when going down wind. I have four wind instruments on board and only one is working right now so I'm trying to resolve this. So, all in all a tough couple of days thus far and I'm not sure any respite is in the works. The low pressure systems are back to back and as soon as one moves on, another one develops right behind it. I don't think it's always this way."
Derek Hatfield (Algimouss-Spirit of Canada)in his daily message
 

December 26. 2008 at 14:13Survival mode still on Great American III

"I cannot in my memory now discern the different lows that have gone by, they just all blur together over about the last 4-5 days, and by the forecast, we have another 2 days of this to go. The staysail is mostly too much sail, the storm jib is right for the 45-50+, but too little for the 35. Very difficult. Big breaking seas that throw the boat around, and all the contents, including skipper, inside. Have had 2 autopilot alarms today, very startling, very nerve-racking. We have a fault somewhere in the wind speed sensor system. Fortunately , if sailing on a wind parameter, the pilot defaults to compass, and hopefully this will hold until the sailing instruments can get reset. Checked the stern compartment where the autopilot rams are today. Needed to crawl back through the boat, very cramped, and luckily only a bucket of water in there, compared to the 8 buckets I took out of forward compartments yesterday. Everybody's nervous here in our pack, we're in survival mode. Last night, thinking that the grib file showing 30 knots might be correct, I set the 3rd reef in the main, a very difficult manoeuvre downwind, entailed sailing upwind into 20 foot seas with the storm jib so the mainsail would flag away from the mast, and so I could try to hoist it through the lazy jacks, took an hour, then, instead of 30 knots we had 40-45, too much for the pilot. A horrendous night."
Rich Wilson (Great American III) in his daily message