Sunday, February 17, 2008

Oh Snap!



Jules Verne Trophy
To the South of New Zealand, Groupama 3 performed a small tack 90° to the route to reposition herself in the NE in order to avoid the worst of the steady breeze, which is reigning over this entry into the Pacific. Their lead over the reference time has been reduced slightly but Franck Cammas and his men are anticipating good conditions over the coming days to enable them to slip along at speed!
"We just made a gybe half an hour ago in thirty five knots of wind: we broke one batten... We can perform this type of manoeuvre with seven crew so that the guys who are resting, can continue to sleep. It's not just the gennaker manoeuvres, which require more people on deck though, so we try to set this manoeuvre in motion during a watch change where everyone is awake. Luckily it's just batten number one, which has broken (at the top of the mainsail, on the headboard), but it's not very serious: we have spare battens... We're going to wait a while before dropping the mainsail as we still have six to seven metre waves." - Groupama 3