Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Estrella Damm, Shooting Stars


BWR: Nineteen miles is all the separates Estrella Damm from second placed MAPFRE, with the Barcelona duo Pepe Ribes and Alex Pella quicker over the final period of Tuesday and on the one hour speed-gun. They have gained a further seven miles, chipping away steadily at their Basque rivals Iker Martinez and Xabi Fernandez. Estrella Damm have been the fastest over the last 24 hours, making 464 miles.

Meanwhile the GAES Girls, between the Crozet and Amsterdam gates, are doing some nice work holding off the Hugo Boss duo Andy Meiklejohn and Wouter Verbraak this evening, Hugo Boss gained only five miles this afternoon to 1900hrs UTC.

And here is the latest from Pachi Rivero on Renault Z.E Sailing Team. The duo have gained around 10 miles on Groupe Bel this afternoon, 141 miles behind Kito de Pavant and Seb Audigane

Hi From Renault Z.E:
First of all I would like to say thank you for all the incredible support we are receivingon board Renault Z.E things goes good; we are a Little bit isolated here but we had been taking care of our lady, Renault Z.E.. and here you never know….
Yesterday we left Amsterdam gate; another gate, another step forward.
Step by step, but without a switch off, we know in this Race all the sailors are great sailors and all of us want to get the situation difficult to the others. We had been heading South to look for other low, to look for faster downwind conditions

Now life on board had changed a lot since the last 2 or 3 days now it´s really good as soon as we stopped reaching. The boat was all time in 'submarine' mode with winds of 27-30 knots. It was like the boat was under the water half the time, it was pouring everywhere and it seems we got a huge river down the deck with waterfalls over the cockpit, dropping over Toño and me. Now we got have great days with sun, downwind (18-20 kts and gusts of 23-25) and with several squalls that shift the direction and the speed of the wind.We don´t seem to evenr stop trimming and the watches are quite intense. Now, that we are downwind we are helming all time. The automatic pilot works great but we think the Renault Z.E performance is best when we helm.

Toño has told me he thinks yesterday he had seen a seal. I hope to see more animals around but I don´t want to sea whales. I prefer to see these great animals when I am on holidays or on TV but not here!.

I love to see the Albatross; amazing birds.
You can see their eyes really clear and it´s amazing how they hold you in their gaze.. I can spend hours watching them it´s amazing their aerofoils and how they soar endlessly.

A big hug from the South Indian ocean (not so South) on board Renault Z.