Valencia Eventos Náuticos

Groupama in the Volvo Ocean Race

Two passing squalls have made things difficult for Groupama. It seems that our old friend, the inter-tropical convergence zone wanted to save us the privilege of its return to the Volvo.

The upshot of this little operation: 45 minutes lost and 2.5 miles of lateral separation to leeward.
Most importantly though, and for the first time since the start, we've lost contact with our rivals!

And yet the early part of the night looked to be panning out nicely, with some small, steady gains on Puma, which was still within sight at that point.

The first squall hit at 1750 UTC. The wind punched back in, heading us, forcing us to bear away to dump the headsails and thus causing us to head South for a few long minutes. Then all of a sudden the wind dropped to nothing almost, leaving us at a standstill for quarter of an hour.

At 2330 UTC it was the same scenario. This time, we managed to anticipate things better by hoisting the J4, which enabled us to dump the J1 without bearing away. Ultimately though, we were dished out the same punishment! The wind tumbled to zero and had us pinned down on the racetrack for nearly half an hour.
At 0100 UTC, the standing comes in. We're astonished. On reading the fleet's average speeds and headings, Groupama was clearly the only boat affected by these squalls:
"Telefonica 11.8 kts, Camper 11.2 kts, Puma 11.3 kts, Groupama 10kts...."

It was a very bad night for Groupama then. You have to get things in perspective though because, according to the grib files, the worst is ahead of us.

Franck Cammas:
"It's infuriating, but it's only just begun. We can expect to traverse a great deal of unstable zones over the coming days."

Have a good day,

Yann

Positions at 0400 UTC
Telefonica 1,762 miles from the finish
Camper 2 miles astern of the leader
Puma 5.4 miles astern of the leader
Groupama 13 miles astern of the leader
Abu Dhabi 35 miles astern of the leader
Sanya 69 miles astern of the leader

Comunicado: cammas-groupama.com

Empiezan ahora para la tripulación encabezada por Iker Martínez 600 millas de regata por unas de las aguas con más tráfico de mercantes del mundo sumado a los riegos de la redes de pescadores.

El “Telefónica” de Iker Martínez ha dejado atrás, como líder de la regata y de la general de la Volvo Ocean Race, el paso obligado de la isla de Pulau We, y navega ya en las difíciles aguas del estrecho de Malaca.