Groupama 3: Upwind delights

Translation by Kate Jennings

Posted: 7  Feb. 2010

After crossing the equator at 0902 hours UTC this Saturday morning after five days and 19 hours at sea, and with a lead of over a day in relation to Orange, the maxi trimaran Groupama 3 has begun her descent of the southern hemisphere.

Faced with south-easterly tradewinds and in a still, fairly calm sea, Franck Cammas and his nine crew are making for the Brazilian coast at an average of 20 knots.

The big glides under gennaker are over. So too are the storm squalls of the Doldrums. The archives for this first intermediary time between Ushant and the equator have been written now, with the 2010 version of Groupama 3 recording the second fastest time in maritime history.

Her deficit amounted to just 3 hours 44 minutes behind the best ever time, which was set back in November 2009 by… Groupama 3:

“We’re certainly very happy with this time as it really wasn’t a simple task in prospect on leaving the Breton coast last Sunday. It’s better than we could have anticipated at the start,” said Franck Cammas during the radio link-up with the Paris HQ for the Jules Verne Trophy.

“Nevertheless, we were caught out by the Doldrums, which suddenly reawakened on us and proved complicated to negotiate with violent squalls, storms and lightning. For seven hours the wind was constantly turning and even dropped away completely at one stage. In the middle of the night it wasn’t easy to zigzag between the squalls,” he said.

By managing to maintain an average of 22 knots (40 km/hr) since leaving Ushant, Groupama 3 has continued to extend her lead on the current Jules Verne Trophy holder by 1 day 7 hours and 49 minutes:

“The weather forecasts aren’t very favourable for joining up with the Southern Ocean. To avoid the calm conditions, we’re going to have to get very close to the Brazilian coast and drop down very low before we can hang a left towards the Cape of Good Hope,” Cammas said.

“We’ll lose a fair number of miles in relation to Orange, but there’s still a long way to go. We’re going to have to stay very concentrated and be ready to snap up any opportunity that arises.”

On a technical level the skipper of Groupama 3 is confident: “We’ve been right around the boat several times but we haven’t found anything suspicious. Aside from the radar, which gave up the ghost for a few hours yesterday, but has worked well since, all’s well aboard and there are no particular areas of wear.

“Having navigated through some pretty mild sea conditions thus far is a good thing as the structure hasn’t been very put upon.”

As far as the crew are concerned, Cammas concludes: “They’re still racing flat out. Life aboard is taking its course amidst an atmosphere of good humour. It really is a fine team. In addition to that we are all clean as we made the most of the squalls to have a good shower.”

Best passage time to the equator from Ushant
Groupama 3: 5d 15h 23’ (November 2009)
Jules Verne Trophy reference time to the equator
Orange 2: 7d 02h 56’ (January 2005)
The crew aboard Groupama 3:
• Franck Cammas, Loïc Le Mignon, Jacques Caraës, Stève Ravussin, Thomas Coville, Bruno Jeanjean, Fred Le Peutrec, Lionel Lemonchois, Ronan Le Goff.
• Stan Honey, navigator, off watch

National Maritime Festival 2010

Australian Wooden Boat Festival 2011
11th - 14th February 2011

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