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VENDEE GLOBE

Vendée Globe: Beyou diverts to Cape Verde with Keel Problems

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At 2300hrs (French time) on Saturday, Jérémie Beyou (Maître CoQ) detected a malfunction of the hydraulic jack of his keel. He has taken advantage of the proximity of Cape Verde for shelter in order to inspect in more detail the system that allows the keel to move.

When Beyou warned his crew shortly before midnight, he was 70 miles (130 km) from the Cape Verde archipelago and making five knots. He should have found shelter among the islands by midday on Sunday.

Meanwhile Zbigniew 'Gutek' Gutkowski (ENERGA) has heaved to, 500 west of the Canary Islands at the back of the fleet, waiting for the right moment to climb the mast and cutaway the gennaker wrapped around his forestay. 

It is part of an ongoing struggle with his autopilot that has plagued him from the start. The 39-year-old Polish skipper came to a stop last night and was waiting for the wind to drop and swell to decrease, but his mission will be more perilous than Javier Sansó’s on Friday night, who was able to divert to Tenerife and find shelter in the lee of the island.

“The main thing is to get down the wrapped gennaker from the forestay,” Gutek said. “I have a sort of plan now how to do it but it’s not so easy. One way is to go up and then slide down cutting all into pieces, but these pieces could possibly hit the mast and I don’t want to lose the mast while actually being up on it. The better solution is to wait for the calm.”

“Cutting the halyard is not a solution, because all is well wrapped there. So now I am focused only on sorting out this problem, and after that I will think what next.”

Gutek said he has not felt in danger and has an exit strategy if it impossible to solve the problem.

“It puts me in no danger, as the wind is dropping. I can sail like this, but only downwind and down wave preferably. The trick is to have the gennaker ‘balloons’ hidden behind the mainsail to not risk breaking the forestay.”

“The closest (place to divert to) would be Madeira, Azores are also not so far away. But I would prefer Canaries, as there is the best infrastructure regarding transport and eventual repairs. I spent couple of months there and I know every marina, I could sail there without any map. But any decisions I will be taking after removing the sail from the forestay.”

Fleet news:

Bernard Stamm (Cheminées Poujoulat) has lost his second place and dropped down to fourth as he continues to register significantly slower speeds than the rest of the front six in the last 12 hours. As they drag race down the same corridor 800 miles from the Equator in 14 knot north easterlies, Stamm was making just 13.9 knots in the last hour before the 0400hrs ranking, compared to Jean-Pierre Dick (Virbac-Paprec 3), the fastest in the fleet, at 18.8 knots.

Dick moved into third place, 13 miles behind Francois Gabart (Macif), who is 62.6 miles behind the leader Armel Le Cléac’h (Banque Populaire).

One of the beauties of the Vendée Globe is waking to find out how the skippers fared between the last ranking of the night at 2000hrs (French time) and the first of the morning at 0500hrs. The English are often laughed at for playing a sport – cricket – in which games last five days. But the Vendée Globe is a game of strategy that plays out over 80-100 days (and much longer for some).

The skippers hold their cards close to their chest but the data tells a story. Something is slowing Stamm and likewise seventh-placed Jérémie Beyou (Maître CoQ), who lost 70 miles on the leader in the last eight hours and is crawling along at just 10 knots as he drifts away from the front six. AT 0900hrs (French time) that was explained by the damage to the hydraulic jack of his kanting keel.

Beyou had fallen back to Jean Le Cam (SynerCiel) who leads Mike Golding (Gamesa) by just 0.6 of a mile. Le Cam and Golding have now joined the rest of the fleet in the same corridor of fair wind south after almost match-racing each other to the east for seven days.

Alex Thomson (Hugo Boss) continues to impress in sixth, keeping pace with the leader overnight and biding his time just 123 miles behind. Thomson knows that the newer, lighter boats in front are faster in a drag race but is keeping in touch for when other qualities will be tested.

 

PHOTO JEAN MARIE LIOT

18/11/2012 14:01:00 © riproduzione riservata

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