Voyage to the Congo

ABN AMRO youth team navigator Simon Fisher recounts how they faired in the Route de l'Equateur

While in the past yacht races have run from France to Dakar in Senegal and obviously to Cape Town, none, to our knowledge, have previously run from Europe to the Republic of Congo, nestled between Gabon and Angola on Africa's west coast.

On 5 June five boats, comprising three Volvo Ocean 60s and two Open 50s set sail from Marseille bound for Pointe-Noire 4,500 miles away in the French-run Route de l’Equateur. The three VO60s were the former Tyco race boat, chartered to the ABN AMRO Volvo Ocean Race youth team, the Croatian-owned former Chessie Racing now called Nouvelle Espérance and skippered by solo round the world record breaking sailor Philippe Monnet and Tokio, now under the leadership of highly experienced Vendee Globe and 60ft trimaran skipper Bertrand de Broc of mid-Southern Ocean tongue sewing fame.

The 50s were two of the most competitive and recently built; the Berret-Racoupeau designed sisterships - Le Defi Vendeen of Jean-François Durand and the boat originally owned by Italian Simon Accati and campaigned in the 2001 Transat Jacques Vabre, now known as Brest Nautique and skippered by former Mini sailors Rodolphe Jacq and Arnaud Boissières.

Save for the passage from Marseilles to Gibraltar, a majority of the race involved hugging the coast of Africa, thereby limiting tactics, but the competitors saw a wide range of conditions. "We started in the Mistral, so we were out in a northeasterly all the way down to the Balearic Islands," recounts ABN AMRO youth team navigator Simon Fisher. "From there we picked up a nice easterly breeze and had a spinnaker run all the way to Gibraltar."

Sailing the most recent generation of the three VO60s and having the only fully-pro crew, ABN AMRO pulled ahead and would lead for the duration of the race.

"We got to Gibraltar and it went light for about an hour and then filled again at about 35 knots, so we got fired out of Gibraltar at 20 knots which was quite nice and then it turned into Trade Wind sailing all the way down past the Canaries and then as we approached the Doldrums it got a bit lighter and a bit more starboard tack."

While every race in recent years heading south through the Doldrums and across the Equator heads inthe direction of Brazil (either to Brazil in the Transat Jacques or Mini Transat or past Brazil via the use of waypoints as in the Volvo Ocean Race) allowing competitors the opportunity to be able to pass through the Doldrums with relative ease, the Route de l’Equateur boats were forced to take the mid-80s Whitbread Round the World Race route hugging the coast of Africa thereby crossing the Doldrums at their widest.

"You couldn't get that far west because you'd have to come all the way east again," explained Fisher. "So it was inside the Cape Verdes, but we had a waypoint to prevent us getting within about 100 miles of the coast. So we couldn't sneak up the coast, we had to stay offshore and battle the Doldrums as they were."

Forecasting the ever-evolving Doldrums is a case more of art than science particularly that far east and at one stage the weather models were showing the ABN AMRO crew getting stuck there for weeks without wind while a subsequent forecast showed the potential for them to breeze through the area in a day. "In the end it kind of dragged on for about three days," says Fisher. "Then once we were out of there we were on the breeze for a week on starboard tack. We'd get headed a bit sometimes and lifted a bit sometimes...and about 300 miles out we just ran out of breeze. It took three days to do the last 300 miles with an average wind speed of 4.5 knots."

With such a slow finish the sense of anticipation ashore was reaching fever pitch. Negotiating the oil fields off Pointe-Noire (Congo is one of Africa's largest oil producers) ABN AMRO finished at 0300 on Tuesday after almost 23 days at sea and then were asked to wait offshore until breakfast time for reasons which would become evident.

Fisher takes up the story: "We came in, parked the boat in the marina and then got taken around to this beach and there were 20,000 people on the beach. We went up and shook hands with the President of Congo [Denis Sassou-Ngesso], and got marched all around the race village, the President walking around with Seb's [ABN AMRO youth team skipper Sebastien Josse] hand in the air, parading him around, doing this massive lap of the area with a military escort. It was an unbelievable sight. Everyone was completely astounded."

While ABN AMRO may have led the whole way they did not have it all their own way. At the time they finished Tokio was just 135 miles behind them (or a day and a half given conditions approaching the line) with Nouvelle Espérance the same distance behind Tokio.

The main reason for ABN AMRO competing in the race was as a training mission for the team. While they have been practising on Emma Richards' Open 60 Pindar this is a hard boat to sail with half the crew, while the Whitbread 60 enabled them to get their entire squad of 12 afloat. "We sailed it like you would do in the Volvo race last time and took all 12 of our guys," says Fisher. "It was bloody good training - there's no better training than going and doing it. It was good for us because we hadn't sailed offshore as a team before. It is a chance to find out where we are at with everything and what our relative strengths and weaknesses are and what we have got to focus on for the next few months before we get the 70."

From here the ABN AMRO youth team are off to Brazil in the VO60 to compete in a regatta and carry out some marketing wishes on behalf of their Dutch bank sponsor.

More photos on the following pages...