Big dive south

An update from the Transpac voyage Geronimo, with on board comment from navigator Larry Rosenfeld

On her seventh day at sea, the Capgemini and Schneider Electric trimaran, Geronimo, covered 462 nautical miles at an average speed of 19.28 knots as she continues to make excellent progress in the second half of a course that promises to present a complex challenge.

Having been forced a long way south of the direct route, Geronimo has been heading back north towards Japan on her record attempt ever since passing Hawaii on Sunday. After seven days at sea, Geronimo and her crew have covered 3,178 nautical miles, leaving 'only' 2,344 nautical miles to reach Yokohama. However, this latest track, which isn't really one at all, is giving Olivier de Kersauson cause for concern, as he explained in his latest audio report last night. “It's going pretty well. We're making nearly 500 miles a day, which is a good average. The problem is that those 500 miles bring us only 380 closer to the finish line.”

Geronimo must also cope with several areas of calm in the days that lie ahead. “We can see several cycles of calm to the north and west. The last 1,200 miles could be hazardous,” adds de Kersauson.

This latter section of the course may give the maxi-trimaran yet another opportunity to show just how adaptable she can be. “ Geronimo is performing well," says the skipper. "Apart from breaking a batten in a jibe yesterday (which we were able to replace quickly), we've had no problems at all. Once again, the boat is showing just how reliable she can be.

“After we passed Hawaii, I thought it best to make the most of the simpler weather conditions to let the crew rest. But the many maneuvers required mean that we must still be alert to what's going on.” However, this focus hasn't prevented the crew from relaxing. For example, the only Japanese crewmember on board, Kazuhiro Nishimura, is appreciating his time on Geronimo in many ways.

Olivier de Kersauson comments “He's adapting quickly. He writes everything down and is always filming his watch mates with all the enthusiasm of a boy. Every time one of us shouts on a surf, he punches the air because he's having such a good time. We've asked him to teach us a few words of Japanese. The problem is that we've no way of knowing what it is he's teaching us to say.”

From on board Larry Rosenfeld writes:

We got the next weather schedule and it seemed pretty clear that the wind would shift to the SE for us. We figured it would be much better if we are to the northeast because we will be on the inside of the right shift. During the day yesterday, we did a few jibes to the SW to probe for more wind, but stayed on the jibe that pointed us to the finish whenever the wind shifted. Olivier is so good at sensing the shifts. He sits below or on deck and watches the wind make small shifts back and forth and then gets a sense at a certain point that the shift is now here to stay. His ability to call the timing of these subtle shifts is uncanny. For the last 18 hours we've been patiently waiting and sailing northwest. The earlier forecasts and now, even the forecast I just downloaded show a major shift of wind to the SE about 6 hours ago, but it is delayed. We still see wind from the east or ENE. So we continue to wait and sail as fast as we can. Wind is down to 12-13 knots so boatspeed is only 14-15 knots as low as we can go downwind.

Yesterday, I was up on deck, balancing on the net on the windward side as we drove over the waves. Rodolpe was doing a his usual great job of steering (he really makes the boat go fast). He has been around the world with Olivier and is a very well spoken person with a great sense of humor. The water was flying by under my feet at 22 knots in 17 knots of wind and all of a sudden a medium sized green barrel goes flying by in the water right under my feet, missing the hull by a meter. It was about 20 gallons/80 liters and would have put a big dent in the bow or even more in the floater. Its amazing to me how small the chances of hitting something in mid ocean are and yet how frequently boats hit floating objects or as in our case, nearly hit them. Of course, Cam and I are lot more sensitive to this issue than most, having lost our port bow and the use of our wonderful catamaran for almost five years now. But, the number of sailors who have related stories of near hits from semi-submerged objects is just staggering to me. Nearly every long distance ocean sailor has had some close encounter - and the difference between a hit and near hit is only a matter of a few meters usually. It sent a chill down my spine.

Taking care of ourselves, even on such a relatively short trip, is really important. As you could imagine many of the crew get various cuts and scrapes. At home its not something that we think about too much, but in a salt water environment, infection is always lurking and even small cuts need to be looked after carefully. Jean Charles had a more major gash on his palm early in the voyage. It looked bad, and it was wide and just in the place he uses to handle lines and winches. He took really good care of it, dressing it each watch and putting iodine treatments on it and now, a week later, it has nearly healed. Another issue is dehydration. Yesterday was good example. I was really tired, had a headache and felt like my brain was in a fog most of the day. Its really hard to drink enough water on the boat. I try, but I always feel behind the curve. There are only so many ways to dress up desalinated water. Its not that it tastes bad, it just doesn't taste. I think I got bored of it and forgot to drink enough. So I tried for the last 24 hours combining it with juice, squeezing lemons into it, heating it and today I feel a big difference.

Today I caught sight of myself in the mirror and decided to shave for only the second time in my life since I was 18. The first time was in the middle of the doldrums on Team Adventure during the three week journey on the way back up the Atlantic. I sent a picture home and Willie (who was nine at the time) didn't even recognize me. Amy emailed back to say don't come home without my beard. So I won't show you a picture (although someone might have put one on the website). As you can imagine with all that practice, I'm not very good at it shaving and it took quite a while. It feels weird, will probably get sunburned from lack of prior exposure and will probably be covered over with a beard again by the time I get home.

Back to the near term forecast, they keep showing us more of this light air for the next couple days and then difficult calms and light headwinds. After that another low pressure coming out of Korea will affect the area. Hopefully it will be delayed enough that we can sail over the top of it in favorable winds rather than in the middle or below it. We analyze all possible routes from here to the finish, but right now it seems the best is to press on and wait for the shift.

Just as I was about to send this email, the wind shifted 20 degrees to the SE. I ran up on deck to help jibe the boat on to port heading WSW. Maybe the shift has finally arrived!

Happy weekend.