Stamm reaches Kerguelen

Velux 5 Oceans licking its wounds after British duo head for South Africa

Monday November 27th 2006, Author: James Boyd, Location: United Kingdom

Image courtesy of Expedition Navigation Systems

Positions this morning and at 24 hour intervals over the weekend

Pos	Yacht	Skipper	Latitude	Longitude	Spd	Crs	Spd	Crs	Spd	Dts	DTF	DTL
					Inst		4hr av		24 hr
	27 Nov 05:32GMT
1	Cheminees Poujoulat	Bernard Stamm	48° 23.08 S	067° 43.60 E	15.3	60	16.07	68	15.44	370.6	2370
2	Spirit of Yukoh	Kojiro Shiraishi	48° 07.12 S	043° 49.80 E	9	98	11.72	93	12.13	291.1	3317	952
3	Ecover	Mike Golding	44° 20.72 S	026° 07.40 E	7.9	6	8.97	24	3.93	94.4	4085	1721
4	SAGA Insurance	Sir Robin Knox-Johnston	35° 40.08 S	016° 58.96 W	9.3	160	9.68	167	7.13	171	6041	3663
5	A Southern Man-AGD	Graham Dalton	33° 26.84 S	021° 00.96 W	9.3	153	10.46	169	9.19	220.5	6282	3900
6	PAKEA	Unai Basurko	28° 48.16 S	016° 39.72 W	9.2	130	6.26	92	7.83	187.8	6510	3927

	26 Nov 05:32GMT
1	Cheminees Poujoulat	Bernard Stamm	51° 14.92 S	059° 15.40 E	2.1	172	14.03	85	13.17	316	2722
2	Spirit of Yukoh	Kojiro Shiraishi	48° 12.72 S	036° 34.12 E	11	117	13.53	106	11.26	270.1	3600	896
3	Ecover	Mike Golding	45° 52.08 S	026° 40.20 E	6.6	59	1.99	25	4.26	102.1	4028	1324
4	SAGA Insurance	Sir Robin Knox-Johnston	32° 50.84 S	017° 26.12 W	4.4	127	6.34	169	7.67	184	6157	3428
5	A Southern Man-AGD	Graham Dalton	29° 46.88 S	021° 10.24 W	10.2	192	5.73	174	5.49	131.8	6464	3694
6	PAKEA	Unai Basurko	27° 34.32 S	019° 55.28 W	5.4	124	7.07	120	7.01	168.2	6575	3743

	26 Nov 05:32GMT
1	Cheminees Poujoulat	Bernard Stamm	50° 37.60 S	050° 58.08 E	10	96	12.64	92	15.03	360.6	3025
2	Spirit of Yukoh	Kojiro Shiraishi	46° 59.72 S	028° 51.00 E	15	102	12.51	77	13.1	314.4	3920	898
3	Ecover	Mike Golding	47° 55.56 S	026° 47.40 E	7.3	19	6.42	10	5.79	139.1	3982	957
4	SAGA Insurance	Sir Robin Knox-Johnston	29° 50.88 S	018° 09.12 W	8.1	190	7.44	129	8.96	215.1	6434	3275
5	A Southern Man-AGD	Graham Dalton	27° 41.76 S	021° 56.48 W	5	127	8.4	126	8.76	210.3	6595	3508
6	PAKEA	Unai Basurko	25° 36.00 S	022° 08.44 W	8.3	125	9.38	117	8.71	209	6718	3605

The Velux 5 Oceans is still reeling from the extraordinary events of Friday when Mike Golding and his Open 60 Ecover successfully rescued Alex Thomson from his striken yacht Hugo Boss in the depths of the Southern Ocean, only for Golding's boat to break her mast six hours later (read Mike Golding's blow by blow account of this here). In two rapids blows so the Velux 5 Oceans has lost two of its most competitive entries. At present Ecover is heading for South Africa and Golding's teams are assessing their options for continuing or throwing in the towel. As Golding reports they have a spare tube in Southampton, however it is prohibitively expensive to fly this out to Cape Town and shipping it will almost certainly take too long for the boat to be rerigged and then delivered to Fremantle in time for the start of leg two in early January. If Golding is unable to find a solution the Velux 5 Oceans will effectively turn into a one horse race with only Kojiro Shiraishi on Spirit of Yukoh offering run-away race leader Bernard Stamm on Cheminees Poujoulat anything in the way of competition.

This morning finds Stamm heading northwest in order to keep the Kerguelen Islands to starboard, as they are a mandatory mark of the course. At present he is aronud 50-75 miles from rounding the top of them. The technique for getting out of the Southern Ocean (and into Fremantle) is similar for getting into it - a little like crossing a road as the passage up to Australia can often be blocked by a large area of high pressure In fact Stamm is lining up for a fast run towards the finish line of leg one with the high remaining to his north opening up a useful corridor of strong following winds to blast him home.

This morning Stamm reported: "I had a big crash yesterday morning and I'm still fighting to get things in place. For the moment almost everything is like before but I haven't repaired anyting yet. The same halyard has broken again, there are three broken battens in the mainsail and I have my leeward backstay hooked up in a batten in the middle of the main, so I cannot lower the mainsail more than one reef. But otherwise everything is okay. Yesterday I had some part of the day with snow but I was too busy to get the camera out, which is sad. Today, it is a sunny day." At the time Stamm was making 12 knots in 27 knots of breeze from just north of west.

This morning finds Mike Golding and Alex Thoomson 720 miles from Cape Town whereas Port Elizabeth (where Ericsson stopped during the last Volvo Ocean Race) is 620 miles due north. Weather-wise Golding should be able to continue making reasonable progress north but can expect to be upwind on the run into Port Elizabeth while the wind is dforecast to disappear although on the on the run into Cape Town if he decided to head for there.

950 or so miles astern of Stamm, Kojiro Shiraishi on Spirit of Yukoh is making relatively slow progress considering the forecast indicates hiim having the better conditions to the southwest of the high. As the high moves east so a front will pass over Koji tomorrow and he will see the wind veering north and building strongly before it backs to the west as the front passes through. From there he appears to be in favourable westerlies until he passes Kerguelen.

Koji reports: "Since this morning the wind has turned around and has become northerly. I think that the winds will gradually become more northerly as time goes on. So I’m trying to turn the boat in a different direction. However the winds are getting close to 30 knots and instead of gybing I have to tack. This makes it easier for the mast and the sails to bear the weight. I’m doing it because Spirit of yukoh’s number one rule is to ‘stay safe’.

"I feel a bit warmer now that I’m at 48 degrees latitude rather than at 49 degrees. I feel like if I maintain this 48 degree course then the boat will sail well. I know that I’ll be taking a shorter route if I dive south but I’m cautious of icebergs so I’ll stay here for now. I’m doing this purely on my gut feeling alone. On my first circumnavigation I encountered icebergs at around this latitude. This year I’m planning on staying well north of them and taking precautions.

"The waves are still large and the boat continues to surf over them, thudding loudly as the boat crashes downwards. To stay safe from injury I have to keep calm and maintain concentration. I’m even in danger now as I type using both hands on the keyboard! Today the skies turned to complete cloud but the squalls have at least disappeared. You could call it ‘stable stormy weather’."

Currently 1700 miles due west of Cape Town, Sir Robin Knox-Johnston on Saga Insurance continues to lead the B-division. After weeks of calm or unfavourable winds so the next 24 hours should see RKJ getting his first taste this race of the Southern Ocean as a giant depression thunders eastwards to the south of them. To the north of this Saga Insurance will be experiencing building northwesterlies that could get up into the 40 knot range over the next 24 hours before the wind backs to the southwest.

This morning Sir Robin reported: "The weather was quite calm yesterday and progress slow as a result. We need to get into the Roaring Forties so we can try and hold onto the leaders as at present they have the favourable winds and are racing away whilst we have not yet turned the corner. But we do have wind now, about a Force 6, from the NNW, so are pushing south, with speed surges to 17 knots, with sail being reduced as the wind rises. I currently have the Solent and triple reefed main up, not a great deal, but this is the first time I have had Saga Insurance in these conditions, the strong following wind and building seas, and I want to see how she handles it before I get too adventurous. According toi the weather files the wind should back round to the west any time now which will suit us fine.

"I played with the port autopilot again yesterday, found a loose wire, tightened it and switched on. It switched itself off after an hour. Set it again but the same thing happened. So at least it was controlling the ram, but not for very long. A couple of hundred miles to the east lies Tristan da Cunha island, a very isolated British island with a population of about 600 with no airfield and just occasional visits by ships, but we should not go close enough to see it. You would think that this would be a pretty deserted area of ocean but last night a large bulk carrier passed just 3 miles astern of us, heading east.

So back in oilies and a considerable temperature drop, but we are moving well."

While Graham Dalton is following on a similar track to Saga Insurance, last placed Unai Basurko seems to be heading for the centre of the high....