Difficult night ahead

440 miles to go for Phil Sharp as Nick Bubb reaches the Azores in the Route du Rhum

Monday November 13th 2006, Author: James Boyd, Location: Transoceanic

Images courtesy of Expedition Navigation Systems and ProGRIB

Positions at 0700GMT

Pos	Boat	Skipper	Lat	Long	Spd	Crs	Spd	Crs	Spd	Dist	DTF	DTL
					Inst		4hr av		24hr
	ORMA 60 tris
1	Gitana 11	Lionel Lemonchois	7j 17h 19m 6s	06/11/2006 06:21							0.0
2	Banque Populaire	Pascal Bidegorry	8j 4h 25m 7s	06/11/2006 17:27							0.0
3	Sodeb'O	Thomas Coville	8j 13h 39m 2s	07/11/2006 02:41							0.0
4	Géant	Michel Desjoyeaux	8j 13h 48m 24s	07/11/2006 02:50							0.0
5	Groupama 2	Franck Cammas	8j 17h 55m 17s	07/11/2006 06:57							0.0
6	Brossard	Yvan Bourgnon	9j 0h 40m 15s	07/11/2006 13:42							0.0
7	Foncia	Alain Gautier	9j 16h 14m 40s	08/11/2006 05:16							0.0
8	Region Guadeloupe-Terres de Passions	Claude Thelier	11j 11h 56m 51s	10/11/2006 00:58							0.0
9	Sopra Group	Antoine Koch	12j 0h 59m 41s	10/11/2006 14:01							0.0
10	Gitana 12	Thierry Duprey du Vorsent	12j 14h 52m 0s	11/11/2006 03:54							0.0
11	Madinina	Gilles Lamire	24 04.16' N	50 28.60' W	13.1	186	10.3	203.0	5.5	131.0	835.5	0.0
ABD	Orange Project	Steve Ravussin
	Open 60 monos
1	Sill et Veolia	Roland Jourdain	12j 11h 58m 58s	11/11/2006 01:00							0.0
2	VM Matériaux	Jean Le Cam	12j 12h 26m 58s	11/11/2006 01:28							0.0
3	Virbac-Paprec	Jean-Pierre Dick	12j 20h 27m 58s	11/11/2006 09:29							0.0
4	Brit Air	Armel Le Cléac'h	13j 3h 57m 17s	11/11/2006 16:59							0.0
5	Temenos II	Dominique Wavre	13j 9h 20m 3s	11/11/2006 22:22							0.0
6	Artemis	Brian Thompson	13j 17h 32m 20s	12/11/2006 06:34							0.0
7	Roxy	Anne Liardet	18 46.76' N	59 49.20' W	2.0	222	4.3	242.0	5.0	120.1	232.6	0.0
8	Safran	Marc Guillemot	19 50.00' N	61 13.72' W	7.0	189	4.6	203.0	4.7	113.4	259.4	26.7
9	Maisonneuve Basse Normandie	JB Dejeanty	21 53.28' N	57 09.00' W	4.0	222	5.5	218.0	8.4	201.4	469.2	236.6
10	Adriana Karembeu Paris	Philippe Fiston	29 53.08' N	53 54.08' W	10.2	232	11.2	262.0	5.9	141.8	969.0	736.4
ABD	Delta Dore	Jeremy Beyou
ABD	PRB	Vincent Riou
	Class 2 multis
1	Crêpes Whaou !	Franck-Yves Escoffier	11j 17h 28m 11s	10/11/2006 06:30							0.0
2	Trilogic	Eric Bruneel	13j 14h 49m 3s	12/11/2006 03:51							0.0
3	Laiterie de Saint-Malo	Victorien Erussard	19 53.64' N	61 12.88' W	8.2	199	6.0	214.0	6.3	152.1	263.1	0.0
4	Deleage & DIAZO	Loic Escofier	23 08.76' N	57 16.68' W	11.0	240	11.2	233.0	10.3	248.1	529.0	265.9
5	Négocéane	Roger Langevin	23 50.27' N	51 52.31' W	10.0	244	9.0	203.0	6.5	157.2	765.1	502.1
6	Gifi	Dominique Demachy	26 12.96' N	50 09.12' W	2.4	232	3.9	228.0	4.1	97.2	927.2	664.1
ABD	Jean Stalaven	Pascal Quintin
ABD	Le Bon Marche - Rive Gauche	Anne Caseneuve
	Class 3 multis
1	Imagine-Institut des Maladies Génétiques	Pierre Antoine	25 28.64' N	51 51.76' W	6.0	222	5.9	222.0	6.5	155.1	828.6	0.0
ABD	Switch.fr	Charlie Capelle
ABD	Ideal Stelrad	Ross Hobson
	Class 1 monos
1	Jeunes Dirigeants	Pierre-Yves Guennec	27 14.32' N	46 59.32' W	4.3	166	4.3	190.0	6.2	149.3	1098.9	0.0
2	Antilles-Sails.com	Philippe Chevallier	29 55.60' N	47 00.44' W	11.3	242	10.1	256.0	6.3	152.0	1198.9	100.0
3	TAT Express	Arnaud Dhallenne	32 23.36' N	46 44.28' W	7.2	212	6.4	214.0	4.2	100.1	1311.4	212.5
4	Ville de Dinard	Bruno Reibel	32 06.00' N	46 18.96' W	6.0	256	5.2	233.0	3.2	76.0	1314.1	215.2
	Class 2 monos
1	Artforms	Kip Stone	22 06.96' N	59 47.92' W	10.1	233	8.8	221.0	7.7	184.8	412.1	0.0
2	Vedettes de Bréhat Cap Marine	Servane Escoffier	23 15.36' N	59 49.92' W	9.4	215	10.0	218.0	10.0	240.7	477.0	64.9
3	AOI Solidarité Dentaire Internationale	Denis Douillez	25 41.92' N	39 50.52' W	8.2	281	4.8	277.0	4.0	95.5	1397.1	985.0
NL	Cap Guadeloupe 971	Luc Coquelin
	Class 3 monos
1	Roaring Forty	Michel Kleinjans	29 31.68' N	47 58.48' W	5.0	208	6.6	224.0	6.8	162.1	1145.6	0.0
2	DangerousWhenWet	Aurélia Ditton	34 32.64' N	46 44.52' W	6.7	260	7.2	259.0	6.6	157.5	1406.0	260.5
3	Fantasy Forest	Alain Grinda	35 01.20' N	35 25.02' W	3.4	277	4.4	270.0	5.1	122.6	1849.6	704.1
ABD	A Fond Contre la Spondylarthrite	Didier Le Villain
ABD	La Promesse	Jankees Lampe
ABD	Charter Regis Guillemot Martinique	Regis Guillemot
	Class 40
1	philsharpracing.com	Phil Sharp	22 25.92' N	59 14.48' W	6.1	220	8.2	221.0	6.5	157.0	440.5	0.0
2	Oyster Funds	Gildas Morvan	22 32.72' N	57 07.12' W	4.1	215	6.0	217.0	8.0	191.4	504.4	63.8
3	Atao Audio System	Dominic Vittet	24 59.32' N	50 59.76' W	1.0	214	4.6	227.0	5.6	133.9	845.2	404.7
4	IXSEA	Olivier Rabine	28 25.08' N	55 44.00' W	6.4	202	8.7	193.0	5.7	137.9	846.1	405.5
5	Bolands Mill	Ian Munslow	28 53.00' N	56 28.16' W	9.2	193	8.1	204.0	7.6	182.4	855.4	414.9
6	Chocolats Monbana	Damien Grimont	28 05.32' N	53 50.44' W	7.2	248	7.1	243.0	5.0	120.3	875.7	435.1
7	Appart'City	Yvan Noblet	25 29.12' N	50 05.72' W	3.1	200	5.0	204.0	4.5	108.1	902.1	461.5
8	Le Comptoir Immobilier	Guillaume Voizard	30 16.62' N	55 38.04' W	8.7	262	9.0	218.0	9.1	217.4	948.5	508.0
9	Cotes d'Armor - Pierres et Mer	Philippe le Gros	29 11.52' N	52 24.56' W	10.2	243	10.1	255.0	7.1	170.9	976.3	535.8
10	Tchuda Popka 2	Gw Catherine	27 49.92' N	49 52.88' W	4.6	187	4.3	206.0	3.7	89.7	1002.7	562.1
11	Guyader L'Esprit de la Mer	Gery Trentseaux	28 46.68' N	50 55.04' W	7.3	246	5.9	258.0	4.3	102.9	1005.9	565.3
12	Cinémas Cinéfil.com	JE Criquioche	29 21.84' N	49 23.24' W	8.2	278	5.5	290.0	4.1	98.1	1086.0	645.5
13	Lexibook	Hervé Papin	30 03.40' N	50 08.84' W	8.1	272	10.3	283.0	7.0	169.0	1090.1	649.6
14	FNAIM Pays de Loire	Lionel Regnier	27 17.80' N	46 37.40' W	5.3	161	3.9	195.0	5.9	141.3	1116.8	676.3
15	Destination Calais	Pierre-Yves Chatelain	29 42.78' N	48 39.24' W	8.2	274	7.9	276.0	7.1	169.4	1126.5	686.0
16	Nous Entreprenons	Jacques Fournier	28 52.92' N	47 46.52' W	6.2	236	5.7	199.0	7.3	175.6	1127.2	686.7
17	Cap VAD	Thibaud Derville	30 58.08' N	48 21.76' W	9.0	208	10.7	214.0	7.5	179.1	1192.3	751.8
18	Paca Entrprendre	Cecile Poujol	31 56.00' N	49 09.52' W	7.3	218	9.5	214.0	6.9	164.9	1209.1	768.6
19	Nouvelle Caledonie	Yves Ecarlat	26 39.08' N	44 07.44' W	4.0	162	6.1	269.0	5.8	138.9	1210.3	769.8
20	Jardin Bio Equitable	Benoit Parnaudeau	30 44.72' N	45 07.60' W	9.0	240	6.7	259.0	4.5	106.9	1304.7	864.1
21	KNAUF Industries	David Lefebvre	33 34.44' N	46 59.40' W	8.2	278	5.9	263.0	3.6	87.1	1355.0	914.5
22	Siegenia-Aubi	Marc Lepesqueux	34 42.12' N	44 17.32' W	9.3	266	8.7	252.0	7.2	172.6	1496.1	1055.6
23	Fermiers de Loué - Sarthe	Francois Angoulvant	35 46.00' N	41 59.84' W	8.3	178	7.4	248.0	6.4	152.9	1621.4	1180.8
ABD	TMI Technologies	Joe Seeten
ABD	Kenmore Homes	Nick Bubb

In the last 12 hours Class 40 leader Phil Sharp has managed to earn an extra 5.8 miles over second placed Gildas Morvan having averaged 8.2 knots since the last sched compared to Morvan's 6. As the wind backed to the northwest so at lunchtime Sharp gybed and was fairly swiftly lifted back on course on starboard.

Between Sharp, Morvan and the finish 440 miles away (for Sharp) lies a localised area of no wind and both skippers are attempting to avoid this at present. It will be interesting to see who the winner and loser is out of this scenari come tomorrow morning.

Following his boom breakage Nick Bubb and his Kenmore Homes have now arrived in the Azores. Nick shapres his thoughts and reflections from a difficult week 2.

"Well this is it, the end of my Route du Rhum 2006. Although devastated, to have had the chance of a top result snatched away from me, I am also happy to be safely in the Azores. Getting here was no easy job, with mainly headwinds winds between 25 and 40 knots it was an epic trip in itself. It is over now though and I am going to spend a few days relaxing, reflecting and repairing before heading home, the first time since August when I left to finish the build!

After breaking the boom I spent over 12 hours continuing on my south westerly course towards the finish line whilst I ran through all the options available to me. To carry on and finish before my water, food and fuel levels got to critical stages and to finish within any sort of respectable distance of my competitors I was going to need to make seriously good repair to the boom. If anything else major had gone wrong I would have been in big trouble.

I systematically went through all the kit which I had onboard and drew up plans for how I could effect a repair. Essentially I was going to need to sleeve the inside of the boom with anything that would fit, over as long a length as possible, and then lash as many long stiff items around the outside. Unlike on the Mini Transat, when we had plenty of preparation time, I did not have two purpose made tubes for such an eventuality, neither did I carry any resin or carbon onboard as experience shows that 'proper' repairs are almost impossible to effect at sea in such conditions.

The options were: taking all the stanchions off, dismantling the bowsprit and sawing it up into different lengths of tube, using my spare and bottom mainsail batten, the shaft of the anchors, sawing up parts of the boat such as seats etc not totally crucial to the structure and removing the supporting tubes from the navigation station structure. After a lot of thought I decided that the stanchions were very thin walled and not stiff enough or long enough to be of any use, also without them would make working on the deck extremely dangerous. My mainsail battens are not carbon, just glass/polyester, so no where near stiff enough for such a job. To saw up the bowsprit would obviously massively hinder my downwind performance and the tubular sections that it is made from are too large to go in inside the boom as a sleeve and there would not be enough lengths of tube to do the job anyway. To start cutting up the boat in general was something that I did not really want to get into as my budget would not cover such extremes and invariably this might lead to other unforeseen issues. To try to sail without the boom was vaguely feasible or maybe with just the trysail but not for hard upwind or in moderate to light airs as were inevitable at some point.

So, there I was mid Atlantic and no real way to fix my boom, the Azores were just over 550 miles away and my only other options were Guadeloupe at roughly 1400 and Bermuda at roughly 1200. I had to decide fast as I was still going downwind at 12-15 knots with just the staysail up but the crucial factor was that strong headwinds were forecast. To head back to the Azores would in effect mean retiring but after talking with my shore team and sponsors it seemed the most sensible and seaman like option.

In an extreme sport it is important to remember that it is not your right to expect people to rescue you, if things go really wrong, and you have to take responsibility for yourself. Sometimes you have to make these difficult decisions and after the trimaran mast episode in the Round Britain and Ireland race earlier this year, I felt I had already proved that I had the determination to finish whatever the consequences. To do this again was just not affordable, safe or to be frank what I wanted.

I do this sport to learn more about sailing, myself, the available technology, the forces of nature, to showcase what a wonderful sport sailing is and the opportunities available. However, most importantly I do it to try to win the race and this is always my 100% focus which, I am going to ensure, always remains top of the priority list in future. I am not sure of my plans after I have returned the boat to France. For sure there will be more adventures and I am going to battle even harder pre-race to give myself a better chance of pulling off that top result once I am on the water.

Many thanks to my sponsors KENMORE HOMES, KENMORE PROPERTY, AGGMORE PROPERTY and GILL. They have backed all my decisions 100% all season and I could not ask for anything more. Finally, thank you to my shore team and all my friends and family, I was overwhelmed by the number of supportive messages I received before and during this race. The messages gave me a huge boost especially when moral was low after some of the setbacks. Despite a disappointing end to this race I am happy to have participated in the great 'Route du Rhum', will be better for the experience and I am sure to be back racing on the ocean soon."