Leaders extend

But front has now passed through for Barcelona World Race front runners

Tuesday December 11th 2007, Author: James Boyd, Location: Transoceanic

Images courtesy of Expedition Navigation Systems

Pos	Boat	Crew	Lat	Long	Spd	Crs	Spd	Crs	Spd	Dist	DTF	DTL
					Inst		4hr av		24hr av
	Positions at 0600 10 Dec
1	PAPREC-VIRBAC 2	Jean Pierre DICK / Damian FOXALL	47 32.11' S	34 37.19' E	19.3	114	20.5	110.0	19.4	465.3	17003.4	0.0
2	VEOLIA ENVIRONNEMENT	Roland JOURDAIN / Jean Luc NELIAS	47 05.85' S	32 16.51' E	16.7	107	19.9	98.0	18.1	434.9	17100.1	96.7
3	HUGO BOSS	Alex THOMSON / Andrew CAPE	47 18.96' S	30 21.58' E	16.8	86	17.2	97.0	16.9	404.7	17163.0	159.6
4	DELTA DORE	Jérémie BEYOU / Sidney GAVIGNET	45 11.72' S	26 26.81' E	17.0	111	16.2	97.0	16.2	388.1	17363.0	359.6
5	TEMENOS 2	Dominique Wavre / Michele PARET	43 09.80' S	17 31.62' E	10.1	113	11.9	117.0	13.5	323.7	17754.6	751.2
6	PRB	Vincent Riou / Sebastien JOSSE	37 21.95' S	18 02.73' E	12.7	4	15.8	1.0	-5.1	-122.5	17949.9	946.5
7	MUTUA MADRILENA	Javier SANSO / Pachi RIVERO	41 14.64' S	9 40.18' E	11.4	113	11.0	98.0	12.4	297.6	18103.7	1100.3
8	ESTRELLA DAMM	Guillermo ALTADILL / Jonathan MCKEE	38 25.83' S	9 28.68' E	13.0	14	11.5	29.0	4.2	101.9	18217.1	1213.7
9	EDUCACION SIN FRONTERAS	Servane ESCOFFIER / Albert BARGUES	36 20.17' S	5 19.36' W	10.6	106	11.0	108.0	12.7	303.8	18831.6	1828.2

	Positions at 1800 10 Dec
1	PAPREC-VIRBAC 2	Jean Pierre DICK / Damian FOXALL	48 35.43' S	40 15.99' E	21.7	90	19.6	100.0	19.6	471.4	16772.0	0.0
2	VEOLIA ENVIRONNEMENT	Roland JOURDAIN / Jean Luc NELIAS	47 46.59' S	37 36.32' E	16.8	89	16.4	99.0	18.2	436.0	16889.1	117.1
3	HUGO BOSS	Alex THOMSON / Andrew CAPE	47 32.33' S	35 27.37' E	16.4	91	16.7	93.0	16.4	394.1	16973.1	201.1
4	DELTA DORE	Jérémie BEYOU / Sidney GAVIGNET	46 05.83' S	30 43.44' E	19.0	123	16.2	119.0	15.6	373.8	17185.1	413.1
5	TEMENOS 2	Dominique Wavre / Michele PARET	44 30.57' S	20 31.34' E	12.6	116	12.9	120.0	12.2	293.5	17602.0	830.0
6	MUTUA MADRILENA	Javier SANSO / Pachi RIVERO	41 46.22' S	12 28.70' E	9.8	109	10.3	106.0	10.6	253.6	17984.4	1212.4
7	PRB	Vincent Riou / Sebastien JOSSE	35 05.73' S	18 10.89' E	13.7	339	12.2	352.0	-7.2	-172.9	18034.3	1262.3
8	ESTRELLA DAMM	Guillermo ALTADILL / Jonathan MCKEE	36 59.11' S	10 36.44' E	8.4	56	9.5	59.0	-1.4	-33.5	18233.3	1461.2
9	EDUCACION SIN FRONTERAS	Servane ESCOFFIER / Albert BARGUES	36 38.03' S	2 50.37' W	9.2	86	10.3	92.0	10.0	239.1	18727.2	1955.2

	Positions at 0600 11 Dec
1	PAPREC-VIRBAC 2	Jean Pierre DICK / Damian FOXALL	48 57.71' S	45 21.18' E	12.3	108	18.2	107.0	17.7	424.7	16578.7	0.0
2	VEOLIA ENVIRONNEMENT	Roland JOURDAIN / Jean Luc NELIAS	48 33.79' S	41 50.71' E	17.0	120	16.6	116.0	16.0	384.5	16715.6	136.9
3	HUGO BOSS	Alex THOMSON / Andrew CAPE	48 39.90' S	40 06.08' E	16.5	113	15.9	117.0	16.1	386.9	16776.1	197.4
4	DELTA DORE	Jérémie BEYOU / Sidney GAVIGNET	46 52.48' S	33 38.16' E	3.0	27	2.6	49.0	12.8	306.9	17057.3	478.6
5	TEMENOS 2	Dominique Wavre / Michele PARET	46 01.64' S	23 42.91' E	15.0	139	13.6	131.0	13.1	315.2	17439.4	860.7
6	MUTUA MADRILENA	Javier SANSO / Pachi RIVERO	41 46.28' S	14 37.44' E	9.6	91	8.5	76.0	8.2	196.1	17907.6	1328.9
7	ESTRELLA DAMM	Guillermo ALTADILL / Jonathan MCKEE	35 57.31' S	11 31.15' E	12.2	18	3.3	357.0	-1.0	-24.4	18241.5	1662.8
8	EDUCACION SIN FRONTERAS	Servane ESCOFFIER / Albert BARGUES	38 27.44' S	3 03.51' W	8.8	169	9.8	186.0	6.7	161.7	18669.9	2091.2
ABD	PRB	Vincent Riou / Sebastien JOSSE

The Southern Ocean is taking its toll on the Barcelona World Race Open 60s with the dismasting earlier today of Jeremie Beyou and Sidney Gavignet's Delta Dore(see the photo here), the third mast incident of the last week following on from BritAir losing her rig in the Transat Ecover BtoB and PRB breaking the top of hers at the weekend.

The upshot is that designers and teams may find themselves going back to the drawing board to reappraise their rig configurations. The rigs on Open 60s are typically ambitious, no two the same and the majority sporting rotating wingmasts. All three dismastings involved boats with this style of rig - PRB and BritAir have the deck spreader configuration invented by Yves Parlier in the mid-1990s, while Delta Dore has what appears to have a conventional rig set-up with three sets of spreaders, only that the spreaders articulate at the mast. Is it unclear yet why BritAir or Delta Dore have lost their rigs, but you have think that at a time when the class is getting ever more competitive and boats being pushed harder and harder that (touch wood) the choice of Alex 'record breaker' Thomson to go with a conventional fixed rig on Hugo Boss may have been a wise choice (touch wood again).

Back to the yacht race and the leaders are back into a stretching out phase, with Jean-Pierre Dick and Damian Foxall on Paprec-Virbac 2 adding 40 miles to their first place position ahead of Roland Jourdain and Jean-Luc Nelias on board Veolia Environnement, while third placed Hugo Boss is still just over 60 miles behind.

While Francis Joyon forges on ahead of the cold front so it has overtaken the Barcelona World Race front runners who have seen the wind back from the northwest around to the west or WSW, having the endure the confused sea state this shift throws up.

"We've had very strong winds, 40 knots, high seas, clouds, very dense, black clouds, it is really very impressive," said Jean-Pierre Dick yesterday prior to the front passing through. "We are trying to make sure that everything is under control and in a few hours we hope to be out of this because it really is quite hard on the boat."

Roland Jourdain confirmed: "We are trying to limit our speed. It's easy to get going too fast - say 24 or 25 knots. That's when we back off in order to manage the boat as well as possible...there is always someone on deck to take a reef in or ease the sheet."

At the back of the fleet the boats still to pass South Africa have an altogether different weather situation - upwind to the north of a high pressure system.

"We started sailing upwind yesterday afternoon at around 18:00 and since then we have been close-hauled at 11 knots with winds of between 25 and 34 knots - now we are using the starboard water ballast and the leeward rudder, the keel at 100% to windward the mast at 55 degrees, two reefs and the solent jib," wrote Mutua Madrileña skipper Javier Sansó yesterday. "We have to go down to 45°S to find downwind conditions again because further north there are only attacking easterlies. And all the while the boat is slamming around so much it could shake the fillings from your teeth. I don't know if you can imagine what a southerly wind in this part of the planet really means; the Southerly comes straight from the Antarctic; the outside air temperature is 9 degrees and the water 12, which rains down like piercing needles on our faces. The option of becoming a shepherd and having my little herd of sheep under the olive trees is becoming stronger by the day."

Meanwhile, PRB, following their mast breakage have officially retired from the Barcelona World Race. Behind them, Estrella Damm is also heading to Cape Town - with an ETA of Wednesday evening - where its shore team is preparing to repair her rudder in an effort to get the boat back onto the race course as quickly as possible.