Back on track

Geronimo continues her relentless pace, as she today passed New Zealand

Day 31	Position	24hr run	Av speed
Geronimo	52°46S 165°16E	504	21.04
Orange	50°45S 134°54E	408	16.98

Position at 15:00 GMT today: 54°46S - 171°06E
Distance travelled in 12 hours : 238 nautical miles
Average speed over the last 12 hours: 19,88 knots


Over the last 24 hours Geronimo, the Cap Gemini and Schneider Electric sponsored trimaran has continued to forge southeast and is now back in the optimum scenario - riding the northwesterlies in the northeastern quadrant of a Southern Ocean depression. It is likely that skipper Olivier de Kersauson will shortly resume a more easterly heading.

As Olivier de Kersauson predicted in yesterday's radio bulletin, Geronimo entered the Howling Fifties early this morning. The trimaran then passed south of Campbell Island, a small outpost in the Southern Ocean, south east of New Zealand, between the Antarctic and sub-tropical convergences. Campbell Island is now a nature reserve run by the New Zealand Department of Conservation and its 113.3 square kilometres are actually inhabited, if only by the staff of the weather station. "With a little imagination, you can just about hear Polynesian singing if you really strain your ears", mused the skipper as he passed south of New Zealand.

The Indian Ocean is now just a memory and its hostile seas and leaden skies forgotten as everyone looks forward to the beauty of the Pacific. "I really love this ocean and I've done a lot of sailing here. When we were on PenDuick IV with Eric Tabarly, we travelled every part of the Pacific, from the American West Coast to Australia. It's a world full of happy memories and real emotion. There's something about this place that has a real effect on me. In the Pacific, there's none of the raw violence and unremitting ugliness of the Indian Ocean. Of course, the weather can be violent here too, but it still retains a kind of elegance".

Schneider Electric watch leader, Didier Ragot, also feels a sense of relief on leaving the Indian Ocean behind. "The last few hours there were particularly terrible. None of us have ever seen the Indian Ocean quite like that. The boat took a bit of a pounding and so did the crew: I'm sure that any other boat would have been in real trouble. Although the winters here are pretty difficult to handle, we were taken rather by surprise at this time of year. But you have to do the best you can. And there were quite a few surprises for those of us at the helm: you'd be trying to negotiate a breaking wave and suddenly there'd be another one coming out of nowhere and all hell would break loose. It was a bit stressful at times. The sea is much more predictable now and we're beginning to get some great sailing! Naturally, we're beginning to feel fatigue set in, and the cold doesn't help. It freezes your hands, which means that manoeuvres take a bit longer, but that's OK. As far as the boat is concerned, the only surprises we've had have been good ones. Everything we've found out about the trimaran has been positive. It's a fantastic experience!".

At 15:00 GMT today, the boat was just approaching 55° south (54°46S) and had maintained an average speed of almost 20 knots since the start of the day.