Waiting for the rock 'n' roll to start again

The Banque Populaire crew wait for the depression that will take them to Cape Horn

Chart above courtesy of Expedition/Tasman Bay Navigation Systems and PredictWind

14 knots...yes, just 14 knots. This is the fourth lowest hourly speed snapshot we have seen so far on Banque Populaire since she left on her Jules Verne Trophy attempt on 22 November. This is due to her erring into the dissolving area of high pressure to her east, but will also allow Loick Peyron's crew some down time before the rock 'n' roll starts again with the onset of the next depression.

Over the course of today the depression currently to the west of New Zealand spawns a new system to the south of New Zealand (you can already see it forming in the chartlet above) which moves rapidly southeast. The Banque Populaire crew is waiting for the strong northwesterlies preceding this which will allow them to start hitting the big numbers again later today. This depression - okay it merges with another on Saturday - looks set to power Banque Populaire all the way to Cape Horn, where she should arrive sometime on Monday.

Yesterday crewman Pierre-Yves Moreau spoke about life on board: "This is the dark for us, but the nights are very short, and while the brightness comes down a lot it doesn't get completely dark. After two difficult days off South Australia it is a bit calmer today. We have plunged south and we are now south of New Zealand. The sea was much calmer and it feels really good. Today, the day was quite sunny and it heats up quickly. We find it relatively warm, we can remove our gloves. We have layers of clothes on, and thermal caps but the priority is to keep our gloves dry. We try to keep our belongings from getting damp and the best way to do that is to sleep with them. The Southern Ocean seems very long, or at least in my case, I am beginning to find it long. But everything is going well on board."