Bound for Glory – Groupama and Gitana
Two giant mulithulls continue to blast south through the Atlantic as you read this. One is Franck Cammas’ 105-ft trimaran Groupama 3. The other is Gitana 13, the 110-ft cat skippered by Lionel Lemonchois. The former is bound nonstop round the world from Ushant to Ushant in the Trophée Jules Verne. The latter is bound from New York to San Francisco. Both are ‘bound for glory’ in the pursuit of new sailing records.
Groupama 3 departed on January 24 and has been stretching out a lead from the very start over current Jules Verne record holder, Bruno Peyron’s 125-ft cat Orange II, which set the current record of 50 days, 16 hours in 2005. Groupama 3 has already broken the Ushant-Equator mark (6 days, 6 hours), and yesterday reeled off 685 miles (28.5-knot average) in 24 hours. She is currently running 680 miles ahead Orange II’s pace in her 28,000-mile run around the globe.
At last report this morning, Groupama 3 had passed 20°S and was starting to bend left, surfing the tradewinds of the St. Helena High toward Cape Town and beyond. For the most up-to-date reports, log onto www.cammas-groupama.com/en/index.jsp.
Meanwhile, over off Argentina, Gitana 13 is lining up for one of the trickiest sections of their 14,000-mile run from New York to San Francsico: rounding Cape Horn. The big cat, just two weeks out of the Big Apple, was also hitting speeds into the mid-20s yesterday, but near the end of the day, they dropped below 10 knots as Lemonchois and his nine-man crew negotiated a minefield of weather systems on the way to Tierra del Fuego. At last report yesterday, they were 25 miles offshore, not far from Cape Blanco, Argentina, in dead calm. By now, they should be riding a strong north wind southward as fast as possible. If all goes as planned, G-13 should make it through the Lemaire Channel tonight.
Old Cape Stiff won’t be so easy. The major roadblock for sailors for centuries could easily play havoc with one more sailboat. “At this point, we’re not sure we’ll be able to make it around Cape Horn on our first go,” writes Lemonchois in his online log. “The window is very narrow, and given the forecast of strong winds, if we don’t take it Saturday morning, we may have to take shelter until 4 February.”
For more: www.gitana-team.com/en/gitana10/homepage.asp