Groupama 3 Losing Breeze, Maybe Lead

Franck Cammas and the rest of the 10-man crew aboard Groupama 3 are at risk of losing the southern ocean front they’ve been riding and the lead they’ve built in their Jules Verne Record attempt. Due to a series of weather-induced jibes in the South Atlantic, Groupama 3 has only gained about two-and-a-half hours on Orange II‘s 2005 record pace since the equator. Now the team is faced with an unfavorable forecast and the likelihood that within the next two days, they will lose up to as much as a day-and-a-half against Orange II‘s pace.

"A high pressure system is climbing up on us!" Cammas relayed over the satphone. "We won’t have enough speed to get ahead of it . . ."

A depression to the west of the St. Helena High has forced the high in a southeasterly direction toward Groupama 3, threatening to smother the 105-ft trimaran with an area of little breeze, while simultaneously pushing away the front they’ve been riding. Cammas and navigator Yves Parlier have elected to sail a more northerly route — they’re currently sailing just north of 40° S and just past the longitude of the Cape of Good Hope — in order to avoid the large seas and their undesirable angle to Groupama 3‘s south.

"Groupama 3 is rather quick in the light airs and the medium wind, and in the Atlantic we can play with the pressure and get close to the calm zones, but in the South, we’ll be better off seeking out the downwind conditions with a good sea state," Cammas said. "We won’t stop ourselves from going into the strong wind but it will have to be well oriented."

Groupama 3 reportedly cannot be driven as hard as the 125-ft catamaran Orange II in large waves. While Cammas did not allude to it, the possibility of icebergs, which Thomas Coville encountered at 48° S aboard his 105-ft trimaran Sodeb’O during his recently aborted solo record attempt, could also be weighing on the minds of Cammas and Parlier.

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