Groupama 3 Powers Home

As of a day ago, Franck Cammas’ 105-ft trimaran Groupama 3 had spent as much time behind the pace of the Jules Verne Trophy holder as she had in front of it. But an improving weather situation and fast transit of the ridge of the Azores High have translated into a lead of over 400 miles against the ghost of Bruno Peyron’s 50d, 16h, 20m record run aboard the 125-ft maxi cat Orange 2 in ’05. Better yet, the forecasts are showing an unimpeded run to the Ushant finish in a southwesterly breeze with its concomitant, benign sea state — critical to the speed threshhold of the giant multihull. The 10-man crew — which includes the Bay Area’s Stan Honey at the nav station — were anticipating a tougher traverse of the ridge.

"We’re happy to be back in the breeze because things were still pretty tricky on Tuesday, close to the axis of a ridge of high pressure," Cammas said. "The GRIB files had us believe that we could be swallowed up by the light breeze of this high pressure, which might have led to us being stuck for hours or even days! In fact, the night proved windier than forecast and we were able to make good our escape via the north."

Now Groupama 3 will have to negotiate the depression that the crew is banking on pushing them all the way home to a Saturday finish.

"Right now, we’re going to have to deal with a depression, which we hope we’ll be able to play with as far as the finish," Cammas said. "It’s going to be windy with quite a lot of gybes to perform. In fact we’re tackling our first maneuver right now. The maneuvers are very smooth after 45 days, but it’s still a tricky moment as it’s in situations such as these that you can damage material. We have to stay on the pace now and not take any risks, however we can do it without forcing ourselves to stay in the low. We’re confident about the condition of the gear because we’ve preserved the boat throughout, but we’ll be attacking a similar phase to that of the Southern Ocean."