As promised, an update from Phil Sharp. On day ten they are up to 6th place and plenty of race track left.
Day 10
You know you’ve been offshore for a while when you start to forget what day of the week it is. A bit like when you’re on holiday, but where we are now is actually far from a holiday. We are pushing really hard all the time in power reaching conditions and staying focused is crucial at a time like this and not ourselves get too relaxed and into the swing of things as it were. Since yesterday, for the first time in the race we’ve made big gains on the leader, Financo, having reduced his lead from over 80 miles to 55 from this morning’s positions, and now in 6th place! We are polling just ahead of Gildas Morvan and Jean le Cam now, racing Circle Vert, who have taken a more southerly option and have ended up in lighter winds than us. Obviously with Morvan being my big rival in the Route du Rhum it would be great to keep him behind us again until the finish but this is going to be far from easy since there is still 2000 miles left to go and anything can happen in this crazy sport dictated by what forces nature throws at us.
Last night was fairly interesting as it was really dark with a confused sea, chucking the boat off balance the whole time. Before I took over for my shift I decided to keep things as dark as possible below decks when preparing a midnight meal, which didn’t get off to the best of starts when I managed to pour boiling water all over my leg. This was just before I was about to put my foulies on as well. So when I dived into the boats first aid box which has pretty much every drug and medicine offered in a Concarneau pharmacy, it was sods law that the burn cream was missing! I went in search for more drugs and creams in the boat but all I could find was a very large bag of white pills in the food bag. According to David this is to ´relieve stress´ in heavy conditions, put together by Czech nutritionalists apparently, that can make a very traumatic passage, such as sailing with spinnaker up in 35kts+ of wind, turn into a walk in the park, with a feeling of euphoria from time to time (all according to David)… Anyway I’ve decided my burn is good enough excuse to take some tonight as we try to cut more mileage out of the leaders.
The big weather news of this race is that its going to be a wet upwind slog across the Atlantic over the next week, and we are far from easy downwind sailing in the trade winds unfortunately. I had even got my Tilly Hat out ready to go but have reluctantly bagged it away again. We are heading towards a low pressure system and hope to tack on the shift tomorrow morning and spend as much as 4 days hard on the wind, watching those hard miles tick down slowly but intensely towards St Barts.
Vitoria, Espirito Santo, Brasil – In an anticlimactic fifth and final match where a dying breeze found rival Bjorn Hansen (SWE) on the wrong side of a huge shift, Italian Paolo Cian and his Team Shosholoza managed to navigate through the zephyrs and win the 2008 Brasil Sailing Cup. For their efforts, Cian and his crew of Pierluigi Fornelli, Antar Vigma, Pierluigi De Felice, and Teva Plichard won the top prize of US$36,000 of the $150,000 total purse in this first event of the 2008 World Match Racing Tour.
Final Results:
1. Paolo Cian – $36,000
2. Bjorn Hansen – $21,000
3. Ian Williams – $18,000
4. Magnus Holmberg – $15,000
5= Torvar Mirsky – $13,500
5= Mattias Rahm – $13,500
7. Pierre Antoine Morvan – $10,500
8. Peter Wibroe – $9000
9. Adam Minoprio – $7500
10. Henrique Haddad – $6000
11. Juan Grimalidi
12. Daniel Glomb
During a recent press day, Alinghi released the following time line for the design, construction and testing of their multihull for the 33rd Americas Cup. According to their document the process will take 15 month from design office to race course. With the court ruling still pending, Alinghi must be praying that Judge Cahn reads the sailing press. Why else release a document like this?
If the DoG fight turns out to be as spectacular as it promises to be (well, as soon as it get out of the courts and onto the water anyway), the general public may not be interested in watching 80 -90 odd foot led mines digging enormous holes in the ocean. Is this the future? Enjoy.
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Phil Sharp of ‘Comeback King’ fame in the 2005 Mini Transat, and winner of the 2006 Route du Rhum is currently engaged in the Transat AG2R. Three days into this double handed race to St. Barth in the Caribbean, Phil and co-skipper David Krizek are currently in 17th place, 23nm behind race leader ‘Financo’, but in a very strong Westerly position. We will keep you posted.
This morning at 0700, Desafio Espanol launched their brand new Vrolijk Designed TP52, putting her along side their GP 42, which spent the winter in their base undergoing a refit. The TP52 team led by John Cuttler will now undergo sea trails in Valencia before heading down to Alicante to compete in the first regatta of the AUDI Medcup starting May 12.
