Route de Rhum
    Laurent Bourgnon, sailing his 60 foot trimaran
Primagaz, is the winner of the 1998 edition of the Route
de Rhum. As he also was the winner of the 1994 Rhum, he
is now the first 2 time winner in the events history.
    Primagaz sailed the course in a time of 12 days,
8 hours, 41 minutes and 6 seconds an average of 11.91 knots.
This time is a new record by by 1 day, 21 hours, 47 minutes
and 23 seconds. Bourgnon set the record in 1994.
    Second was Alain Gautier 3 hours back of Primaagaz.
3rd was Frank Camas sailing Groupama 11 hours out of 1st.
    Francis Joyon on Banque Populaire finished 6th in
an interesting way. His actual finish was 1 day 2
hours behind Bourgnon.
    What is interesting that Joyon averaged 15.31
knots on the water. Hwoever, he sailed 4988 miles to
Bourgnon's 4311 miles, a difference of 677 miles.
    The Route de Rhum monohulls are still all at sea.
Leading is Thomas Coville on Aquitaine Innovation.
Coville is 298 miles from the finish. 2nd is Raphael
Dinelli sailing a new Open 60 Sodebo. Dinelli
is 386 miles out of Guadaloupe. 3rd is Jean
Luc Van Den Heede on board Algimouss 401 miles out.
    Still leading Class II of monohulls is Kingfisher
and Ellen Macarthur. Kingfisher is 605 miles from
finishing.
    Kingfisher has had a crossing of one extreme test
after another. The latest test involves Kingfisher's keel.
    What happened is that the swing keels hydraulic system
failed. This allowed the keel to flail from side to side.
As Ellen investigated she found that one of the hydraulic
pipes furthest from the keel itself had ruptured, hence a
loss of oil pressure and a loss of control on the keel.
    As a first step in repairing the keel she blocked
the keel so it was in the middle. This left it straight
up and down like a normal keel.
    This made things safe, but not fast, as Ellen
Macarthur commented: "I have the lost the power that
the swing keel gives you. She's a different boat
without this."
    Later Ellen decied she really did need the keel
to cant. She described the manual canting of the keel
this way: "A complicated and delicate procedure of
moving the keel at 1 degree at a time, and draining
off the 'back fluid' ino a container, then replacing
it in the reservoir. 4 hrs later I now have a keel
which is very much 'canted', only half way,
but enough to make the world of difference to her motion."
    Currently Kingfisher is sailing in frustating light
air downwind conditions. Ellen describes it this way:
"Great to have wind even if its only 10 knots. I've
gybed 8 times last night, and 4 times this morning.
Its enough to drive you crazy. Each gybe takes 12
minutes now (I've been working on it). This may seem
long for inshore sailor, but think through all the
moves. This started as 24 minutes, I made it a target
to work on."
    For more see either http://www.offshorechallenges.com
or http://www.rhum.org/eng.htm