Joyon May be a Go
After waiting for more than a month for an opening in the weather, Francis Joyon is now ready in New York, where it may well be possible for him to set sail within the next 24 hours. Indeed, his router, Jean-Yves Bernot, confirmed to us in that a decent weather system looks like it may be on the horizon.
The skies seem finally to be clearing in front of the IDEC trimaran, signalling the (possible) end to her stand-by period. Chasing after records can easily become a long game of patience, which is bad news for those yachtsmen, who are in a hurry.
However, it would appear that a start is indeed not far off this time. Jean-Yves Bernot: «It may be tomorrow, as a small low-pressure area is moving in. What is important now is to watch how it develops. Once we start, the conditions will be good, but Francis will nevertheless have to manage to cover the 100 miles or so separating him from the zone, where he will pick up the weather system. Lows are created around Cape Hatteras (North Carolina) and initially tend to be rather unpredictable, before they gradually settle down into a pattern. In theory, the wind conditions should be good – 25 to 30 knots, hardly any stronger – and in any case, we shall be setting out, if we see that the journey is possible within less than 7 days *.
With winds of this strength and a decent angle of 110° to 130° from the real wind, we can easily keep up an average of 20 knots without too much effort, but of course, we can’t expect perfect conditions throughout the whole trip. The main risk on this route is to see the flow drop off towards the finish, to the extent that we’ll be getting home in pre-summer conditions. Having said that, a lot of records have been broken in late June or early July. If tomorrow’s opportunity is confirmed, the start will take place around 6 p.m. GMT. If not, there will be other occasions later in the week or early next week. We’ll keep you informed…
The record live
Follow Francis Joyon’s progress on the website www.trimaran-idec.com, thanks to a position update every two hours and a comparison with the relative positions of Laurent Bourgnon, the record holder *.
Next press release tomorrow morning
*Atlantic record: the important facts and figures
Route from New York – The Lizard (theoretical distance calculated by the WSSRC) : 2925 miles (5417 km)
Single-handed record: Laurent Bourgnon, Primagaz, 7 days 2 hours 34 minutes 42 seconds
(June 1994)
24-hour single-handed record: Laurent Bourgnon, Primagaz, 540 miles (June 1994)
| This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 25th, 2005 at 12:20 pm and is filed under Main Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed. |
