Bulletin: 11th November 2006

Asthmatic trade winds!

For the past two days, Sill-Véolia has looked to be the sure winner with a comfortable lead, but a playful weather situation kept the suspense palpable right to the end. The suspense has peaked over the past 24 hours of racing, with Jean Le Cam coming back to within 2 miles of Roland Jourdain’s boat. In the end, head to head, the advantage went to Sill-Véolia, which crossed the finish line less than 30 minutes ahead of VM-Matériaux.

The area surrounding the island is full of pitfalls and around sixty miles from the finish, with a 45 mile deficit on Brit-Air at the noon ranking, it was impossible for Dominique to snatch back 4th place from Armel Le Cleac’h. There are still numerous zones without wind and the trade winds are conspicuous by their absence. By day, the island of Guadeloupe is particularly calm, and on what is likely to be Dominique’s last at sea, it promises to be a long one… "I’m preparing to spend a fair amount of time downwind of the island. It reminds me of the Bol d’Or", joked the skipper when contacted by the Press Centre at noon. "I’m starting to be very keen to finish now…"

At noon, the skipper of TEMENOS II was benefiting from a small vein of wind, which was enabling the monohull to slip along on glassy seas at 6 knots. This is almost a luxury after dropping below 3 knots on several occasions over the past three days. "The trade winds are asthmatic. I’ve had a small puff of air with me since this morning and I’m hoping it will hold out as long as possible until the finish. The forecast promises thermal winds, but they’re very random."

The rain squalls punctuating the day aren’t putting the skipper off though. "They’re really refreshing!"

Aboard TEMENOS II, the rhythm of manœuvres is inversely proportional to the wind strength. "I’ve gybed 6 times in the past four hours. My first contact since the start came today when some fishermen came to meet the boat.”

At the 1600 hour ranking (French time), TEMENOS II was making slow progress, though she was racking up 3 more knots than Brit-Air which was likely trapped in a wind shadow from the sulphur mine culminating at 1467 metres. Just an hour later, Brit-Air crossed the line in 4th place and TEMENOS II is likely to finish in around one or two hours’ time.