Bulletin: 8th December

The imminent arrival of a depression

As the days go by, the competitors in the Barcelona World Race have endured mixed fortunes. Yesterday we celebrated the establishing of a new record aboard Hugo Boss, and today we're lamenting the retirement of PRB, whose masthead has broken and the damage is so severe that the crew have been forced to withdraw from the competition.

Aboard TEMENOS II, Michèle and Dominique were awaiting the imminent arrival of the depression. The latter, progressing a little slower than forecast, should concern the tandem over the course of the afternoon. Everything is ready aboard as Dominique confirmed when contacted early this afternoon.

“The depression has kicked in later than forecast; the weather models announced them last night but its progress has slowed a little. The biggest gale should pass to the South of us, but we’re still expecting some gusts of 40 knots. We’ve reduced to the fourth reef and put the storm sail in place.

Last night the wind was unstable, dropping to 15 knots in places. Some little light zones are being created between the two fronts. The lack of large gennaker has penalised us, but it did enable us to have a fairly good night and to be able to rest a little in view of the gales.

For the matter of trajectory we are trying to get as far South as possible, and that isn't giving us the best angle in relation to the wind. After this depression there are some high pressure zones which will settle over the area; this is why we’re trying to drop South as far as possible.”

Inevitably the lack of large gennaker is penalising the performance of the monohull, but Michèle and Dominique will have to wait a bit longer before they can get the sail back out of the sail locker. The manœuvre is a tricky one, requiring virtually no wind.

“We’ll have to get the sail right out, finish unrolling it on deck and hoist it again in order to be able to add some pre-stressing. It's a manœuvre which will require some time as we will have more than 300 square metres on the deck, without protection, so we really can’t have any wind that day.”

Such calms may well lie ahead of the tandem if they don't manage to escape the coming high pressure, but it’s out of the question nevertheless for Dominique to go and lie in ambush in the calm zones, the risk of being trapped for several days on end much too great.