After her first night at sea onboard 11th Hour Racing, Francesca is holding eighth place in the 22-strong IMOCA fleet, as she continues downwind at a position about 100 nautical miles [115 miles | 185 kilometers] southwest of the Fastnet Rock on the southwest tip of Ireland.
Like the seven boats ahead of her, Francesca is heading northwest at speed - averaging over 20 knots [23 mph | 37 kmph] - and is approaching the moment when she will gybe to the southwest, a heading that will put 11th Hour Racing on a direct route to the north of the Azores islands.
In terms of her fleet position, Francesca is around 30 nautical miles [34.5 miles | 55 kilometers] behind the current leader - her fellow Italian skipper, Ambrogio Beccaria on Allagrande MAPEI. And she is just a couple of miles behind the sixth and seventh-placed boats - the German skipper Boris Herrmann on Malizia 4 and the Frenchman Sébastien Simon on Groupe Dubreuil-Air Caraïbes.
Speaking to us this morning on a voice note, the 11th Hour Racing skipper sounded a little disappointed to have lost position slightly on the group ahead in the hours of darkness. “Life onboard overnight is OK - definitely quite up and down,” she said. “I struggled quite a lot to find a good pace - a quite consistent pace - and that was a bit of a bummer because I lost a few miles with the group I had … they are just a little bit faster.”
In terms of her sail set-up, she said she was still using her J0, with the J3 staysail and full main, maximising the power in the strong east-northeasterly breeze that is being driven by a high pressure system based to the north of Ireland.
“The wind goes from like 18-22 knots at the moment,” she said. “It is slowly shifting, the rotation is slowly going to the right as expected around this high pressure. And I am just waiting for the good moment to gybe. It’s a bit too early yet. I don’t want to be the first one to gybe away and then miss the shift.”
She reflected on her first hours of her first Route du Rhum which saw a great send-off on Sunday from St Malo as 115 boats in six classes started their 3,540-mile journey to Guadeloupe. “It’s always quite intense the first night onboard in a big race like this - just trying to find a rhythm, which is not super-easy to be honest. Hopefully after the gybe everything will feel better,” she said.
© Eloi Stichelbaut | polaRYSE | 11th Hour Racing
Looking ahead, Francesca and her rivals will have to cross a stationary weather front running north-south at the Azores, and she has been watching the weather models closely to help her pick the right place to cross it. She mentioned that there are some discrepancies in the models about the best routing choice for this key moment in the race.
“It’s about a little bit of timing and the position of when to cross the front,” she explained. “The European model gets us just across, whereas the GFS has some gybes to stay in some winds still going kind of south. So at the moment I really want to focus on this next gybe…and then find the right spot to cut the front.”
She summarized a generally positive feeling onboard with no problems to report with the boat. “Everything is good on board - it’s just nice to be out here,” she said.