Day 9 - a wild Trade Wind ride to the West
Approaching the end of their ninth day at sea, and with around three-and-a-half days to go to the finish at Martinique, Francesca Clapcich and Will Harris are enjoying a wild Trade Wind ride onboard 11th Hour Racing.
Still firmly established in third position at the head of the 18-strong IMOCA fleet, Francesca and Will have had another useful 24 hours. At 54 miles behind the leader Charal, they have lost a few miles, but crucially, they still have a substantial cushion over fourth-placed Allagrande MAPEI, 47 miles astern.
After that the numbers increase, with Teamwork-Team SNEF in fifth position now around 120 miles behind 11th Hour Racing.
With 1,480 miles to go, boatspeeds are consistently in the mid-to-high 20s. 11th Hour Racing has averaged an incredible 26.7 knots over the last 24 hours, meaning it’s a white knuckle ride for Francesca and Will, with lots of impacts and noise, making it hard to move about and to sleep when off-watch.
This time it was Will’s turn to give us an update from onboard.
“We are still in full ‘send’ mode at the moment,” he said in an audio message with the hull and rig banging and howling in the background. “Full throttle and it’s a total speed race. We are sailing out of the Azores High which has re-established itself nicely, and that’s giving us this good Trade Wind flow in the first half of this Trade Wind sailing …”
And he described the challenge of sailing fast in these sorts of conditions with the ever-present danger of the boat broaching, which has happened twice so far, but with no adverse consequences for the rig or sails.
“We are sort of hanging in the mix with the [top-three] which we’re happy about,” Will continued. “It’s not easy. It’s a lot of work – the boat’s on the edge the whole time, so we’ve got to be really keeping on our toes, making sure we don’t wipe out. It’s happened a couple of times already but nothing really major. And yeah, keep pushing to Martinique – about three-and-a-half days to go, so a very quick Atlantic crossing.”
Boatspeed is about constant trimming and adjustments to the set-up and in this phase of the race, things are not being helped by a rolling swell from the north left over from Hurricane Melissa. Will says this is making it harder to sail the boat fast and harder to live onboard.
Overall the Trades look strong and well-established to the finish, but there are lighter patches to avoid and changes in wind direction to manage. “The next thing that’s going to happen is that we are going to have to start playing the rotation of the wind,” explained Will. “The wind is going to slowly start turning to the right and we are all going to get lifted up towards the north. And it’s about choosing when we want to gybe, how we want to play the shift versus trying to stay south where there’s more pressure.”
Ed Gorman