Yvan Zedda
The idea is to get back to France as quickly as possible: the crew's up for that and if we can set off again before the end of January then it's still feasible to make a new attempt ...
Monday 16 November 2009 19:30 GMT
Franck Cammas and his nine crew aboard the giant trimaran Groupama 3 have abandoned their quest to claim the Jules Verne Trophy after sustaining damage. The boat is now headed to Cape Town for repairs.
The damage happened in the early hours of Monday morning in powerful north-easterly winds and rough seas. The crew had been pushing to stay in the right sector of the warm front in order to drop down towards the Cape of Good Hope.
The resulting weakness in the bulkhead caused the windward float to fissure and, in light of the sizeable damage, the crew immediately stopped the boat and concluded that it would be necessary to abandon the record attempt.
Explaning the situation, Cammas said: "We'd spent the night sailing fast to stay ahead of the front and this morning Thomas Coville and Bruno Jeanjean were on deck when they heard a big 'crack': there was a small fissure between the aft beam and the port float. Conditions were really bouncy: we came to a standstill with the wind right on our tail so as to be able to open the hatch and get down inside the float.
"Part of the section between the beam and the float level with the bulkhead had become detached. As such the structural integrity was reduced by at least half. It is impossible to envisage effecting repairs at sea due to the motion.
"At the moment we're still being shaken about: there was 35 knots of wind on the beam at the moment the incident occurred and just now, we've been caught up by the front so we've got 40 knots of breeze.
"We're going to draw up a route to avoid having too much wind and excessive waves. We're heading south to let the second low pass by us tonight and then we'll head off towards Cape Town tomorrow morning (Tuesday).
"The idea then is to get back to France as quickly as possible: the crew's up for that and if we can set off again before the end of January then it's still feasible to make a new attempt."
The crew have decided to make for Cape Town, 1,700 miles away, to make a full assessment of the damage. The boat has slowed considerably and it will take a week's sailing for Groupama 3 to tie up to the dock and then be repaired prior to heading north again bound for France.
Over the 10 and half days of the journey to date, Groupama 3 had racked up over 700 miles on her way down the north Atlantic and by considerably improving on her own reference time between Ushant and the equator: 5 days 15 hours 23 minutes.
At the point the damage occurred, Groupama 3 held had a 345-mile lead over Jules Verne record-holder Orange 2 (over half a day) and was making headway at an average speed in excess of 25 knots, on a direct course towards the Kerguelen archipelago.
Having hooked onto a Brazilian low on Sunday, after a particularly slow weekend, Cammas and his crew were fast approaching the Roaring Forties.
Frenchman Cammas and Groupama recently announced their participation in the next two editions of the Volvo Ocean Race.