Day 08, Saturday December 12, 1998

Autissier's PRB

Isabelle was flying. She widened her gap on Soldini by 18 miles, on Thiercelin by 26 miles, on Golding only by 2 miles but she made 112 miles more than Hall. She already altered her course after the agreement on the waypoint but was not able to keep the direction as she would wish. She emailed: "I am now on a heading of... 45 degrees! Given our collective decision, I can't do any better than that because the wind is still blowing from the west-southwest (I hope for not too much longer). It had dropped somewhat in the last hour, but is sure to pick up again soon. The waypoint we chose will make me lose 50 to 100 miles in relation to the other boats, since I was the furthest one south. So it will probably put me back in third or fourth place. I don't regret it, though. I think some things are more important than racing. We'll see about catching up later. The weather is still gray, damp, and cold."

Hall's Garmore Investmen Management
Josh Hall was able to describe his new problems: "Hi guys, taking the rather losing NE gybe to fetch our new waypoint. Have had a few problems in past 24hrs - port rudder bearing leaking badly (I'm good at bailing); port rudder spun round 10 degrees on quadrant... can straighten in lighter conditions; one pilot down, can fix it and have two spares; headboard car blew off mast track and has slightly damaged track, have replaced car with couple of spares I had but will need to run with 3 reefs in main until conditions allow me up rig with my big file to do a bit of track re-modeling. So, a regular southern ocean experience unfolds - damage happens so quickly down here, thank goodness we are only 5000 miles from the next service station!!!!"

Thiercelin's Somewhere © Photo Marek Slodownik

Thiercelin greatly improved his position. Yesterday he was in fourth place 11 miles behind Golding and 24 hours later he positioned himself in front of Golding by 34 miles. Well back, Fedor Konioukhov was celebrating his 47th birthday. Konioukhov left Cape Town on 8 December. Leaving Table Bay in 40-knot winds he crash-gybed and broke three battens in his mainsail. Later he dropped his main down, checked the battens, and sent message that he will not return back. He was almost 2,000 miles behind Isabelle.

The leading Class II boats also agreed on the new waypoint. Jean-Pierre Mouligne wrote: "After consulting with Mike Garside, we decided to do the same thing and the fleet is now headed toward a way point at 46 South/70 East, which we will leave to starboard. The last 3 days have been easy sailing, almost downwind in 20 to 25 knots of westerly wind. The sky is completely overcast and I have not seen the sun in 3 days but the temperature is bearable and I am not missing my heater too badly at the moment. We left exactly a week ago and I have done 1545 miles toward Auckland an average of just over 220 miles per day. Looking at statistics, I see on my speedometer that the fastest I have had Cray Valley this week has been 26.9 knots!"

Michael Garside

Garside was almost 60 miles in front of Mouligne and judging by the contents his message it looked like he was getting into a closer relationship with his boat: "The inside of my boat is not covered in scrawled messages and graffiti from family and friends, like many others are. I'm much too pernickety to let anyone I know loose with an indelible marker on the walls of my seagoing cell. Jean-Marie Finot managed to get past me one night and left his mark on the main bulkhead - but he is Magellan Alpha's designer, and he is an artist. Quite tasteful, actually."

© Photo Richard Konkolski

Positions:

Class 1

Class 2

Copyright © Richard Konkolski
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