The duel between the Spanish team and the French team skippered by Charles Caudrelier is like a match race under the toughest conditions imaginable. Both teams have been battling it out since the start, the lead changes back and forth and the slightest mistake is immediately penalised by the opponent.
How tiring that is, proves a video of the Dongfeng team which shows what this actually means in concrete terms. In it, navigator Pascal Bidégorry announces the next night-time jibe over the ship's loudspeakers. The sailors on the free watch then visibly struggle to get out of their bunks, their faces showing the omnipresent fatigue. Then they all bundle up for the manoeuvre in an icy cold wind with an air temperature of around 8 degrees and a water temperature of 5 to 7 degrees - and that's important, as spray sweeps over the deck almost non-stop. You can well imagine the wind chill factor.
After "Mapfre" had pushed hard and consistently to the limit over the last few days, always staying at the southern ice limit, as the wind is somewhat stronger there, the crew jibed no less than 16 times in less than eight hours - that is, a manoeuvre every 30 minutes. And all this at night between 10 o'clock in the evening and six o'clock in the morning. After each gybe, the equipment is manoeuvred below deck and on deck to the new windward side. "Dongfeng" set half as many jibes, sailed further north - and lost the lead. Worse still, the lead of just under 15 nautical miles turned into a deficit of around 30 miles. Truly a night of long knives for the French.
One is almost inclined to believe that Caudrelier's team had a minor technical problem, which it did not disclose for tactical reasons, but perhaps the crew was simply completely exhausted. If this is not the case, however, it would be the second serious tactical blunder by Pascal Bidégorry, who already set the decisive gybe on the way to Cape Town on the second leg just under an hour too late and thus let the Spaniards past. Now the French have gone into "stealth mode", hiding their position for 24 hours, perhaps also to try out a tactical alternative.
There are now just under 1000 nautical miles left for the leading duo to Melbourne, and it looks like it will be a drag race for them in the stable wind of a low. Both crews will be relieved to hear this; no-one wants the kind of doldrums that threaten the last two or three teams to be overtaken by a high. Nevertheless, the approach to Melbourne is tactically quite tricky. Shortly before the finish there can be up to five knots of current, depending on the time and tide of arrival.
Further back in the field, another duel has come to a head: Team "Vestas" and "Brunel" are engaged in a thrilling battle for third place. Only 22 nautical miles separate the boats, which, like the leaders, now have only one thing on their minds in the fresh wind at around 22 knots: perfect VMG sailing. There was good news for skipper Bouwe Bekking yesterday: crew member Annie Lush, who was thrown against the grinder by a wave and injured her leg, is back on deck. She had to spend two days in her bunk pumped full of painkillers and was absent from the manoeuvres.
Fans of the race should therefore keep an eye on the PC on Christmas Day; the leading duo will probably arrive on 24 December, the two teams behind them probably not until 25 December. It will be a race against the clock for the "Akzo Nobel" team. The ETA is currently set for 28 December; the sailors would then have just three to four days to repair the temporary damage to the mast track of the mainsail.
Andreas Fritsch
Editor Travel
