Amory Ross
Membre de l'équipe médias
POSITION : 170 milles à l'est de Campos au Brésil
VITESSE DU VENT : 17 4 nœuds
VITESSE DU BATEAU : 19 7 nœuds
CAP : 038 degrés
DISTANCE À PARCOURIR JUSQU'À L'ÉQUATEUR : 1 500 milles
Ces milles-là sont faciles à parcourir. Avec une mer quasiment plate, un vent de 16 nœuds et une vitesse de navigation de 20 nœuds, nous ne pouvons nous plaindre que de la température qui augmente. Dans ces conditions, peu d'efforts sont nécessaires pour s'assurer que notre Mar Mostro fende les eaux. Le bateau se meut sans effort, et s'il n'y avait pas les occasionnelles projections le long du bastingage dues à la vitesse, il serait difficile d'apprécier l'allure à laquelle nous nous déplaçons réellement. Life on deck is quiet, calm, and dry, and you begin to see the potential in these boats when they’re hitting their stride. A puff hits and instead of heeling over, they accelerate rapidly: 16, 17, 18, 19…it doesn’t take much to make the numbers climb!
It feels like we've only had a handful of these days over the length of this race, but the reward is always worth the wait. After all we've been through, some of the miles we've had to earn in utter misery, spent slamming upwind in gale force winds, slatting for days under clouds, slowing the boat down in Southern Ocean waves, it's great watching progress pile up in relative comfort. We're back to having Parmesan cheese with salami slices, beef jerky, and an ever-abundant collection of chocolate, but this time it's all served on deck.
Our middle-of-the-road position seems to have worked all right, too. We haven't fallen into the inshore duo of CAMPER and Abu Dhabi who are sailing in stronger winds, and we haven't lost much to Groupama and Telefónica, further offshore in less current. We're still more or less in between the two packs and closing quickly on the ridge we need to pass to reach the trade winds. It's around 100 miles until the front, and then another 50 or so to the ridge, and the first boat to push through both of those gets a much-wanted jump start home to the north.
- Amory
Amory Ross
Membre de l'équipe médias
PUMA Ocean Racing soutenu par BERG
"Who forgot the wasabi and soy sauce? Perfect fishing conditions out here...shame we're trying to go yachting." - Shannon Falcone
Amory Ross