Jeremie Beyou crossed the Equator this Wednesday morning in sixth position shortly before 5am French time, after 9 days 16 hours and 49 minutes at sea. That is less than half a day (9h47) behind Alex Thomson - who set a new record at the Equator. Like the 5 sailors preceding him, the skipper of Maître Coq has dropped below the reference time held until then by Jean Le Cam (10 days and 11 hours).
A fine performance then, given the problems with the automatic pilots that the skipper has been experiencing over the past few days. "J ' i've had problems with my first two drivers almost since the start in Les Sables d'Olonne, they got worse during the passage through the Doldrums, leaving me without a pilot. I'm now using a third summary driver, which allows me to spend some time trying out repair modes. The rest of the time is spent at the helm. The whole team is helping me to try and find a solution to this electronic failure" explained Jeremie Beyou.
These pilot problems affect the boat's smooth running and compromise the podium for the skipper of Maître Coq. Indeed, the latter is less focused on his navigation as he spends a lot of time trying to detect the fault, failing to recover. And in spite of a third pilot, Jeremie Beyou is forced to adjust the boat much more to adapt it to the variations in the wind, as it is less efficient.
Finally, as the skipper is more efficient than the pilot, Jeremie spends a lot of time at the helm.
"Although the classification is compromised for the moment, I'm trying to stay in the race because the conditions are good and we're not desperate to find a solution", adds Jeremiah , 7 e at 3:00. Master CoQ is progressing off Brazil in trade winds that are gradually strengthening.
Updated November 18, 2016
After several days largely spent trying to repair his two recalcitrant automatic pilots, which forced him to use a third, more basic driver, Jérémie Beyou has been back in race mode since Thursday evening. The two main pilots appear to be stable once again, which will enable the skipper to lengthen his stride in a strengthening tradewind in the Southern hemisphere.
