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Chilling weather
The weather files leave little room for optimism. From Thursday evening, a huge low-pressure system is set to push into the Bay of Biscay and hug the coasts of Portugal and Spain, generating particularly severe conditions.
- 45 to 50 knots of wind,
- gusts in excess of 55 knots,
- a forecast swell of 8 to 9 meters, with a period of around 12 seconds, at the edge of the continental shelf.
Conditions are unlikely to ease until Saturday afternoon, far too late for a crew who must cross the line between Ushant and Cape Lizard before 8:30pm on Sunday to beat the reference time set by Francis Joyon and IDEC Sport in 2017.
An advance... but is it enough?
Ironically, Sodebo Ultim 3 still has a comfortable 800-mile lead over IDEC Sport, which could even increase slightly over the next 24 hours, as the trimaran is currently making headway abeam in the NE trade winds.
But this lead, acquired at the cost of a rarely favorable round-the-world âeuro race that was far more complicated than IDEC's in 2017 âeuros, could be swept away in a matter of hours in the North Atlantic.
"Beyond that, we've never done... "
The question is no longer whether they'll go, but how manageable it is.
" 45 knots of wind and 6 metres of waves, we can manage without too much difficulty acknowledges those involved in the project. Beyond that, we've never done it. And this is beyond... "
Thomas Coville and his six crew know what lies ahead. They also know that after more than 30 days of fighting, it's unthinkable to give up with 48 hours to go without taking their chances.
This situation is reminiscent of that experienced by Peter Blake and his crew aboard Enza during their successful attempt in 1994. While the New Zealand crew had a comfortable lead over the record held by Bruno Peyron on Commodore Explorer, Enza was faced with a huge cartridge with 24 hours to go. With a pocket handkerchief at the bow, the giant catamaran even had to be fitted with drag lines to reduce its speed and limit the risk of running aground.
Either Sodebo manages to get through the lion's den and reach Ushant on time, at the end of an extraordinary finale.
Either the Atlantic will have, once again, reminded us that it remains the only true judge of the peace.
