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Image courtesy of Thierry Martinez. Michael Desjoyeux's PRB shows its mettle in a difficult squall. A win for the professor Michael Desjoyeux sprints to a Vendee Globe title in record time, while Ellen MacArthur nurses Kingfisher home with a broken forestay ... but first, a little history. February 11, 2001 Michael Desjoyeaux, the man with the radical boat, and a weather-wise sense, has won his first Vendee Globe in a record 93 days, three hours and 57 minutes - smashing Christophe Auguine's previous race record of 105 days and 20 hours and 33 minutes. He is also the first solo sailor to circle the globe in under 100 days. The prize couldn't have gone to someone more deserving. Kick-up rudders and other high-tech innovations are one thing, but sense of environment and a commitment to fast sailing are another. Never out of the running The professor, as he is called by his fans, was never positioned outside the top two. He shadowed Yves Parlier all the way down the Atlantic, stealing the lead only when Parlier sailed too far south and was snared in fickle winds between two low pressure cells. Desjoyeaux and Roland Jourdain slipped away to the north, riding a band of westerly winds circulating over the top of the low pressure centres. Of course, Parlier lost the top of his mast in a wild broach, while trying to reclaim a leading position and in hindsight, the calm, cool Desjoyeaux actually claimed the crown back then - half-way across the Indian Ocean. Really, there was no challenge to his leadership - although Jourdain nipped at his heels until half-way across the deep Southern Pacific, when he slipped back with halyard problems. His enforced stop in the lee of Cape Horn to fix that halyard didn't help. Enter 'Joan d'Arc' Ellen MacArthur, meanwhile, claimed a solid second place east of New Zealand. First Thomas Coville slipped back with gear failure and minor injury, then Jourdain faded with his difficulties. If MacArthur had problems, she coped. At Cape Horn she emailed her fans vowing to return to the Southern Ocean in '10 years' time' with no satellite phones or email access, just to do it for herself. It seemed those rare golden sunsets really were worth waiting for! Desjoyeux's lead at the Horn was a whopping 600 miles. His win seemed certain at that point, but the South Atlantic high saw to that! Desjoyeux hit the light airs at the vague centre of this high in peak summer and at its most southerly point. With a string of deep lows forming east of the Falklands - ready to propel the leading cats in The Race all the way to Australia - the high could only go north: It was literally shoved out of the way. As Desjoyeux crept north, so too did the high. Mammoth lead whittled away Little by little Desjoyeaux's mammoth lead whittled away. MacArthur, the only leading skipper to sail west of the Falklands, took advantage of north-west winds flowing over the top of an emerging low and sailed well north before becoming caught in the high pressure quagmire known. Like flies in a spider web, each skipper landed in the tar-pit of light and fluky winds and sailed with the high as it migrated north, away from a boisterous burst of activity in the Southern Ocean. Desjoyeux escaped the high first, reaching to the north in easterly trades. MacArthur was right behind him and a week later, while navigating the doldrums, MacArthur closed the gap to six miles and less before taking the lead, albeit briefly. Desjoyeux, always keeping an eye to weather, never worried. He had placed his boat to the west of MacArthur and found the north-east trades first. MacArthur later cursed herself for positioning Kingfisher too far east and blamed her error on being fast asleep after an active day atop her mast, battling against chafe. She played catch-up all the way home. Bad luck strikes for MacArthur Unfortunately, a container put paid to any real hopes of catching the professor. As if the mammoth tasks of global solo sailing weren't enough - major sail repair, climbing masts over and over to fix antennas and wind instruments, general maintenance, the list goes on - now MacArthur had to contend with a smashed dagger board and potentially damaged rudder. She soldiered on, hauling the starboard dagger out of its box with a halyard and placing it in the port slot every time she tacked. When the leading pair grabbed the tail end of a monster frontal system - the same system that propelled the newest Atlantic record holder Bernard Stamm across the line at the Lizard - Desjoyeux and MacArthur were just 14 miles apart. Within hours Desjoyeux had stretched that lead to more than 100 miles as he took advantage of the westerly wind shift and eased sheets The likelihood of MacArthur ever catching the professor looked slim, considering they were both in the same weather system on boats with similar downwind performance. But just to make sure, Kingfisher's genoa halyard sheared, and MacArthur was left praying for strong winds all the way home. Without her light airs pulling sail, she quickly lost miles to Desjoyeux and his win was sealed - all bar total disaster. Funny thing, MacArthur emailed her team just before the halyard broke saying how she would miss her ocean routine once ashore. "It will be so weird to actually finish," she told race headquarters. "My life is here, home is on board Kingfisher with water surrounding us. I just adore being at sea and to suddenly stop this will not be easy at all. I really don¹t want to stop. I really want to just see my family, my friends, the Kingfisher team, my dog, who I miss a lot." With the broken halyard came resignation. During one interview she was asked to state her tactics. "How
does that effect your strategy between now and the finish?" Richard
Simmonds asked by satellite phone. Battle for third place continues Meanwhile, Roland Jourdain and Marc Thiercelin battle it out with each on taking different routes through and around the North Atlantic high. Both skippers missed the cold front grabbed by Desjoyeux and MacArthur, and were left in a ridge of high pressure between two lows. Jourdain elected to sail upwind and through the high - keeping to a direct rhum line, while Thiercelin in a repeat move from the last Vendee - gambled on sailing to the west, around the high. Thiercelin's 'Activewear' is faster downwind that Jourdain's 'Sill' and he caught southwest winds ahead of the next front before Jourdain. While closing on his rival, it is too soon to tell if his gamble will pay off. A determined man And what of the 'extra-terrestrial' Yves
Parlier? The man who could have won this race - should have won this race -
refused to be beaten by something as miniscule as a broken mast. He repaired it
in a secret New Zealand paradise and sailed east. He passed Cape Horn on
February 7, and has opened his survival box in an attempt to stay nourished.
Will he make it home on the meager rations aboard Aquitaine Innovations? © weather-wise.com 2001 Fleet positions This position cart is dated just hours before Michael Desjoyeux finished at Les Sables d'Olonne and shows MacArthur north-west of Cape Finisterre, entering the Bay of Biscay. Of equal interest is the battle between Roland Jourdain (dark blue line) and Marc Thiercelin (green line) for third place. Thiercelin has opted to sail around a ridge of high pressure to catch favourable westerly winds connected to a frontal system, but remains 300 miles behind Jourdain who continued to beat to windward through the light airs. Pictures courtesy of Virtual Spectator. Images courtesy of the UK Met Office. Evil winds blast the west coast of Ireland and northern Scotland, but the isobars are more relaxed in the Bay of Biscay - something of a novelty for returning skippers in the Vendee Globe. Considering some long-range forecast models were predicting 60 knots at the finish, we are certain there was relief in the PRB camp as Michael Desjoyeux sailed safely over the Les Sables d'Olonne bar after 93 days at sea. Image courtesy of Thierry Martinez. Michael Desjoyeux celebrates at the finish in Les Sables d'Olonne. "Ellen for me is a great mystery. She is ten years younger than me and
she could have beaten me. She came so close to me in the Saint Helen
anticyclone, and she came back on me in the Doldrums and the Azores high. She
has displayed a great deal of courage and determination and has threatened me
right until the end. More great reading: Catch up on all the past action in our race archive. Follow the action between the world's fastest multihulls in The Race Vendee Globe Race headquarters Re-live the Sydney to Hobart yacht race! Break ice in the Ross Sea! |