Alex Pella and Romain Pilliard reach the Pacific Ocean after passing Cape Horn in extreme conditions
– Alex Pella highlights the hardness of the mythical crossing, against the prevailing wind and currents, the first time it has been achieved on a multihull.
– The ship and the crew feel tired and the repairs on board the trimaran are more and more frequent
– The “Use It Again!” maintains an advantage of more than 500 miles on the previous record.
– The next big target on the route is the Torres Strait
Throughout the day, Alex Pella and Romain Pilliard finally found a meteorological window to attack the mythical Cape Horn, leaving the shelter of Tierra del Fuego and facing the Le Maire Strait . “The conditions are not the best, we advance upwind with between 25 and 40 knots of wind, with a lot of sea and obviously a very strong current in the Le Maire pass. We had quite a few problems to get past the lead, but in the end we made it. What we still don’t know is whether we’ll have to wrap up again in some bend in the Chilean coast or we’ll be able to go back all the way until we find stronger winds in the north”, said Alex Pella.
The Spanish sailor has also commented that they are beginning to feel the accumulated fatigue, “the descent from the Atlantic to here has been hard, and we have had to make many repairs on board. The boat is starting to get tired, these are tough conditions for her, since we are constantly hitting the waves. The truth is that we are very careful with the material, but that does not prevent us from having a breakdown. We are still very motivated and excited about the record, even so these are difficult times. We already knew it, since it is probably the most critical and complex point of the entire circumnavigation. We have to know how to manage it as well as possible.
It is the first time that a trimaran manages to pass Cape Horn to the West. The “Use It Again”! It has more than 8,000 miles on it and has more than 15,000 more to go. The team continues to hold more than 500 miles ahead of the previous record, which was set in 2004 at 122d. 2:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m. by the French navigator Jean Luc Van Den Heede aboard the “Adrien”, a robust aluminum monocoque, 26 meters long.
The “Use It Again!” trimaran, precursor to the Ultim class, was built in 2003 for the Ellen MacArthur, with which it set the solo circumnavigation record (to the East) in 2005. Considered obsolete in 2011, it was abandoned in French Brittany and in 2016 it was renamed and rebuilt following the principles of reduce, reuse, recycle. Today a great icon of sustainability, the ship and its crew promote the protection of the oceans and aim to demonstrate the enormous potential of the circular economy, breaking the record for going around the world with a 100% recycled ship and minimal impact environmental.
