Today marks exactly 100 days since Philippe Delamare left A Coruna, on the 30th of September 2023.
100 days sailed impeccably by the French skipper whose experience makes him the only competitor in the event to have sailed the Roaring Forties and Screaming Fifities before, both crewed and solo, as well as having rounded Cape Horn before. On his 100th day at sea, at the time of writing, Philippe is less than 200 Miles from the legendary Cape Horn in approximately 30-35 knots of wind, gusting around 45 knots and 5 meter waves. He is just in front of the cold front of the depression he is sailing in, which will bring about a windshift tomorrow from the northwesterlies to southwesterlies that will generate uncomfortable cross seas. The cold front will also be associated with unstable airs and squalls with gusts which can significantly exceed, temporarily, the model-given figures. Winds gusting well into the mid to high 50s are probably to be expected. Cape Horn is certainly living up to its fame.
Philippe’s biggest strength in his exploit to date has been to sail the least amount of miles for any given milestone of the circumnavigation compared to the other competitors. On the event tracker we have drawn a route that reflects the theoretical route likely to be followed by the skippers accounting for seasonal weather, i.e. not simply the shortest geographical route, which would be utopic, but the shortest possible route under sail. For example in the descent of the Atlantic boats sail close to Brazil, then towards Tinidad, then Tristan da Cunha before even pointing their bow to the East. The route remains an estimated and theoretical route and skippers will always sail through the water more miles than this theoretical route indicates, which, on paper, is 25008 Nautical Miles A Coruna to A Coruna.
Over the course of the 18,000 miles or two thirds of the total route to reach Cape Horn, Philippe delamare has sailed only 800 Nautical miles in excess of the theoretical route with a “wastage” of just 3.2%. I am not sure how many can grasp the astonishing skill required to achieve such efficient sailing. For comparison, the second boat on the water, First Light sailed by Cole Brauer, whilst still being over 3000 miles behind Philippe, has already sailed 1240 Nautical Miles in excess of the theoretical course with her excess miles at approximately 5%. It is true that a planing boat like a Class40 has more incentive to go and search the best wind angles, so it is in fact normal that a non-displacement boat capable of great accelerations may be faster whilst sailing a longer route, but it also goes to show that Philippe has made the absolute best of his displacement boat, only capable of small surfs but not capable of significant speed differences when searching for optimal wind angles, making the shortest (possible) route very often the most efficient choice.
Well, enough praise for the amazing Philippe Delamare for today as we will be celebrating his Cape Horn rounding hopefully tomorrow, we have talked at length about the challenges he will be facing with winds and seas on his approach to the Everest of the seas and we’ll hopefully receive some news from Philippe himself.
The rest of the Global Solo Challenge fleet has seen a week of mixed conditions depending on the position within the fleet, whilst some boats have been routing themselves north of the deepest depressions, others have taken the strong winds on the chin and held through. Edouard de Keyser spent several days in strong conditions, so much so that his family waited for conditions to improve to break to him the sad news that his elder brother had passed away a few days earlier. We feel for Edouard and all the challenges he has faced so far and the difficulty of dealing with such news whist alone at sea. Today at least he could celebrate a very important milestone, the rounding of Cape Leeuwin which I’m sure he’ll share, in thoughts with his big brother.
Many others have had important milestones in the past week, Cole Brauer has been constantly closing the gap to Philippe Delamare and has been putting in some solid mileage day after day as well as crossing the antimeridian during her Groundhog Day.
Riccardo Tosetto on Obportus and Francois Gouin on Kawan3 Unicancer have crossed the midway point and have left the Indian Ocean for the Pacific. Riccardo has blown his fractional spinnaker but otherwise, after dealing with a string of issues on the boat, has now resolved all technical issues and is proceeding with his thoughts focused on difficult upcoming weather conditions. The same is true for Ronnie Simpson ahead of him, who having restarted from Hobart last week will have to pass in shallow “continental-shelf” waters south of New Zealand’s South Island in difficult weather conditions which are leaving him understandably apprehensive.
Pavlin Nadvorni is about a day away from reaching his midway journey milestone, which has a deep psychological impact as mentally you switch from sailing further away from the start to sailing closer to home. Pavlin’s blog reveals a string of issues he has had to deal with on board, last but not least the loss of a spinnaker overboard that has caused a line to foul his prop as well as leaving him with his second and last spinnaker halyard stuck at the top of the mast with a difficult mission to retrieve it. However, the recent detachment of a three meter section of the mainsail track has shifted his mind to this as his most pressing problem onboard. So far Pavlin has found solutions to all his technical issues at sea and we hope it will be again the case so that he can carry on without having to consider a stop in Hobart.
David Linger on Koloa Maoli and William MacBrien on Phoenix have not reported any issues and proceed in their navigation with a sound and thoughtful approach, preserving their boats and making good progress.
We mentioned earlier Edouard De Keyser’s recent rounding of Cape Leeuwin, next in line for this milestone is Andrea Mura on Vento di Sardegna who’s hard on the chase of the fleet in this pursuit style round the world event. He should reach the longitude of the second of the three great capes today. He is constantly the fastest in the fleet and has increased pace in the motorway of the Roaring Forties. He has caught up with the back of the fleet overtaking Louis Robein on Le Souffle de la Mer III and is now closing in fast on Edouard’s Solarwind.
Louis Robein has been struggling with several technical issues and whilst he has been brilliantly able to address every problem at sea so far the loss overboard of one of his hydrogenerators as well as the shearing of two out of four support bolts on his autopilot drive, which he has no replacements for, have brought him to decide that a stop in hobart is now necessary.
Ari Kansakoski, whose mission to save his boat and sail it back to safety under jury rig is far from over, he is now around 540 Nautical Miles from Durban. He had to use all his determination and ingenuity to put together multi-step system to filter and thin with lighter fuels the Marine Gas Oil he was given during the refuelling operation with the Japanese fishing vessel. Luckily he is enjoying some following winds which have enabled him to proceed mostly under sail and preserve the precious fuel for the final approach to Africa. It will probably take him another 5-7 days to reach Durban depending on the development of weather and fuel consumption.
After restarting from Cape Town on the 28th December, Alessandro Tosetti on Aspra has had a difficult time getting south to find favourable winds but has now been able to sail on course towards the Crozet and Kerquelens. on his route to the east.
Just as Philippe Delamare is about to pop his head out again in the South Atlantic, Kevin Le Poidevin on Roaring Forty is about a couple of days from rounding Cape of Good Hope and Cape Agulhas finally sailing out of the Atlantic and into the Indian Ocean.
The Global Solo Challenge brings a continuous stream of emotions with the incredible endeavours of each of the sailors with their emotional ups and downs, technical issues and achievements making every new day an exciting one.
Of the 16 boats that left A Coruna 14 are still at sea including Ari Kansakoski who is clearly out of the competition after dismasting. This leaves 13 sailors still in the event which is quite remarkable and testament to the determination, efforts and skills of all those who took the start for this amazing adventure.
