SolOceans

"With her 24 knots, Liz is not holding the speed record on board Bostik anymore", explained Charles Caudrelier. "The new record is set above 24,5 knots and was established by the automatic pilot. This mean the Veolia Oceans^® one-design is stable at high speed! It’s very reassuring for a solo racer. This boat has a sound behaviour. But Liz and I we cannot not move and be beaten like that by the third crewmember!"

"We have the rhythm, it’s going well. We have the right trimmings now compared to the beginning of the round-the-world tour. It’s reassuring. Now we have picked up specific habits to this navigation in the depressions’ train. It’s fascinating. You keep having one depression after another. In the Atlantic, when you have three depressions in a row it’s exceptional. But here it’s non-stop. The Veolia Oceans^® accepts the heavy sea. For the moment, we have not had more than a 40-knot true wind (force 8). But at one point we will really have to face really bad weather conditions. The end of a hurricane is arriving on us. We will see…"

"For the moment, we are following a track with 30 to 35 knots of leading wind. It’s conditions in which the boat goes faster - and she is really going fast! - and where the sea is less dangerous. We are sailing with one reef in the main sail and the Solent jib. At each depression, we let the autopilot stirring the boat and we stay inside on watch. Outside your getting too wet and it’s cold. Sailing like that it’s very safe and it goes fast! We do a 4-hour watch and do all the manoeuvres together. We completely trust each other. It’s reassuring to know that there is somebody at the helm when you go at the stem of the boat."

"When the wind is only blowing at 20-25 real knots (force 5-6), we sail with the spi or with the gennaker. But as soon as we can replace them by the Solent because the wind is getting stronger we do. It’s still cool and not less fast."

"I saw an albatross for the first time. At the beginning, they were huge. One of them had like a 2.50-metre wingspan. It’s impressive. They fly very close to us. It’s really majestic. But they are not made to fly in the fog, as when we have a 300/400-metre visibility in the depressions, we don’t see them anymore. But they must not be far…"

Liz Wardley already sailed in the Great South, in crew, during theVolvo Ocean Race 2001-2002. Liz compares: "It's very different between being down here in a crew situation and double-handed. We had time also we were in a race, you know, we were always trying to sail over a hundred percent. We were always on the deck all the time so it was a lot more physically demanding. Here we might not be at a 100% of the boat, but we are definitely pushing the boat quite well. It's taking a lot more pleasure being down here solo-handed. You really get to do everything with the navigation, the sailing, enjoying the boat in also waves, all the time. It's good".

While Bostik is progressing in the Indian Ocean, the OceanoScientific Veolia^® Programme continues. As the skipper said: "All the data have been collected between Portugal and South Africa and keep being collected at the moment by the on-board computer. They will be transmitted and then analyzed by scientifics who will carry out studies".

Bostik is now heading south-east in order to round the Kerguelen Islands by the north, thus respecting the SolOceans course. Then Charles Caudrelier and Liz Wardley will get deeper into the Great South to shorten the course leading them to Wellington. But they will respect a virtual gate common to the Vendée Globe, the Barcelona World Race and now the SolOceans. The watch for the iceberg will then start for Bostik.



NB - The average speed found on the map on the www.soloceans.com website is calculated in comparison with a virtual direct course. The real daily average, i.e. the average speed over a 24-hour period in comparison with the course really sailed by Bostik, is as a consequence higher. When between two checks made at a set hour (between 6.30am UT on February 18^th and 6.30am UT on February 19^th, for example), Bostik is supposed to have sailed 347.40 nautical miles at 14.47 knots average over 24 hours, but has in reality sailed more the 400 nautical miles at more than 16 knots average.