Archives: Log

In the middle of the afternoon we took all sails down – had been runing under only storm jib for a while – but we’re still surfing too fast. So have steamed warps. All the anchor chain plus a large rope parcelling and streaming warps had been prepared during the morning for such an eventuality.

ENZA now proceding at a more lady-like pace and everyone onboard relazing. Absolutely torrential rain at times. Winds to 58 in one squall, but generally mid 40’s.

Heading straight for Ushant and will probably trail the warps for the rest of the way even if we add sail which is likel some time during the night. If conditions don’t improve , we will just carry on under bare poles and warps – average speed appox 8 knots.

Approx 148 miles to the finish line.

All well here. Ed’s chicken curry for dinner.

Brutal. Violent. Powerful. Outrageous! There are no specific adjectives for describing what’s happening here at the moment! The wind has gone up to over 60 knots with spikes that go far higher. The power of the waves is impossible to describe.
(…) We’ve just lowered the staysail and just have the three-reef mainsail with nothing in front, after sticking the stems in four or five times.
Like in a nightmare, a single-faced wave arrived. Once we were on top of it, I saw, with horror, that this mountain was in fact an enormous trampoline and that there was no slope to slide down, but 10 or 12 meters of empty space.
The boat bounced in this void at almost 30 knots, and the outcome was vicious. We landed at the bottom with the hulls almost vertical.
The front half, in other words almost 13 meters, plunged violently. The bottom half flew up and began to rise, carried away by inertia and the breaker’s foam.
In one last spurt before the crash, I had time to swing left before the rudders flew off for good, in hope that at least one of the two hulls would make it and swerve the whole vessel.
And that’s what happened!
The giant catamaran pivoted over 40 meters, with its axis being the second hull that was two meters underwater.
The scene lasted barely 20 seconds but will remain forever etched in my memory like a nightmare. No casualties. We’re hauling down everything that’s left – the objective is survival.
It’s going to last 40 hours.

Bruno Peyron on board Commodore Explorer.

“The Canary Islands are often a difficult obstacle to negotiate, so irregular is the wind system, ranging from full blast to nothing at all, as you skirt around these volcanic islands. Once again this time, we were drawn as if magnetically while seeking to cut through the shortest route – and of course a calm zone caught us up, holding us prisoners for most of the night, finally letting us go barely a few hours ago (07:00 UT this morning). This situation is even more senseless because yesterday, we gained around 70 miles on the Kiwis. (…)
On board, the series of damaged parts has calmed down a little. Thankfully, because between the mast rail pulled out over 20 cm (fixed), the foreguy (fixed), the unidentified floating object in the rudder blade (freed up thanks to a skillful high-speed reverse movement), and the mainsail’s titanium chainplate, under the boom, twisted then wrenched off (replaced by a hand-sewn strap), it’s starting to add up.
In terms of maneuvering, the Commodore Explorer commando team is operating wonderfully well; each man has now found his place, his role and his gestures so that together we work easily, like a melodious quintet – or at least one without any false notes.”

Bruno Peyron:

“We’re being throttled in every direction as if in a shaker, and the sailing conditions are dreadful. Drenched and numb with cold despite our survival suits, balaclavas and diving masks with which we’re trying to fight this damned south wind and icy sea spray. The only real comfort – but a significant one – has been the simultaneous news for the two future dads, an announcement that warms our hearts. The two heroes of the day fell into each other’s arms, and we celebrated the event as merited with a little beer for the five of us – that theoretically was meant for the halfway mark. (…)
On Saturday morning (06:00 UT) we’ll be one-third through the 80 days, and the time has come to make our first assessments. Saturday morning at 06:00 UT: around 10,300 miles covered in 640 hours, in other words an average of 16.6 knots. (…)
We need to remember that the shortest course to Ushant from the position where we’ll be on Saturday morning is around 8,500 miles and we’ll already have covered 10,300 miles. To complete our tour of the globe, we need to go on a basis of a minimum distance of 27,000 miles, which in 80 days – that means 1,920 hours – forces us to keep up an average of at least 14.06 knots. It seems doable… »

Bruno Peyron:

“It’s now been two days that we’ve practically stopped advancing, and I’m beginning to think that rather than rounding the axis of an announced ridge, it’s more a matter of finding an exit to the anticyclone forming just below us. If this is the case, then we’ll need to double up our attention, but above all, our patience, with a minimum of at least two days needed to hunt down the slightest breeze to try to get out by ourselves rather than waiting for the whole system to move and release redeeming winds.
I admit that we’re divided between the boredom of our prolonged wait and the pleasure of knowing that the boat doesn’t risk, in these conditions, further damage around the rip in the hull. After nine-tenths through this world tour, we’re becoming philosophical and more capable than at the start of seeing the bright side of things. As the game was, and is still, getting back to the departure point, we tell ourselves that our nonchalance contributes a great deal. We dived in again to examine the rip, and it’s really something to look at – so much so that we wonder how things might turn out if we have one or more stints of bad weather before getting to Ushant.”