Francesca Clapcich: Route du Rhum Day 10 Report
It’s been a slow motion 24 hours for Francesca on 11th Hour Racing and the bulk of the IMOCA fleet. They have been becalmed for long periods and Francesca averaged only 1.9 knots [2.2mph | 3.52 kmh] of boat speed over the last 24 hours, covering just 45.6 nautical miles [52.5 miles | 84.5km].
Happily over the past few hours the wind has started to slowly build and Francesca is now sailing at around 4 knots [4.6mph | 7.4 kmh] in a very shifty breeze of around 5 knots [5.75mph | 9.3 kmh].
“It’s a tricky night – the wind is really up and down, but at least I'm moving, which is good,” she told her shore team in a voice note early this morning. “The wind is already in an easterly direction, but it's still really light and really shifty. But at least it's not zero, so that's better than yesterday.”
Further south, the wind held up better for leader Corentin Horeau (MACSF), other than in the notorious wind shadow west of Guadeloupe’s high mountains. He stretched away from the chasing IMOCAs to finish at 0614 French time this morning and completed the 3,542 nautical mile [4,076 mile | 6,560km] course in 9 days, 17 hours and 12 minutes, slicing more than two days off the race record.
“Corentin smashed the race record, sailed super fast and super clean. Impressive!” Francesca says. “I love racing against him [but] in the Vendée Arctique he had big damage and had to retire. So, I'm happy for him that he pulled this out and made an incredible race. He just left all of us in the dust!”
Francesca is currently still 409 nautical miles [470 miles | 757km] from the finish and has slipped into sixth place behind Sébastian Simon (Groupe Dubreuil – Air Caraïbes). But Simon is only 3.2 nautical miles [3.7 miles | 5.9km] ahead and at 0600 UTC this morning was sailing slower.
Another competitor to watch is Davy Beaudart (Bureau Vallée), who is positioned a long way to the east and has slightly better wind. He’s still 25 nautical miles [28.8 miles | 46.3km] behind Francesca but was sailing 2.5 knots [2.9mph | 4.6kmh] faster early this morning.
Taking advantage of the light winds, Francesca deployed the France Météo weather buoy which she has carried onboard since the start. This is the fourth buoy the team have deployed since her IMOCA campaign began - one in the Transat Café L’OR, one during the Vendée Arctique, and a third was deployed on the delivery to the USA prior to the start of The Ocean Race Atlantic.
“It’s always rewarding to be doing my bit for citizen science,” Francesca shared just after the buoy was deployed overboard. “It’s an extra 30kgs to be carrying onboard, and during these light winds I could have done without it! The buoy will be out here for a least a few years, collecting data that scientists use for meteorological forecasts and climate change research.” The buoy was named Rhum Explorer by Francesca’s social media followers and she wrote this plus the messages ‘I love you ocean!’, ‘Leaving a better world for H’ in honor of her daughter, and ‘Never stop bobbin!’. The buoy will start transmitting data in the next 24 hours.
Sadly, Francesca has been unable to find a viable solution to use the FR0 (fractional code zero) without the bowsprit. “Every time I was moving on into a next step, I was finding other pieces were broken,” she says. “It was quite an impossible mission and at one point I was losing more energy and time trying to do that instead of focusing on the boat and trying to get the best out of it.”
She can therefore only use smaller headsails for the rest of the race, as she has for the last five days since the sprit broke.
Looking ahead, the wind is forecast to remain light for the rest of today, before the tradewinds slowly start to return. However Francesca and 11th Hour Racing may have to wait until the middle of tomorrow before the mean wind speed is appreciably more than 10 knots [11.5mph | 18.5 kmh].
“I still feel like it's a really long, long way to get there,” she says. “We're kind of stuck in this light patch and it's a bit never-ending, so I'm not thinking about the finish yet. I want to stay focused on the present, on making a good approach to Guadeloupe and on making a good rounding of the island.”