The Loire estuary and Brittany’s coast are far away in Queen Mary 2’s trail and the trimarans, who pursued their journey across the Atlantic to New York. On the second day of racing, while the four yacht sailors in the crossing of the century favoured a route to the North, a first hierarchy emerges on the Ocean space, not too willing to give them the opportunity to compete with the ocean liner sliding on the water, since the kickoff, with a constant and impressive average of 24 knots.
MACIF (François Gabart) and IDEC SPORT (Francis Joyon) have undoubtedly taken a clear advantage over their two competitors, who are threatened by a gap that could widen further in the the next 24 hours. SOBEDO ULTIME (Thomas Coville) is 70 miles behind in the ranking at 16:00, facing the two teams ahead of him, the quickest to tack, at the passage of the first small depression 100 miles off the coast of the Irish Connemara pastures.
« Great speed »
« It is the dimension of the multihull with gaps that occur and come apart at a great speed. It connects us and it addresses weather systems very quickly. When things go the wrong way for us yesterday », consent Vincent Riou on board the maxi trimaran who is the holder of the around the world record and currently in third position. For its part, ACTUAL is (Yves Le Blevec), less powerful and swift that their competitors, logically closed the market, nearly 170 miles behind.
On board the famous "liner", the Club 100 is underway as part of an onboard camera that keeps all its promises, weather consultant, Dominic Vittet, is not tricked. "The first boats fired last night and progress now in North wind." But as soon as they will affect the Northwest, they will start from the front, as has already happened yesterday. In mind, two big clients, Macif and IDEC, are not known to make errors. "Sodebo Ultim' must therefore make a perfect navigation to make little one and hope to return to the contact."
Duel at the top in the Kingdom of his Majesty
On board Queen Mary 2, 2000 passengers also crossed a small secondary depression in the night, generating a little rain. However, conditions are still very pleasant over the North Atlantic on a calm sea and a "nice breeze", force 4 on the Beaufort scale. Captain Christopher Wells, at the price of a perfect navigation, is sailing as close to the direct route as possible, at a sustained pace. Onboard, Armel Tripon, skipper of Multi 50 Reaute chocolate does not sulk his pleasure to live this unique experience aboard the steel giant. "This is very amazing and surprising to cross the Atlantic at this speed, without fear of the sea and wind conditions", he says on board the liner, which will have join New York on Saturday morning at dawn, after 5 days and 19 hours of sea at a frantic pace while ensuring comfort and an art of living large.
This Tuesday afternoon, the Queen Mary 2 is ahead of her pursuers by more than 430 miles two closest pursuers to sails, that nonetheless have, for a few hours, frankly accelerated the pace in Northwest winds that will gradually chill. With 7 small miles apart, does more than ever raging battle with these two Ultime trimarans who cross in the wake of the QM2.
---