On the occasion of the skippers’ briefing of THE BRIDGE this Sunday morning, the meteorologist, Dominic Vittet, indicated the Gascogne golf exit will be delicate and could split, from the Loire’s estuary, the four Ultime trimarans. Northern or Southern route? It seems that the giants will not follow the same trajectory as Queen Mary 2.
The actual configuration on the Atlantic does not look like the weather is going to be ideal for the multihulls. If the weather over the five days and nineteen hours scheduled by the Queen Mary 2is in favour of the multihulls who can sail over 800 miles one day, it will not be the case for this first edition of THE BRIDGE where the crew will have to deal with small air from the start, then contrary winds on the Northern route or downwind on the Southern route.
The ice era
To this day, an ice exclusion area South-West of Terre-Neuve is defined to avoid iceberg intersection carried by the Labrador cold current, which limits the sailors’ options when sailing towards the American coast. Depending on the information provided by Canadian watchers, this boundary delimitation could modify in order to open the match while the depression will build on Wednesday off the coast off Boston.
The weather conditions seem to be the same as the start’s conditions even though the sky will be clearer with only a few clouds. At 7 pm, the A-380 will fly above Saint-Nazaire while Queen Mary will exit the estuary with a South-West to West breeze of a dozen knots before orientating to West-North. Then the canon shot will be launch the start of the race for the four Ultime trimarans (Actual, IDEC Sport, MACIF, Sodebo Ultim’), all ready to sail for 3 150 miles of THE BRIDGE’s route.