If you ever wanted proof that ocean racing can be a cruel, cruel sport, just consider that Ellen MacArthur has finally fallen behind Francis Joyon after leading for almost 43 days, a lead which stood at more than four days when she rounded Cape Horn. Latest report here. All along MacArthur and her shore team had been looking forward to the South Atlantic, (almost but not quite) gloating over the slow passage Joyon had from Cape Horn to the Equator and figuring Ellen would be able to run up the score on this piece of ocean. Never in a million years did they dream she’d be more than four days slower, the victim of light winds, capricious weather systems and the black humor of the weather gods. Ellen, as is her nature, is hanging extremely tough, and will fight this thing all the way until the end, but the weather ahead so far doesn’t seem to offer any miracles and Joyon put up some pretty big runs over this period. Here’s MacArthur:
“I am trying to be positive – you know it’s been exceptionally difficult, it feels like everything has been against us in the Southern Hemisphere and we’ve not only lost out on Francis but lost four days in a period where we should have gained theoretically because he was very slow in this area. So things have been terrible, quite frankly, and trying to come to terms with that and come to terms with the fact that the weather for the next week is pretty bad as well, then that is pretty hard to deal with. But what can we do? We can only do our best and we can’t do any more than that…
The record is definitely within our sights – I’m not going to let go of that until the last second-hand ticks over, that’s for sure. We’ve been working on this project for two years, I’ve now been at sea for over 50 days and now is not the time that I am going to throw my hands up in the air and give up, no way. We’re level with Francis – we’re not three days or five days behind him and we still have a chance. But we only have a chance if the weather is kind to us – the next three days are going to be terrible, we won’t cross the Equator until the 28th and until then we are going to be in pretty light conditions. Once we cross the Equator, we have to see if we get stuck in the Doldrums or not, and that’s another question mark. We could get stuck there for 24 hours and, if that’s the case, obviously we’re in even more trouble. A lot of things can come into play and we’ve still got a very, very long way to sail…”
Brave words. But you can just feel it slipping away, can’t you…
“I always seem to get better wind if I strip down, soooo….”
The Earthist Chronicles 