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At sea. San Francisco to Yokohama: Acceleration for the trimaran Geronimo |
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Friday, 14 April 2006 |
Rivacom:
After a complicated start to the course, the trimaran flying the Capgemini and Schneider Electric colours continues to sail southwards, where it should soon run into beam winds and currents. Before leaving, Larry Rosenfeld estimated that going from San Francisco to Yokohama "is a bit like racing up the freeway in the wrong direction." Actually until yesterday, the route Geronimo was taking resembled more a winding road than the freeway. Not a breath of air on the start line, breaking sea sailing away from the California coast: the start of the course between San Francisco and Yokohama were not the most restful for the Geronimo's crew. It was inevitable, according to Olivier de Kersauson: "It's never easy to leave the coast of California. Because of the land's relief and the desert, low pressure systems often stay stuck along the coastline. I knew that the start of the journey was going to be hard. The sea was dreadful, a 4-5 meter swell with a very short frequency, which forced us to be extremely alert. Now we've moved out of this area and we should be able to catch a weather window that will not come for another 15 days." To reach Yokohama and Japan, Geronimo is for the moment sailing South to find beam winds and currents. "The direct route is not a viable possibility," explains the skipper of the maxi trimaran, who determines the route to follow with his navigator American Larry Rosenfeld. "Larry knows the Pacific well and has a lot of information at his disposal. Despite the size of the area to cover, the Pacific is fairly well-monitored and the data Larry gets is very reliable overall." This morning, a little over 36 hours into the course, Geronimo was travelling at an average speed of 20 knots, still mostly south of the direct line, in order to avoid the many fast low-pressure troughs to the north tout and make the most of the northeast trades from 30 degrees latitude.
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Last Updated ( Friday, 14 April 2006 )
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