2:10 AM Wed 2 Dec 2009 GMT
Around-the-world Reference Tour of the SolOceans - OceanoScientific? Campaign 2009-2010.
Message from Liz Wardley this morning onboard the SolOceans One-design to Yvan Griboval (President of SailingOne), while she was at around 150 nautical miles South-West from Finist?re (Brittany - France): 'It happened at around 0330 UT, I was sailing at 20 Knots with one reef in the main-sail and the staysail and a 25-knot wind. I fell again from a wave much bigger than the other one and that's when we hit something with the hull bottom at the level of the cockpit behind the engine.
I didn't see anything outside; I don't know what it was, maybe a cetacean or something soft floating in the water. I don't have a waterway, the structure of the boat looks intact, but I think the sandwich construction is starting to delaminate at the level of the bulkhead of the cockpit. I'm heading towards Brittany (France) that I should reach at around 11.00 UT on 2 December. I hope to restart as soon as possible. Everything is fine on board; I've just had some chocolate cake offered by the triplets on Sunday before the start. It's good for the moral, I feel much better.'
It's slightly before the helmsman position, right in the middle of the hull, that the SolOceans One-design hit something at 0330 UT on Monday 1 December, at twenty knots in a strong sea. It's only once back on shore that the damage survey will be able to say what Liz Wardley might have hit.
As soon as they got the news, the teams of SailingOne and Mer Agit?e - Michel Desjoyeaux's company who is the technical consultant of the SolOceans One-design series, started to get ready at Port La F?ret, Desjoyaux's family base, for the arrival of Liz. Jean-Marie Vaur - JMV Industries manager (Cherbourg - France) who build the one-design for the SolOceans - and Jean-Marie Finot - the architect of the series - will meet them on Wednesday 2 December at mid-day. Altogether, they will meet Liz Wardley, evaluate the damage and decide on the work that needs to be done in order for Liz Wardley to resume her voyage toward Wellington (NZ) as soon as possible. This pit stop, in 'competition mode', happens while there will be another succession of depressions affecting the tip of Brittany (France). Liz Wardley will then benefit from a shift of the wind to North-West. She will then be able to head south at high speed.
'It's like being in a washing machine!'??
Liz Wardley enjoyed a relative calm onboard now that she is sailing back to Brittany (France) in slow motion before the wind with a Force 7 to 8 wind and before a strong low pressure. As a safety measure, she shortened sail (she use only the staysail). She can now tell us about getting out of the English Channel and crossing the Ouessant shipping lane: 'It was beautiful, the breeze was so strong the sea sprays were flying horizontally. In fact, there was 55 knots of wind (Force 11 to 12), with 5 to 6 metre high waves and even bigger ones. I kept my helmet on all the time as I was constantly thrown across the cockpit. The big ships were climbing the waves until you could see all of their stems before completely disappearing in the next wave. There were really lots of cargos and I could not sleep more than 10 to 15 minutes. It was quite tough. I sailed through squalls and even hail. I was sailing at 18 knots with the staysail (fore-topmast-staysail) only. When I was going out of the cockpit, I felt like being in front of a fire hose. The scientists can be reassured: the water is indeed salty in the Bay of Biscay! It's like being in a washing machine!'
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by SolOceans media
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Sydney, NSW
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