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SAILING

Swedish boats take Volvo Ocean Race lead

The two ships belonging to Swedish team Ericsson took the lead Sunday of the Volvo Ocean Race around the world one day after it departed from Spain while Spanish team Telefonica Blue's ship had to make a stop to repair steering damage.

Published: 13 October 2008 07:52 CEST

Ericsson 3 and Ericsson 4 were tied in the lead after they crossed the Strait of Gibraltar on their way down the Atlantic to Cape Town in South Africa where the first leg of the race will end.

Telefonica Blue meanwhile stopped at the port of Algeciras in the Bay of Gibraltar to fix a tiller arm which broke after they were just 20 miles into the first leg, leaving them with just one rudder.

They now have to serve a 12-hour penalty under the pit stop rule before re-starting.

“How do we feel? Just gutted. The good thing is that we crawled back on some of the other boats, but the Ericsson guys are in fat city,” Dutch skipper Bouwe Bekking said in the dispatch sent to race headquarters.

Winds, which were gusting at more than 20 knots an hour when the race got underway, have weakened to 5-6 knots.

Thousands of people and hundreds of spectator boats saw off the eight yachts representing seven nations on Saturday from the Mediterranean port of Alicante in the presence of Spanish King Juan Carlos.

After 37,000 nautical miles (68,500 kilometres), the finish line is in St. Petersburg, Russia, where the teams are expected in June 2009.

RACE

Gabart, the record breaking French sailor in a hurry

A sailing prodigy, Frenchman Francois Gabart on Sunday crushed the world record for the fastest non-stop solo navigation of the world on his first attempt.

Published: 17 December 2017 11:43 CET
Gabart, the record breaking French sailor in a hurry
Sailing prodigy Francois Gabart celebrating in Brest. Photo: Damien Meyer/AFP

Driven by a desire to discover the world at full speed, the sailor completed his tour in 42 days, 16 hours, 40 minutes and 35 seconds.

“The job of a sailor is nothing more than managing problems and dealing with difficulties,” said Gabart, an engineer by trade.

The winner of the 2013 Vendee Globe and 2014 Route de Rhum yacht races, the 34-year-old father-of-two has been sailing for 20 years.

Trailblazer

“He likes to be a pioneer, he is not an upstart but someone in a hurry to discover things, to demonstrate things to himself and others,” said Christian Le Pape, who has known Gabart for 10 years.

“I wouldn't classify him as a genius in terms of ease at the helm but he has an ability to process information that is out of the ordinary like Michel Desjoyeaux or Armel Le Cleach.”

Desjoyeaux, a double winner of the Vendee Globe who mentored the engineer, said Gabart was given the the name “Excel spreadsheet” by his team.

“At the arrival of the Vendee Globe, we found 74 markings on the boat, but the race had taken 78 days,” said Desjoyeaux.

“In fact, he had noted the number of times he had brushed his teeth. He's not crazy but very rational.”

Weather and poetry

Gabart comfortably recognises his square side.

“I'm pretty reasonable and rational,” said Gabart, the son of a dentist and brother to two sisters.

“I've been like that since I was 10-years-old!

“My parents tell me that when I was a kid, I was very good at certain things.”

A sailor who doesn't like to swim, Gabart first dreamed of being a metrologist as a child.

“At 10 I was reading books about whether and knew things that no one understood at that age,” he said.

“I'm passionate about the weather.

“We can be wrong but we can almost see in to the future, I find it extraordinary to be able to know what will happen.

“There is a poetic side too, to watch a cloud is beautiful.”

By Sabine Colpart