Thursday 17 April 2014

Route de l ´ Amitié, Francis Joyon due to cross the Equator tonight

From the following press release on the Trimaran IDEC website:

http://www.trimaran-idec.com/en/news.articles.aspx?id=258

High speed sailing directly towards the finish... The IDEC maxi trimaran is averaging 25 knots, as she makes her way south and is therefore lapping up the miles Francis Joyon will be at the Equator tonight, but he remains suspicious of the Doldrums.


It’s great and I’m really pleased to be sailing on this tack directly towards the finish. It’s something I haven’t been able to do that much with all the low pressure areas I had to get around. The boat is sailing smoothly through the water. I’m in the fairly variable north-easterly trade winds, which are varying between 20 and 28 knots.” Francis Joyon sounded upbeat this Wednesday lunchtime: the IDEC maxi trimaran is sailing at around 25 knots and the solo sailor is clocking up the miles. He is back up to days sailing more than 540 miles. “I’ve got just 300 miles left before the Equator. I shall be crossing into the Southern Hemisphere in around fifteen hours, so during the night for you in Europe,” declared Francis.

The other good news is that “I have managed to repair the link rods between the rudders on the floats. I’ll sort it out completely when I finish, but the repair job is working perfectly well for now. I no longer have to keep switching them over each time I change tack. I haven’t had any other worries apart from what I call my daily routine jobs: a sheet that gives up the ghost, a line that needs replacing, just a few little things like that.”

read more here

 

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