Francis Joyon, Trimaran IDEC slides through the doldrums with about 1200nm to go

Francis Joyon leaves the doldrums and approaches his goal

http://www.trimaran-idec.com/en/news.articles.aspx?id=260

The IDEC maxi trimaran has just made it out of the Doldrums. This Friday lunchtime, she is sailing around sixty miles from the Horn of Brazil between Natal and Recife. Francis Joyon is therefore tackling the final stretch of the Friendship Route: 1200 miles along the coast of Brazil, where there still are many traps. He is looking forward to finishing in Rio de Janeiro on Tuesday.

That’s now behind them. The IDEC maxi trimaran has managed to get away from the claws of the Intertropical Convergence Zone with its alternating periods of squalls, calms and winds, which are extremely variable in strength and direction. Francis Joyon: “I admit that I was rather worried about this trip through the Doldrums, as the forecasts were not exactly positive. The American models were horrible forecasting huge areas with absolutely no wind over a 350-mile wide zone. The European model was a little less pessimistic. In the end, it was something in between the two across a zone measuring around 300 miles. It took me around a day and a half to cross it but I only really got stopped for a few hours, which isn’t that bad.”

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