Dominique Wavre and Michèle Paret have now made it through the ‘Australian barrier’ ice gate and are finally free to choose their own route, at least until the Cook Strait which they should reach around the 23rd or 24th of February.
“Michele is getting some sleep at the moment as she’s been on the helm for the past few hours. The temperature has really plummeted over the last few days and the cold makes any time spent on deck a punishing task,” explains Dominique. However, even in the icy conditions of the Southern Ocean there is room for a little romance and Dominique admits to having offered Michèle a little St. Valentines Day kiss yesterday.
“The autopilot is now handling the helming and I’m working on our route. We’re sailing under spinnaker, with around 20 knots of wind. We’re roaring along and it’s so liberating not to be limited by the ice gates. Having said that, last night we passed around 20 miles to the north of a large iceberg, a poignant reminder of the reason why the gates have been put in place.”
Thanks to conditions that have favoured them, ‘Neutrogena’ with Boris Herrmann and Ryan Breymair onboard have caught Mirabaud up again. “Our match race with them is on again, and is just as intense as before,” explains Dom. “They’re around 20 miles to the north of us, sailing a parallel route and at the same speed as us. It’s definitely bringing a little spice to the racing.”
It’s now been three weeks since the Barcelona World Race competitors first made it into the Southern Ocean. Three weeks of endless grey horizons, rain, squalls, rough seas and the incessant noise inside their carbon racing hulls. As soon as they make it through the Indian Ocean, they will be plunged into yet another three weeks of the same hostile conditions in the Pacific, with only a short respite in the form of the Tasman Sea in between.
