Gitana : écurie de course au large fondée par le Baron Benjamin de Rothschild

Saturday 14 January 2023

Departure postponed for the Maxi Edmond de Rothschild

Record hunting is a tremendous lesson in patience! Indeed, the various weather briefings scheduled since this morning have been discussed at great length between the crew of the Maxi Edmond de Rothschild and their onshore router, Marcel van Triest. A weather window did indeed open this afternoon to set sail on the quest for the Jules Verne Trophy, the round the world record under sail, but the latter is not entirely satisfactory for the men of Gitana Team. The big question and the primary reason for hesitation notably revolves around the forecasts for the South Atlantic and the passage time at the Cape of Good Hope. Shortly after 17:00 hours local time, a collective decision was finally made to let this first opportunity go by and wait for a better sequence of weather systems and a window that lives up to their expectations and to the potential of the Maxi Edmond de Rothschild.

A time of around 12 days to Good Hope

“To my mind, it’s a fairly average weather window as it doesn’t have all the ingredients in the South Atlantic to secure a very good time to Cape Agulhas,”stated Marcel van Triest this morning. The estimated time at the tip of South Africa is in itself acceptable as it would give Charles Caudrelier and Franck Cammas’ men a lead of around twenty hours over Idec’s current record. However, the performance posted by Francis Joyon’s crew in the Indian and Pacific, where they benefited from a weather sequence that bordered on perfection, means that Gitana Team have to be very ambitious for the first section of the course. This is heightened by the fact that the observations of the Pacific from CLS, a pioneer provider of monitoring and surveillance solutions for the Earth, suggest that a passage across this section of the planetary course is not currently optimum due to ice.

Standby in Brest

Yesterday, Friday 13 January, the crew of the Maxi Edmond de Rothschild chose to set sail from their port of registry, Lorient, to go and tie up alongside in the Marina du Château in Brest. The aim for Charles Caudrelier, Franck Cammas and their four crew was to get closer to Ushant and the start line of the Jules Verne Trophy. It is in the port of Brest then, that the 32-metre giant will sit out the next few days until the next potential weather window. The latter may appear midway through next week if the observations shared amongst the crew and their router this morning play out.

Crew of the Maxi Edmond de Rothschild :

Charles Caudrelier, skipper
Franck Cammas, co-skipper
David Boileau, trimmer bowman
Erwan Israël, helm trimmer
Morgan Lagravière, helm trimmer
Yann Riou, trimmer onboard reporter
Marcel van Triest, weather router

Record to beat:
40 days, 23 hours and 30 minutes >> Record held by Francis Joyon and his crew (Idec Sport) since 26 January 2017