|
 |
 | | | You are in: Special Events: 2001: MacArthur in the Mondial |
|
| |  Thursday, 17 May, 2001, 17:16 GMT 18:16 UK Day 6: Groupama's brilliant recovery Groupama was 90 miles behind but is now in the lead Ellen MacArthur has slipped back to second in the Challenge Mondial as light winds have allowed the chasing pack to catch up. Overnight, MacArthur's boat Foncia-Kingfisher took the lead from long-time frontrunner Bayer after making the better of an airless 24 hours. But by midday on Thursday, she had been overhauled by Groupama, Franck Cammas benefitting from turning the Azores half a day later and finding windier conditions to push him up to the front.
Belgacom is still fourth but has cut the gap on Foncia, Bayer and Groupama to less than 15 miles. Bayer's skipper Yvan Bourgnon says the lack of winds has made it the slowest day's racing he has ever known. But he thinks that the game is still open and is ready for an interesting tactical climax as the boats head for Gibraltar. "Well done Groupama! They've come back and somehow it is good for the game. It will be intensive and close racing in the next few days.
"Maybe there will be like a new start. It will be interesting. We'll fight hard. It will be very tactical in this fickle wind. "Yesterday, we held our slowness record. It has been the slowest 24 hours I have ever experienced in an offshore race! "We've put on shorts, T-shirts and sun glasses. We're a little bit surprised, as the situation is not what we expected. "According to the maps we had, the wind wasn't supposed to come back from the north. "It's difficult to predict what will happen. "With this fickle wind, we could have chosen the straight route, like some other boats, but honestly, according to the information we had, we thought it wasn't worth to go further north." | |
Top MacArthur in the Mondial stories now:  Links to more MacArthur in the Mondial stories are at the foot of the page. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|  | | | | | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |
|  E-mail this story to a friend |
|  |
| Links to more MacArthur in the Mondial stories |
| | | ||
 | ||||
 | | Back to top
| ||
| ------------------------------------------------------------ BBC News >> | BBC Weather >> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- © MMIII | News Sources | Privacy |
