Groupama 3 dying breeze in the Jules Verne Trophy

Groupama 3 has begun her sequence of tack changes to get across to the other side of the zone of high pressure, which has stabilised offshore of Argentina. Fortunately the giant trimaran is particularly at ease in these moderate headwinds.

The ascent of this West face of the Argentinean anticyclone promised to be both long and laborious: an initial change of tack was made at around 1700 UTC on Sunday to switch onto a NW'ly course in line with the first wind shift to the N. However, shortly before midnight, the wind oscillated again and Groupama 3 once more repositioned herself to the NE to get onto a better angle with which to escape the high pressure.

This Monday morning, Franck Cammas and his men are making towards the Argentinean coast again to extract themselves from the zone of high pressure. The dying breeze and the barometer displaying over 1 030 hPa are signs that the centre of the zone of high pressure is close by.