Ice detected and warnings issued
While the first skippers of this 10th Vendée Globe are heading back up the Atlantic, the group led by Benjamin Ferré (Monnoyeur DUO for a JOB, 20th) and Conrad Colman (MS Amlin) are sailing close to the Antarctic Exclusion Zone as they approach the latitude of Point Nemo.
The exclusion zone - defined by the mission-driven company CLS (Collecte Localisation Satellites) to prevent skippers from getting too close to icebergs – utilises cutting-edge surveillance thanks to the expertise of its teams and data collected by satellites.
Race management is continuously monitoring the sailors and passes on all relevant information to the skippers throughout the course. Two iceberg have been detected which are most relevant to this group, 20th placed to 29th. Which are beyond the limits of the ZEA.
Deputy race director Fabien Delahaye explains:
Vendée Globe :
Can you remind us how the ZEA is defined?
The Antarctic Exclusion Zone is set up with CLS before the start. It evolves according to the reception of satellite images produced by CLS during the race, as the fleet progresses. These images have more or less high resolutions. They are initially quite wide and if there is the slightest doubt, we refine with more precise images. We can change the points of the ZEA within a limit of 30° of longitude in relation to the first competitor. But now the first competitors have passed we can no longer modify the course, because it has to be the same for all the skippers.
The icebergs may have moved between the first and the rest of the fleet.
Vendée Globe :
What do you do for the following competitors?
Once the first ones have passed, we can no longer go back and modify the Exclusion Zone. What we do are “ice reports”. With CLS, we continue to produce satellite images regularly, in particular to monitor the icebergs that we had identified under the ZEA when it was defined. If necessary, we communicate the information to the sailors, individually.
Vendée Globe :
What did you see in the latest images?
Some ice floes appear in the new images, close to the ZEA. In a few days, they moved towards the North, and are now above the zone. Today we have two confirmed detections, which were seen on the images three days in a row, 24 hours apart. We therefore warned the skippers concerned, one by one, by transmitting all the information to them.
