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ORMA FLEET BACK IN THE ATLANTIC
Thursday, July 13, 2006 -
ORMA FLEET BACK IN THE ATLANTIC
The Grand Prix du Portugal – Portimao will take place from 14 to 16 July.
Gitana 11 and Gitana 12 have arrived in the small Algarve port and the
crews are due to start training in situ tomorrow to familiarise themselves
with the waters. After the 3 Grand Prix in the Mediterranean, this
Atlantic event promises to be an exciting new challenge.
In days gone by, Portimao was a favoured port of call for Phoenician,
Greek and Carthaginian vessels due to the excellent mooring offered by its
spacious bay opening out from the Arade River estuary. Between Sagres, the
historic town with its Marine Academy housing the nautical documents
created by Henry the Navigator (1390-1460), and Lagos, the port once
densely populated with naval shipyards, Portimao is focused firmly on
fishing, especially sardines in summer. In this region of the Algarve, a
veritable natural amphitheatre towered over by the mountains which bound
the Iberian Peninsula, the climate is Oceanic, but in summer it very
rarely rains here.
In fact, during this summer period, a gentle area of low pressure settles
in over Spain, while the Azores anticyclone moves up towards Europe.
Consequently, a north to north-easterly flow forms along the coast of
Portugal from Porto to Cape Saint Vincent, known as the “Portuguese trade
winds”. But from the other side of Southern Portugal’s most extreme cape,
the breeze is more westerly-orientated and picks up depending on the
temperature (between 25° and 30° in July at midday) during the afternoon.
The water surface is relatively undisturbed by the relief, as the cliffs
are fairly low and the immense beaches lie between rocky outcrops.
As a result, the weather conditions for the Grand Prix de Portimao are
likely to be characterised by a westerly breeze of roughly 10-12 knots in
the morning, rising to 15-18 knots around 16:00 with the thermal wind, and
then dying down by the end of the day while adopting a more northerly
direction.
So the sailing conditions for this Portuguese meeting are practically
perfect.
Competing in the Grand Prix de Portimao are:
Gitana 11, Loick Peyron
Gitana 12, Thierry Duprey du Vorsent
Groupama 2, Franck Cammas
Géant, Michel Desjoyeaux
http://www.gitana-team.com
http://www.multicup60.eu |
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