Artemis Transat Fleet Prepares for Sunday Departure

PLYMOUTH, UK, May 9, 2008 (The Boating Channel)

The clock is ticking down in the Barbican, the medieval center of Plymouth where 23 skippers prepare for the start of the Artemis Transat 2008. The single-hand race across the Atlantic leaves from Pylmouth on Sunday, May 11. The Class 40 fleet will head for Marblehead, Massachusetts, 2,739 miles away, while the IMOCA fleet will travel 2,743 miles to finish in Boston harbor.

The course includes gates (obligatory points of passage), in a zone where ice floes represent a huge danger. Four years ago, the skippers set themselves a waypoint to avoid the icebergs and growlers, and for this thirteenth edition ice has already been spotted to the South of the banks of Newfoundland (41°30 North). [More... ]