SAILING:As 2008 rolled in earlier this week, Kerry man Damian Foxall was dicing with fields of ice along with Jean-Pierre Dick on board their Open 60-footer Paprec-Virbac in the Southern Ocean.
Continuous leaders of the Barcelona World Race, their performance has meant they started the new year the same way they ended the old - on a high.
With less than 2,000 miles to sail before they reach the notorious Cape Horn at the bottom of South America, the next four days will prove decisive for the pair as they have now cleared the safety "ice-gate" designed to keep competitors away from the worst of the deadly icebergs closer to Antarctica.
Normally, crews would chart the most southerly course they dared, because that would cut the distance. Which is exactly what the French-Irish team are pondering this weekend as they seek to preserve and perhaps build on their 830-mile lead.
So far, Paprec-Virbac is the only boat to have ventured far enough south to encounter icebergs. Fortunately, their last experience with ice this week was in relative calm, and though there was fog, their radar was effective at revealing the obstacles ahead.
But a depression is forming between them and Cape Horn, and that poses a challenge. To sail into the heart of this weather system would be to inevitably risk winds of up to 50 knots; which would slow them, sap their energy and also threaten their equipment, which has so far fared remarkably well.
Apart from the last-placed Educación Sin Fronteras, Foxall and Dick are the only boat not to have retired or pulled in for repairs.
But their third option, sailing northabout the weather system, would mean a slower route to the Cape and play into the hands of Alex Thompson and Andrew Cape on Hugo Boss in second place. This pair are blasting in from the north without ice concerns and could easily catch the leaders.
"We're expecting to take a bit of breeze down to them over the next couple of days and we hope to close it up quite a bit by the time we get to the Horn," said Hugo Boss co-skipper Cape.
"I'm not saying we're going to be next to each other, but we are going to be closer and it's going to be a full-on race from there, for sure."
On board the leader, all three options are being weighed.
"All the routing (software) wants to send us straight back south again," said Foxall. "But it's one thing to be sailing in ice with flat water and reaching along, it's totally different to be doing it in 35 knots of wind, upwind, where you can't see anything. So that's occupying us a lot at the moment, deciding how far south we go."
Behind the two front-runners, passing through the Cook Strait has proven to be too tempting to the remaining boats in the race.
Dominique Wavre and Michelle Paret on Temenos II took a 48-hour time penalty to have cracks in their keel checked - they proved to be superficial - and they will continue the race later today, albeit with a 2,500-mile deficit.
The fourth-placed Mutua Madrilena has also reached New Zealand and, having opted for a "tactical pitstop", will be expected to restart around the time Albert Bargues and Servane Escoffier on Educación Sin Fronteras arrive, resuming the battle not to be last to reach Barcelona in a month's time.
