Teams FIN and AUT landed in Algeria After many hours out on the sea and a time-consuming “battle” to find the winds to make landfall, these two teams finally made it. FIN (Olli Luoama / Ben Mattsson) and AUT (Gerald Stuerzlinger / Nikolaus Binder) are relieved to stay on a firm ground now. We have been in contact with the brave pilots... Read more ....

Bel1, AUT1 and FIN1 decided this afternoon to attempt a landing in Algeria. All official authorities know about the landing and we hope everything goes well. If somebody has connections or knows somebody near the landing spots, please help us! We do need local help for the retrieving etc. None of the 3 teams are familiar with landings in Africa. We... Read more ....

USA 1 (Fricke / Cuneo) landing in France confirmed At 06 UTC / 08 loc the US pilots Barbara Fricke and Peter Cuneo landed their balloon SE of Perpignan close to the city of Villeneuve-de-la-Raho, less than 10 km away from the coastline. 07.09.2009 Team SUI 3 (Krebs/Vollenweider) landed close to Valencia Swiss pilots Max Krebs and Walter Vollenweider... Read more ....

07.09.2009 09:00 loc (monday): Bulletin The Coupe continues to deliver very challenging stories. Yesterday (sunday) four balloons had landed safely: GER2, GER1, FRA and GER3. During the early hours last night team GBR 1 had concluded its flight in the NE of Spain. We very closely monitored the teams AUT, FIN and BEL who are just north of Algeria.... Read more ....

Our team goes for another night in the air, they have no choice as they’re still over water, heading for Africa. Let’s hope winds turn towards (friendly) land. Tomorrow morning things will become clear. Ronny and Luc remain calm and concentrated and the balloon still works well. The teams on the ground are sitting nearly 24/24 behind the... Read more ....

The three balloons (AUT, BEL, FIN) are approaching the North of Africa. Landfall could be within 5 hours if the current altitude is maintained. Another option is to fly very low and benefit from an easterly aircurrent. Forecast is for increasing winds between Sierra Nevada (Spain) and Atlas (Africa). Remark: Africa is defined as “outside the... Read more ....

The French pilots Thierry Villey-Desmeserets and Benoît Pelard confirmed their landing on the foothills of the Pyrenees, near Perpignan, after almost 18 hours flight-time and 480 km distance. Bepperl Höhl and Georg Sellmaier reached Sardinia, landing was confirmed some time ago. The German team reached the Italian island of Sardinia just before... Read more ....

As the balloon passed nearby Menorca (between Spain and Sardinia in the Mediterranean Sea) we had some contacts with the pilots via GSM. Contacts where very positive and pilots BEL1 wanted to know the positions of the other teams and if all the balloons were over the sea. Also they asked different opinions about strategy, directions, winds, etc.... Read more ....

Everything OK with balloon and pilots BEL1, they urgently need a reload for their iridium telephone, as it is the only way to contact meteo and crew from above the sea. And they need a lot of information at this moment. Chasing crew also on their way, heading for… that’s the question!  This is an exciting race!

Thierry Villey-Desmeserets and Benoît Pelard are working very hard fighting the sea. They want solid ground beneath their feet… but it looks like they will lose the battle!