Fila at start © Foto Marek SlodownikThe wind had gotten very light and the sea flat. The fleet experienced some squalls, but the condition was light in general. One week has passed since the start and nobody from the fleet could show his domination. The top boats were equally matched.
Fila at start © Foto Marek Slodownik
Soldini continued to hold the Class I after 239 miles run during the last 24-hour. He was trailed by Hall, Golding and Thiercelin. Autissier had slipped to fifth place, but nobody knows for how long. Isabelle has seen her situation in her own way: "Good that Mark (Thiercelin) and I have decided to be the first ones to cross through the high pressure zone. It should be a little easier for us because we will be farther away from the center than those who will cross through it coming from the north. But today looks like it is going to be difficult. Right now we already have less than five knots of wind. We should be clear of it tonight or tomorrow and we will see where we stand two days from now."
In Class II Garside cut off 26 miles from Mouligne's lead. Garside saw Mouligne's masthead light just after the 0500Z position report and so he gave him a cheery call on the VHF. "He was very polite, despite the fact that I had woken him up."
Garside's Magellan Alpha
JP described the chat in his e-mail: "I got a brutal awakening around 2 o'clock this
morning. Somebody was calling CRAY VALLEY on Channel 16! Offshore, you always monitor
Channel 16 on the VHF radio, but the range is only a few miles so the caller had to be
very close. Sure enough, it was Magellan Alpha, and I could see his red light only a mile
behind me!"
JP Mouligne © Foto Marek Slodownik
After a pleasant little chat they got back to serious business. In effect, they have started their race all over again. Soon Garside realized that Cray Valley was sailing away from him, but despite hard work with his wardrobe of sail combinations, he was losing ground steadily.
"Four hours later JP was still about a mile ahead", e-mailed Garside, "And I have decided to remain astern and spend the day taking sailing lessons. Trouble is, I haven't quite got the nerve to call him up again and ask what I'm doing wrong and what I need to do to overtake."
Place |
Skipper |
Boat |
Latitude |
Longitude |
Dist. to go |
Speed |
Dist. to first |
Time |
1 |
Soldini |
Fila |
30 53N |
051 19W |
5537 |
7.6 |
0 |
1540 |
2 |
Hall |
Gartmore |
28 59N |
054 09W |
5582 |
7.4 |
45.2 |
1540 |
3 |
Golding |
Team Group 4 |
28 19N |
055 07W |
5597 |
7.3 |
60.8 |
1540 |
4 |
Thiercelin |
Somewhere |
27 52N |
056 36W |
5645 |
7 |
108 |
1540 |
5 |
Austissier |
PRB |
27 40N |
056 50W |
5647 |
7 |
110.5 |
1540 |
6 |
Konioukhov |
Mod Univ Human |
26 49N |
065 02W |
5978 |
5.4 |
352.4 |
0452 |
7 |
Reidl |
Project Amazon |
31 17N |
059 10W |
5873 |
6.3 |
171 |
2140 |
Place |
Skipper |
Boat |
Latitude |
Longitude |
Dist. to go |
Speed |
Dist. to first |
Time |
1 |
Mouligne |
Cray Valley |
28 17N |
056 30W |
5655 |
6.9 |
0 |
1544 |
2 |
Garside |
Magellan Alpha |
28 18N |
056 31W |
5657 |
6.9 |
1.3 |
1544 |
3 |
Van Liew |
Balance Bar |
28 12N |
057 45W |
5705 |
6.6 |
49.7 |
1544 |
4 |
Davie |
South Carolina |
30 21N |
056 41W |
5736 |
6.4 |
81.1 |
1544 |
5 |
Stricker |
Rapscallion III |
30 20N |
057 44W |
5780 |
6.2 |
124.9 |
1544 |
6 |
Saito |
Shuten-dohji II |
30 29N |
058 07W |
5801 |
6.1 |
145.8 |
1544 |
7 |
Petersen |
No Barriers |
30 35N |
060 09W |
5891 |
5.5 |
235.7 |
1544 |
8 |
Hunter |
Paladin II |
31 16N |
063 53W |
6073 |
4.4 |
417.8 |
1544 |
9 |
Yazykov |
Wind of Change |
31 09N |
074 44W |
6548 |
1.6 |
892.3 |
1544 |
© Richard Konkolski
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