Day 45, Monday November 9, 1998

By the end of the day George Stricker finally reached the Eastern Hemisphere and was less than 750 miles from finish line. He was doing over seven knots and it looked like he might finish by the end of the week.

© Foto Richard Konkolski

Over four hundred miles behind was hard-fighting Davie with his rudderless boat averaging less than four knots. He was steering his boat by balancing sails and it started showing. To be able to keep some reasonable direction, his sails were continuously pounded by strong wind from wrong direction. A gust of this wind just simply ripped his jib leaving behind a 30 feet long tear. All this happened during dark, rainy and miserable night.

Davie was doing his best, but with all his effort he was not able to stop Yazykov who was only 11 miles behind him and gaining. Even with his crippled rigging, Victor was doing almost seven knots. Petersen, sailing right behind, was able to gain almost 20 miles back from yesterday's loss but still remained in seventh place followed only by Saito and Hunter.
© Foto Richard Konkolski
It seemed that the rest of sailors were occupied with sailing and nobody had time for reporting back to race headquarter. Only Konioukhov, who was closing the whole pack, reported though his son: "Hello everybody, I am now in the middle of the Atlantic, going down by 170 degrees. Keel is doing good, but I have to check his bolts every day with my tools, for now the bolts are not moving. I am planning to reach Cape Town by 25 of November and I will continue my trip to Auckland after required repairs. This is my dream to go around the world and if the God and boat will let me do that I will."

© Foto Richard Konkolski

Positions:

Class 1

Class 2

Copyright © Richard Konkolski
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