Day 42, Friday January 15, 1999

Minoru Saito © Photo Billy Black

Minoru Saito was leading the remaining fleet of five skippers. He was 1016 miles from the finish and making about five knots and dropping, due to the influence of high-pressure system. From behind him was coming Neal Petersen and cutting down Saito's lead to 33 miles by the end of the day.

Neal Petersen © Photo Marek Slodownik
Neal Petersen happily reported: "Thanks for turning the fan on. Now lets rotate the wind 60 degrees left and increase its strength a bit. I have head winds and not able to make my course, but that is fine, as I needed to get a little bit east before making a northeast heading. The reason is that the high-pressure systems have been centered more in the Tasman Sea, and I want to skirt around the bottom then the right hand side to keep the wind. Minoru was becalmed last night, as I kept moving. Today he was doing 5 knots when I was doing 7 knots and I was able to pull back what I had lost to him."

Robin Davie © Photo Marek Slodownik 

Robin Davie, at the far end of the fleet, was still experiencing Southern Ocean conditions: "The last 24 hours have seen the best and the worst of the Southern Ocean, the best being the night light show of the Southern Lights, and the worst this evening as we struggle against rising head winds and building seas to get the final 15 miles north to the 46 degree south waypoint… Last night saw the most spectacular light show of Southern lights, which are the result of the Sun's light being reflected off the Antarctic Ice mass back up into the nighttime sky on the other side of the Antarctic… Strong winds continued, with heavy cloud banks and squalls coming though, but between the clouds were clear starlit skys, and great shafts of light beams backlit the clouds. Later on with much higher wisps of cirrus light clouds covering the whole sky, it was like being inside a dome with the cloud patterns all lit up around the whole 360 degree horizon. Overhead it looked as though all the light was centered and focussed right above us - never seen that before - quite amazing… If the wind change had come 3 hours later we would have cruised north easily, as it is there are still 4.3 miles to go north, and we only managed 1.7 miles of northing in the last hour, so it will probably take most of the rest of the night to make the mark."

© Photo Richard Konkolski

Positions:

Class 1

Class 2

Copyright © Richard Konkolski
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