Day 48, Thursday, January 21, 1999

Moredl8.jpg (25391 bytes)
© Photo Richard Konkolski

A passing by tropical cyclone Dani stirred the region and Neal and Minoru were blessed with some wind. Neal reported: "I have wind. Can you believe it, after 110 hours I am off sailing again… The winds are 25 knots, sometimes close to 30 knots. What a contrast to yesterday. My last 24-hour run was 39 miles. Minoru managed to get some wind and while I was doing 0.2 knots going northwest, he managed to open a lead of 34 miles on me. These are his conditions, so I might have to bow to the old man of the sea on this leg… Even Neil Hunter has been able to close up his gap and now trails me by 260 miles. So it looks like 5 or 6 days to go if I can keep the wind."

Minoru Saito © Photo Marek Slodownik  MSSaito6.jpg (15568 bytes)

By the end of the day Minoru gained another 10 miles on Neal and let him stay behind a full 49 miles. Saito had still 414 miles to go. Robin Davie, 1673 miles from finish, had a day of light winds and near calm, warm sunshine, and no gear failures or dramas. "It's quite unbelievable," he wrote, "here we are at nearly 49 degrees south enjoying as nice a day as you could wish for anywhere - but then we are at the same latitude south as Seattle WA, or Cornwall UK, and even they have nice days... " The situation was not good for Robin. With his distance to the finish line he would have to average at least 186 miles a day to come in time.

Konioukhov was also making progress. He was left with 941 miles to go and he was making nice 10 knots of speed. This left him with the average of 105 miles a day to cover in order to finish on time. Hopefully the wind would blow over the Tasman Sea for some time.

VlnaKabestan.jpg (25383 bytes)
© Photo Richard Konkolski

Positions:

Class 1

Place

Skipper

Boat

Latitude

Longitude

Dist. to go

Speed

Dist. to first

Time

1

Soldini

Fila

Auckland

0

0

0

0

0

2

Thierceli

Somewhere

Auckland

0

0

0

0

0

3

Autissier

PRB

Auckland

0

0

0

0

0

4

Hall

Gartmore

Auckland

0

0

0

0

0

5

Konioukhov

Mod.Univ.Human.

38 57S

157 45E

941

10

941.4

1901

6

Golding

Team Group 4

Retired

Auckland

0

0

0

0

Class 2

Place

Skipper

Boat

Latitude

Longitude

Dist. to go

Speed

Dist. to first

Time

1

Mouligne

Cray Valley

Auckland

0

0

0

0

0

2

Garside

Magellan Alpha

Auckland

0

0

0

0

0

3

Van Liew

Balance Bar

Auckland

0

0

0

0

0

4

Yazykov

Wind of Change

Auckland

0

0

0

0

0

5

Saito

Shuten-dohji II

36 57S

168 52E

414

8

413.6

2144

6

Petersen

No Barriers

37 20S

167 55E

463

6.7

463.4

2144

7

Hunter

Paladin II

39 18S

163 01E

722

5.9

721.9

2144

8

Davie

South Carolina

46 56S

143 52E

1673

5.2

1672.5

2144

9

Stricker

Rapscallion III

Retired

0

0

0

0

0

Copyright © Richard Konkolski
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