Gale or calms, pick of the day (and the next)…
Ian will unfortunately spend another day in a windless hole as expected, he is now the fleet record holder for days spent in no wind. We can’t talk about respite, but it will be a bit better tomorrow, upwind (again…) in 15-20 knots of SE. His Pacific Ocean partner Jeremy, the record holder for the number of gales crossed, is getting the pace up in a nice Southwesterly flow, but the champagne sailing will be short-lived, as Ian’s calms will catch up with him tomorrow for an idle day!
Simon and Michael have now rounded the Falklands at good pace in 25-30 knots of westerlies, both covering around 140 miles a day with a gap of 100 miles for the Briton. Tomorrow they will take the northern front in the face, but will avoid the worst of the westerly wind on Friday located south of the islands. They won’t however avoid a fairly fresh Saturday in 30-40 knots of westerly propulsing both biscays towards the front runners.
Up front, Kirsten is stopped, idle, stationary, in her blue windless bubble, with Minnehaha sitting on the 36th parallel. The compression at the head of the fleet was expected, with Abhilash still taking advantage of the NW flow to reduce the gap in latitude to 1°40′ this morning, or 100 miles. The two leaders should emerge from the barometric swamp at approximately the same latitude and less than 500 miles apart laterally with the Biscays quite closer by then.
