Diving South
There’s been some movement in the GGR fleet this weekend, starting with Simon Curwen who left Puerto Montt yesterday towards the south after completing his repairs. He came out of the shelter of Chiloé Island last night and is getting straight into serious sailing upwind in a strong breeze and back in business!
430 miles to his south, Abhilash is back on course, having climbed the mast for repairs this weekend. He had to wait for a (relative) lull in the sustained winds to repair his rig while Kirsten was heading SE at over 7 knots. He is now 400 miles behind Kirsten but always said his plan was to round Cape Horn safely and push on up the Atlantic where his Rustler should be faster than the Cape George.
Behind them, Captain Gugg maintained the pace and his 1200 mile gap to Kirsten. This means he moved closer to Abhilash 1000 miles to his east but only two degrees to his south, less than 120 miles. Along the zone, Jeremy in Chichester battled his way up to 43°S to keep the wind up while Ian in Suhaili was still tangled in the light. A strategy with mixed results: the lateral gap is still 400 miles, but Jeremy is now 3° higher.
Guy Waites has arrived in Hobart to replace the life raft that was lost at sea. He plans to leave on Tuesday and is no longer in the race but you can follow his progress on his Facebook page facebook.com/guywaitessailing and live tracker https://my.yb.tl/yblogsagarmatha13.
UPDATE – Simon Curwen
Simon is returning to an anchorage yet to be decided. He sailed out into 30kn gusting 40kn SW headwinds and not making pleasant progress, so has decided to make for a safe anchorage and wait for a few days. He has chosen an anchorage on the northeast of Isla Guamblin, approx. 50 miles further SSE of his current position.
