Snake and ladders
With the high pressure moving south, Simon has picked up speed again at 5 knots this morning, and Kirsten has a rising barometer and less wind. She lost 25 miles on the Briton, stabilising the gap at 362 miles, which is half of what it was last week. Abhilash hasn’t lost any ground and has been trucking steady, he improves his 7-day record to 1145 miles, an average of 6.8 knots!
All is well on Nuri, Michael is making metronomic progress at around 140 nm/day which will take him to Hobart just in time for the New Year Eve fireworks! Jeremy is alternating easy winds and calms this week, but in solid west direction, a little respite for his last 3 days along the exclusion zone!
Ian played well, he stopped diving south and is heading due east on 42°S, following the front to its north to stay in fresh winds. Elliott is in a calm this morning, but had planned more work on his rig today, getting rid of the weak bowsprit and stabilising his rig. He is not planning to stop in Australia!
In Cape Town, Sagarmatha is ready to go, and Guy will update us later this morning.
UPDATE
Elliott is now bound for Fremantle (2500 miles) in Western Australia where he will retire from the GGR. He has been up the mast 10 times trying to repair the forestay, but was knocked around badly and critical equipment has been lost overboard. His mast is now being secured by two spinnaker halyards and a genoa halyard unable to raise headsails. Details to follow shortly with a GGR Sound Cloud recording from Elliott.
