Busy Saturday
The low pressure moving south tonight should finally give Simon some decent -albeit upwind- pressure tomorrow, but today he is no match for the mile-hungry Abhilash and Kirsten. They respectively gained another 114 and 101 miles over 24 hours, the Navy Commander being a bit faster overnight. Kirsten is trailing below the magic number, 424 miles back.
Captain Gugg is enjoying the conditions below 44° and the freedom away from the exclusion zone, after his NW to SW wind shift yesterday is in for another SW to NW to SW today, put on the dancing shoes! Jeremy got through a massive gale unscathed and looking forward to the end of the no-go zone mid-next week.
At the back of the fleet, Ian had enough of the 40’s roaring at him and went up to 39°50 S, Elliott has not thrown the towel yet, going East downwind under reduced sails, they both further reduced their ETA to Hobart and are in for a windy ride for the next 20 hours
UPDATE
Elliott called and is continuing to Hobart cautiously, with the option of heading for Albany in Western Australia for more permanent repairs if difficulties. He used his sat phone to call Josh, his manager, so will be penalised but not moved to Chichester class. He is holding everything together with two spinnaker halyards and not worried about mast security but cannot uses sails on the furling gear. Will report repair plans tomorrow. Simon is still sitting in a hole. Kirsten with latest weatherfax and radio weather reports from Australia appears to know exactly how to avoid the centre of the high for now. But may be challenged in the days ahead. In the next 20 hours, Kirsten may be only 100 miles further way from Hobart than Simon – and she has a 35 hours time compensation. So we have a boat race for sure! Importantly, they are absolutely now in the same weather system.
