MULTIHULL OPEN 60’s   Although Groupama (Cammas/Proffit FRA) is still commanding a 59m lead in the multihull 60 class with three other boats all below 26N and now in the Trades, second placed Sergio Tacchini (Fauconnier/Foxall) has speared off south about 360m from the African coast, whereas the other three have all put some westing in their route. Both Géant (Desjoyeaux/Jan) and Belgacom (Nélias/L.Peyron) are clocking higher speeds downwind, and so we could see the gaps close up by the Doldrums. For the next flank of boats above this latitude, only those placed over to the west, Biscuits La Trinitaine (Guillemot/Guichard) the furthest at 23W, Sopra Group (Monnet/L. Bourgnon) and Sodebo (Coville/Vincent) are in the wind corridor to the West of the Canaries. Four hundred miles to the East is Banque Populaire (Roucayrol/Bidegorry) to the lee of Gran Canaria. There has not been much choice for those forced to stop in Madeira. Gitana (Lemonchois/Guessard) headed West, which is paying for now, whereas Bonduelle (Le Cam/De Pavant) and Foncia (Gautier/MacArthur) headed South, and it is these last two trimarans that have been becalmed. Ellen Macarthur philosophized on the sat phone : "It’s hard to have endured a broken mainsail halyard, a ripped staysail and a pit stop in Porto Santo, but harder still is to not have more than 2 knots of wind right now, just one of the many challenges of this race…one day the wind will return."

Bayer CropScience (Le Peutrec/Cressant) has set off again from Porto Santo.

MULTIHULL OPEN 50

The 50ft multihull Mollymawk skippered by British duo Ross Hobson and Andi Newman is still the back marker of the whole fleet at 36N, and their goal is to catch up on the Open 50’s before too long !

MONOHULL OPEN 60’s

The leading Open 60 monohulls are picking up speed as they each in turn reach the new NE wind. "The big news for today is that we are well and truly in the Trade Winds !" said Jean-Pierre Dick on the sat phone this morning. Leading monohull Virbac has been gibing under spinnaker in a 15 NE breeze and able to reach 16 knots boat speed. She is now 135 miles from her nearest rival, Sill (Jourdain/Thomson) and 169m ahead of Ecover (Golding/Thompson) at the 1500GMT position update. "The flying fish are not yet jumping for joy onto the deck but last night was incredible, one of the best out of the 95 days I have spent on my boat. Now the next hurdle is to get well positioned to attack the Doldrums and for the Equator."

Now, the skippers must work out the most favourable gybing angle to keep up maximum boat speed with a view to heading towards a chosen latitude through which they will cross the Doldrums the most easily. A whole 214m to the West of Virbac, Alex Thomson, co-skipper on Sill, talked about how they might take advantage of their position : "We are into the trades now, with the small reaching spinnaker and full mainsail up. Tonight the breeze should clock round more to the North, which favours Virbac and Ecover then, but afterwards it should clock back slowly and we can sail on a hotter angle then. We can’t afford any mistakes, and it’s just as important to hold onto this second place as it is to catch Virbac. We shouldn’t have a problem, but we’re still worried about Mike !"

Fellow Brits Golding and Thomspon on Ecover are back up to speed now and gaining back miles on the two leaders at each sched. Mike positivised on the sat phone : "Speed is always important, you can’t ever replace speed. It makes you look tactically very good. Of course there is an element of positioning, particularly where we are positioned in the line up to the Doldrums. In the next few days we’ll see boats shuffling across the course trying to prejudge the position of where they’ll cross the ITCZ, the Doldrums."

With 2,400m to go, the monohull fleet are nearing the half way mark and have all to play for still. They are looking at the development of the Doldrums, the bizarre meteorological phenomenon otherwise known as the ITCZ (Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone) where the weather interchanges between fickle and variable winds if any at all, to violent rain squalls in a very short period of time. Exciting racing just behind the leading trio, as PRB (Riou/Beyou) get holed, to allow Team Cowes (Moloney/Davies) to come to within 3 miles as they stay in the narrow airstream just out to the west. PRB co-skipper Jeremie Beyou sounded down in the dumps : "We’ve been caught by the high pressure cell and it’s so frustrating to be becalmed when you can see the others taking off ahead and the boats behind catching up. Since the start we’ve been right in there and have sailed hard. But now, it feels like we’re going nowhere, and Brazil seems a long long way away…We are trying to keep moral up."

Skipper on Team Cowes, Nick Moloney, was sounding jubilant for their gain, but also keeping an eye on the route ahead : "Once everyone is in the Trades, I think, they will fall into a line. The difference will be in the approach to the Doldrums...from here on in we are thinking about that approach. Approaching further west can give you a better crossing so it’s looking all right for us and Sill. PRB is a rocketship downwind and she has a massive 380sqm spinnaker. Virbac is going fast in these conditions...I would say that in the upwind stuff we were matching her definitely but when she bore away by a few degress she was off and sailed through us and Pindar. I guess they twigged early that they just had to sail fast which has dictated the route they have taken. We have 040 now so we will be looking to gybe in next half hour so we don’t get any further away from the fleet." 

MONOHULL OPEN 50’s

In the Open 50 fleet, Hellomoto is still maintaining her lead of 41m over Storagetek (Guillemot/Salnelle) and is pulling away from third placed boat Défi Vendéen 108m in her wake as they continue down the direct route. Storagetek is actually lower in latitude but much further over to the East as the top two boats pass below 32N.

• WEATHER FORECAST

Monday - Both multihull and monohulls now sailing below 26 North are getting into the Trade winds with regular NE breeze behind them, which will reach 20 knots. For everyone else North of this latitude, the winds are still in transition and frustratingly light. It’s more the position in latitude than longitude that makes a difference now. Tuesday - The boundary of the Trades should rise North to place themselves between 28 and 30 N. The back markers should benefit from getting the new breeze earlier than the leaders. Then all boats will be on the southern highway heading direct to the finish line, with the Doldrums in the way. The best strategy will be to remain on the direct route for now as until the boats get nearer to the ITCZ zone they won’t know for sure how active this area will be.

• POSITIONS at 15:00 hrs GMT 10/11/03
 Open 60s’ map : http://voile.esrifrance.fr/default_...

MULTIHULL OPEN 60
 Pos. / Boat / Name / Latitude / Longitude / Speed / Hdg / DTF / DFL
 1 GROUPAMA 23 05.76’ N 21 16.38’ W 19.6 189 2378m
 2 SERGIO TACCHINI 22 49.72’ N 19 33.84’ W 19.8 192 2437.2 59.2m
 3 GEANT 23 34.20’ N 21 04.64’ W 22.1 188 2441.0m 63.0m
 4 BELGACOM 24 43.20’ N 20 03.56’ W 20.6 191 2507.1m 129.2m
 5 BISCUITS LA TRINITAINE 28 27.92’ N 23 48.56’ W 14.2 195 2662.9m 284.9m

MONOHULL OPEN 60
 Pos. / Boat / Name / Latitude / Longitude / Speed / Hdg / DTF / DFL
 1 VIRBAC 21 12.88’ N 24 13.80’ W 15.7 190 2244m
 2 SILL 24 20.96’ N 26 54.36’ W 10.1 190 2379.7m 135.7m
 3 ECOVER 23 58.52’ N 23 28.44’ W 14.0 188 2413.9m 169.9m
 4 PRB 25 29.16’ N 23 58.40’ W 8.9 176 2490.5m 246.5m
 5 TEAM COWES 26 06.64’ N 26 01.96’ W 8.7 231 249m 250.1m

OPEN 50 MULTIHULL
 1 MOLLYMAWK 36 01.52’ N 11 49.48’ W 7.1 195 3353.4m

OPEN 50 MONOHULLS
 1 HELLOMOTO 31 56.04’ N 18 32.80’ W 6.6 211 2944.8m
 2 STORAGETEK 31 32.72’ N 16 08.16’ W 7.2 213 2986.4m 41.6m
 3 DEFI VENDEEN 33 13.80’ N 17 13.76’ W 2.2 203 3053.0m 108.2m 

 Franck Cammas (Groupama) : "It’s good to be on the verge of the trade winds, the direction of wind is there but the strength of the breeze is yet to be established. We are sailing down this very small funnel with the next three boats and we must not lose this. This passage of airflow should shut off behind us, and yet Biscuits La Trinitaine is right over to the West in an interesting position, he’s looking good there. Now we are just trying to negotiate the fluctuating winds which are shifting 5 to 10 degrees, and gibing within this in order to gain more of a lead. There will be 4 shifts today and the wind will rise gradually to 20 - 25 knots, so we’ll be at the helm the whole time, any lack of concentration could lose us precious miles."

 Karine Fauconnier (Sergio Tacchini) : "Damian assures me the Irish are better at sailing than rugby, which is good for me because I would prefer to have a good Irish sailor on board than a rugby player ! We swop shifts at the helm every two hours, and when we’re not at the helm, we’re answering the telephone, managing the navigation and downloading weather files, sleeping and eating a bit…As for the Doldrums up on the horizon, well it’s like being on the motorway and reaching a traffic jam, one of the lanes will get going first and so the position we get into now will have a bearing on how well we get through the Doldrums later. However, just to be here amongst the top boats is fantastic for us !"

 Mich Desjoyeaux (Géant) : "We’re happy where we are, accelerating gradually under gennaker and full main. I am entirely confident in Géant’s downwind performance for what is next…"