In their own words
Writing from on board
GUYOT environnement - Team Europe - Report
The last two days were extreme.
The first one was beautiful. I think we averaged 21 kn for about 24 h. That was a fast jib reach with a lot of distance! Life was not easy on board foiling upwind with up to 26/28 knots in top speed. But we enjoyed the speed and we were happy to increase our lead slightly.
Last night we sailed into a huge, huge cloud with lots of rain and wind shifts and mostly light winds. We needed to work a lot to keep the boat going. Everyone was tired. We spent a lot of energy but couldn’t escape the bad conditions. Over the past hour we seem to have found stable but light trade winds again. We lost a lot on the other boats westerly of us. Not easy. But it is still a long race.
All good on board Guyot!
Robert Stanjek
Guyot Environnement Team Europe
Team Malizia
Hello Race Control!
All good onboard Malizia. We are enjoying some very nice sailing conditions : reaching in 12-15 Kts TWS and flat sea-state. Boat is foiling to the South.
We just miss some ice-cream and beer as it is very warm onboard !!!
Next for us is to go alongside the Brazilian coast in order to round Saint-Helena High Pressure and to get some strong downwind conditions. This wind will allow us to go East to Cape Town.
Then the end is very unpredictable as there could be another high pressure to cross with no wind...
Bests,
Nico Lunven
11th Hour Racing Team
Just in from Amory Ross onboard:
February 2. Groundhog Day in the States! It’s not quite the case out here but it seems like it’s going to be a theme for a few days at least. The east-west posturing complete, with yesterday’s subtle reshuffling in the stronger-than-forecast winds and squalls complete, everyone more or less appears resigned with their lane south. We are still “bow back,” meaning to-the-north-of, Biotherm and Holcim-PRB, but as the winds lighten nearing the ridge of high pressure, they will have a harder time shifting lanes like they were able to yesterday, and the closer you are to the high the lighter the winds get. So while we are farther from Cape Town and while our outside track has us sailing more miles, it’s still our belief (and that of our routing) that the surplus wind in our future farther to the west and farther to the south will more than make up for it. That’s our hope, at least! But the next 24-48 hours are going to be groundhoggish for sure. 10-15 knots, flat water, lifting ever so slowly until we finally gybe on to our spinnakers and go east.
Onboard temps are at an all-time high while conditions for outdoor boating are perfect. We’ll get to do none of that! But we are fully protected from the sun and that has been a really nice development. Usually by now everyone’s completely cooked, chapped, covered in long layers and big hats and buffs, head to toe in sunscreen and full of salt and sun rash. Nobody is missing that. Our protective roof has given plenty of shade, and we’ve just learned to accept the inferno of stale, steamy air. Life is all about compromises ? This part of the world is always going to be hot one way or another. All you need to do is look at the suggested routes taking us south to the ice gates where we’ll soon all be really cold!