20 February 2012
Cessna Citation is back in the lead as Cape Horn approaches
At 18:00 GMT on Sunday, Conrad Colman and Adrian Kuttel re-took the lead in Leg 3 of the Global Ocean Race (GOR) with Cessna Citation as Marco Nannini and Hugo Ramon climbed north with Financial Crisis, dropping back to second place as the new leaders built on their lead overnight. In third place with Phesheya-Racing, the South African duo of Nick Leggatt and Phillippa Hutton-Squire have reached 56S – the same latitude as Cape Horn 1,200 miles to the east – and have passed the area of iceberg sightings reported by Cessna Citation last Wednesday.
As Leggatt and Hutton-Squire drop deeper into the Southern Ocean, more clothing is being broken out on Phesheya-Racing. Phillippa Hutton-Squire describes the latest trends in the Furious Fifties: “This week we have thick fleece thermals and Sealskinz waterproof socks,” she explains. “I‘m wearing a thin layer of normal thermals under my thick thermals, then we pull on our mid-layers and then our normal foul weather gear,” says Hutton-Squire. “So, once you’re dressed to go outside, you feel and walk like a penguin!” Fresh zip-lock bags of supplies have just been opened by the South Africans: “Everything is packed into little bags from the sugar and tea with the right portion for the week, the toilet paper, clean dish towels, fruit cake.... can you imagine arriving at Week 4 after the whole boat has been covered in condensation for days and your soft, two-ply toilet paper is wet?” she asks. “Would that not make you grumpy?”
With the numbing cold, food is increasingly important: “It’s essential that we get enough calories and carbohydrates inside us to help us stay warm and have enough energy to work the boat,” continues Hutton-Squire. “I think my portions have doubled since the weather has got so much cooler and Nick never seems to stop eating!” she notes. “Breakfast, snack snack, sleep, lunch, snack snack, sleep, dinner and then he eat his way through the dark hours too, however he hasn’t put on weight yet!”
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