6 April 2012
Leadership strife at the front of the fleet
After two days of bashing upwind parallel to the Brazilian coast, the four double-handed Global Ocean Race (GOR) Class40s are sailing downwind following the passage of a front on Thursday night with speed averages climbing. As the wind veered round from north to south-west, the Class40s took a more northerly route again and are currently 170 miles east of Florianópolis.
As the front moved through, the lead of Conrad Colman and Scott Cavanough on Cessna Citation over the Italian-Slovak team of Marco Nannini and Sergio Frattaruolo on Financial Crisis shrank to four miles as Nannini and Frattaruolo furthest west found the new breeze first, but the New Zealand-Australian frontrunners have since pulled away again building a lead of just under 20 miles at 15:00 GMT on Friday.
Both Cessna Citation and Financial Crisis have extended their lead over Nico Budel and Erik van Vuuren on Sec. Hayai and the South African duo of Nick Leggatt and Phillippa Hutton-Squire with Phesheya-Racing, but the current focus for the fleet is an unavoidable, swelling area of light wind forecast to engulf the boats in the next 24-30 hours.
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