27 April 2012
Clear of the Caribbean
Over the past 48 hours, the Global Ocean Race (GOR) Class40s have been negotiating the Caribbean Islands and a swollen area of light breeze blocking the route to Charleston. Fleet leader, Cessna Citation broke into fresh north-easterly breeze early on Thursday morning GMT, 180 miles NNE of the Dominican Republic, but in second place, Financial Crisis had to wait a further 24 hours before finding the new wind.
Meanwhile, the two chasing boats, Phesheya-Racing in third and Sec. Hayai in fourth, opted to weave through the Caribbean Islands sidestepping the high pressure lurking further east out in the Atlantic. At 12:00 GMT on Friday, Conrad Colman and Scott Cavanough had been averaging 11-13 knots for 24 hours with Cessna Citation, extending their lead over Marco Nannini and Sergio Frattaruolo on Financial Crisis by 73 miles in 24 hours, building the distance deficit rapidly as the Kiwi-Australian duo pile north-west averaging 11.9 knots at a hot angle, while Nannini and Frattaruolo are downwind on starboard gybe averaging just under ten knots.
South of Financial Crisis by 144 miles at noon on Friday, the South African duo of Nick Leggatt and Phillippa Hutton-Squire exited the Caribbean at 03:00 GMT on Friday morning, leaving the British Virgin Islands to port of Phesheya-Racing with the Dutch duo of Erik van Vuuren and Yvonne Beusker pushing hard averaging 11 knots as they took Sec. Hayai between Antigua and Barbuda removing just over 40 miles from the lead held by Phesheya-Racing in 24 hours, trailing the South Africans by 114 miles as Sec. Hayai left St. Martin and St. Barths to port at noon.
|
