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31 May 2012
A brief lull before the next depression arrives
As the mid-Atlantic low pressure system moved north-east after pummelling the Global Ocean Race (GOR) Class40s, the fleet leader Cessna Citation with Conrad Colman and Scott Cavanough held onto the wind longest, polling averages of over 11 knots before finally dropping off the back of the system at around 06:00 GMT on Thursday.
With no damage reported from the fleet, in fourth place, Sec. Hayai of Nico and Frans Budel crossed the bluQube Scoring Gate at 21:00 GMT on Wednesday but dropped back behind Phesheya-Racing losing just under 50 miles to the South Africans in the past 24 hours as Nick Leggatt and Phillippa Hutton-Squire start polling the highest speeds in the fleet on Thursday afternoon.
Meanwhile, Marco Nannini and Sergio Frattaruolo in second on Financial Crisis have carved around 60 miles from the lead held by Cessna Citation, sailing a shorter route across the North Atlantic, while Colman and Cavanough stayed glued to the low pressure system sailing more miles at breakneck speed.
On Phesheya-Racing, Phillippa Hutton-Squire and Nick Leggatt were confident throughout the storm: “Having beat upwind for a solid ten days in strong winds on the way to Cape Horn, this low pressure has treated us very well,” reported Hutton-Squire on Thursday morning. “On average, we had winds between 22 - 30 knots, occasionally we saw over 30 and the most we saw was 37.1 knots,” confirms the South African skipper and the dramatic scenery around Phesheya-Racing matched the force of the wind: “Big, blue-black rolling waves with white breaking caps surrounding the boat coming from all directions,” recalls Hutton-Squire. “We surf down the waves and the boat gains momentum, we surf from one wave to the next sometimes the boat does bang,” she adds. “It’s not the same bang as when we are beating, it's almost a fast, happy bang when we skip from one wave to the next.”
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