Sailing Magazine
by Richard Crockett
Just when the fleet was revelling in better winds again, the fluky stuff came back to haunt them, pushing out their long-range ETAs and generally frustrating the front-runners more than anyone else.
The YB Tracker is showing that the leading catamaran could take line honours in the next two to three days, with the leading monohulls two to three days later. That’s at this time, with the flukey winds, although one hopes that the wind increases and blows them in to the Rio finish line as they have had a torridly slow race and are no doubt looking forward to the finish.
‘Norhi’ has about 140nm on ‘Aventurerio 4′, while in the monohulls Adrian Kuttel on ‘Atalanta’ has about 85nm on ‘Ray of Light and about 107nm over ‘Audaz II’.
The monohull tussle to the finish is going to be an intriguing one as the three mentioned above will be fighting for the honour of being first home. It’s going to be tough as we all know that the closer to land they get the more flukey the winds can become, especially the closer one gets to the finish line. The finish line area has in the past had yachts totally becalmed for many hours within sight of the finish.
In the last 24 hours ‘Nemesis’ has had the best run of 162nm which sadly for them is in reality leaving things a little too late as they have so much ground to make up after going too far south and running out of wind.
I am looking forward to watching the monohull race unfold as they race for the finish line. Follow it on the YB Tracker.
