Please consult The Around Alone Report Users Guide for an explanation of this report.
Welcome to the first day of the last month of Around Alone race reports. Life is good for the Class I boats, and even better for the class II leaders.
Fleet Round Up:
Fila's lead has shrunk to 372 miles a loss of 68 miles. Fila's area shows observed winds of 10 knots from the South South East. Because of the lighter winds Fila has slowed to 8.6 knots.
Somewhere is in better wind and is sailing at 11.2 knots.
Magellan Alpha leads Class II by 221 miles 8 better than yesterday. Magellan, along with Cray Valley, is the fastest in the fleet at 13.7 knots. Mike Garside describes life at 13 knots: "But my last run averaged 13.5 knots and I took back 5 miles, thank heavens. Keeping that going through the night is going to be awful scary."
Cray Valley is 2nd. J.P. Mouligne reports on emerging from the Doldrums, "Not much sun and a very wet ride but it's pure pleasure moving at 13 knots in the right direction after being virtually becalmed for 3 days."
Next is the first of the 40 foot Class II entries, Wind of Change. Wind of Change is 655 miles back. Wind of Change is out of the Doldrums and sailing at 9.7 knots.
www.no-barriers.com is back in 4th place. Neal Petersen is moving right along, "I set a new personal best 24 hr record. My previous best was 194 miles, set 4 years ago on this leg, north of the equator. The new record for this boat is now 201 miles." After this record Neal reports, "This afternoon I came to an abrupt stop when I hit the beginning of the doldrums." Although firmly in the Doldrums No Barriers shows a speed of 7.3 knots.
Shuten Dojhi II is back to 5th place. Shuten lies 1140 miles from 1st place.
Paladin 2 is 1288 miles back.
Balance Bar is back racing and trails the lead boats by 1754miles.
What does it all mean ?
From front to back the fleet is making comfortable speeds.