Since the maxi-catamaran’s complete check-up in the calms onThursday morning, the wind has been stalling its reappearance. Orange II is sailing at a reduced pace,between 12 and 15 knots, and is attempting to climb due N along the Braziliancoastline. It is likely to make the latitude of Salvador de Bahia this evening, and a crossing of the equator onSunday morning, is still on the cards. The lead now held by Bruno Peyron and his men over the outright record hascontinued to increase since the start, peaking yesterday at 10 days on the 38thday of racing. The current light conditions and the present record holder Cheyenne’sgreat speed over this latter part of the course, would lead us to believe thatthis capital of leading miles is now likely to be reduced to some extent. That doesn’t shake the motivation of OrangeII’s crew though, who are exploiting the maxi-catamaran’s potential to the fulland will try to retain as much of their lead as possible until they get to Ouessant.

Bruno Peyron, Friday morning at 0400 GMT : « There isstill not much wind, barely 8 knots. We’re not worried about it though, the windwill kick back in progressively. We are upwind under full mainsail and alternating between the code zero and the solentup forward. As we have closed in on the coast, we’ve passed a few boats, but they were too far away to know if theywere Brazilian fishermen. With this heat, we try to sleep on deck rather than down below. I think we reached our maximum lead yesterdayof over 10 days. Right now we have light winds and a low speed. We also stopped the boat yesterday, so in principle, our lead is not set to increase, especially as the North Atlantic doesn’t look simple. »

Share or bookmark this story: