Today's Sailing News 

The Race: Light Air

The Race Class cats have produced records individually and epic
days of sailing as a group. Today is not one of those high achieving day.

The top 3 boats were under 300 miles for 24 hours. Club Med leads
by 1022 miles, but put only 277 miles under hulls in 24 hours. 

2nd place Innovation Explorer made good 220 miles. The third Ollier cat Team Adventure did just 189 miles on her way to a Wellington New Zealand pit stop.

Club Med is in an area of high pressure caused light winds. Grant
Dalton says, "We are now in the classic upwind scenario for this part of the world. We are on port tack heading out to the North East. We'll be headed and we'll eventually tack onto starboard and sail upwind towards the Equator and be slowly lifted as we go."

Current satellite images of Club Med's position show only 1 band
of clouds. This band stretches to the east and a bit to the north. Club
Med's north east heading would indicate that this is where they feel the wind is. Generally clouds are a good indicator of wind so there strategy would seem solid.

Innovation Explorer to the south also is concerned about having  sufficient breeze. Thier last course was 063° so it seems as they too have seen the clouds to the NE on the satellite images.

Team Adventure is nearing Wellington. Once tied up to the dock they
will stay for a minimum of 60 hours as repairs are made.

The best days sailing were had by the vintage cats in 4th and 5th.
Warta Polpharma covered 282 miles. The Polish crew is about 400 miles from the Cook Straits. 

Trailing the Poles is Team Legato which had the days  best distance of 420 miles. This brought Team Legato from the Indian Ocean to the Tasman Sea.

With Team Adventure pausing for awhile, the two vintage cats look
to have a hotting up race between them.

The two lead cats will have to negotiate the band of light air.
Once through there should be some fast sailing to be had in the trade wind
zone.

 

Today marks the return of Sailing Daily's Times Clipper Update. The 8 boat fleet has left Hawaii for to sail west across the Pacific, off one side of the map and to the finish on the maps other side in Yokohama Japan. 

The leg will see some trade winds sailing to begin with. Then a crossing of the International date line. This will switch the longitude  line on their GPS displays to east.

The distance for this leg is 3750 miles. As a reference point  the outright record for this route is held by Steve Fossett sailing a
60 foot trimaran. His time 16 days an average of 11.29 knots. The fleet of Clipper mono hulls is expected to arrive in around 20 days or so.

Today's Fleet Update:

Leader: Liverpool Clipper by 14 miles

Best 24 Hour Run: London Clipper 193 miles 

Position: Fleet spread from 19 to 23 degrees north latitude. 

Current Weather: ESE 10 knots

Weather Forecast: Head winds expected

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 Today's Sailing News 

Olympic Sailing: Tornado Worlds

The Tornado catamaran the only multi hull class in the Olympics is currently holding its world championships. For the last time the class is sailing without spinnakers. Future regattas will see the catamarans flying
spinnakers.

20 two person teams are sailing the regatta in South Africa. The fleet has no North American teams.

After 4 races the Australian team of Darren Bundocks and John Forbes
has won all 4 races. They are trailed by Mitch Booth and Herbert Derecksen
of the Netherlands with 4 2nd place finishes.

Olympic gold medallists Roman Hagara and Hans Steinacher are 4th.
Next are a pair of teams from Great Britain and then a German duo. The top
South African team is in 9th place.

Cam Gram Quote

Team Adventure skipper Cam Lewis is not just a world class sailor 
he's also one of the best sailing writers around. He's writes daily reports/Cam-Grams from his Race Class cat. Here's an excerpt from today's: "Speaking of birds, there is good news on the Save the Albatross program. My friend Russell Long who heads up the Bluewater Network www.bluewaternetwork.org has found a group already working hard on the conservation of albatrosses and petrels in the southern oceans. It is a group based at the University of Cape Town and is called the Bird Life International Seabird Conservation Programme. http://www.uct.ac.za/depts/
stats/adu/seabirds We at Team Adventure will be looking at how we can become part of this ongoing program to help out with the conservation of wildlife. They are already involved at an international level and are interested to see if we can help. I know we can. More on this soon."