Day 3 racing in the Atlantic and there’s no rest for the top runners pressured by the close contact of their competition. Desperately making the most of reliable winds in the north before conditions change, Phil updates us on the race:
“We have at last escaped the Azores High and have a North Atlantic low bearing down on us from the west… This is bringing us some great breeze at last and we are making some good speeds!
“We had a tricky day yesterday trying to get further north, and had to make some big “investments”, where we were gybing behind a lot of boats (photo attached of Stella Nova on different gybe) and lost a few positions. We are happy with where we are this morning and it will be good to see if we can make ground on the southern pack of boats…
“Aina is just in front of us on a new Mach 3, which is more of an extreme design. Currently she is going slightly higher and faster than us, clearly on a different strategy (photo).
“We are now into a good offshore rhythm with are shift pattern but it’s always tricky to find time to helm, navigate, eat and sleep in one cycle. I am eating whilst writing this and downloading weather files also at the same time. Never knew I was one for multi-tasking!”
