Global Ocean Race - Leaving Africa astern

On Tuesday night, the north-easterly breeze gave the six double-handed Class40s in the Global Ocean Race (GOR) a taste of Trade Wind sailing conditions. While the race leaders, Campagne de France with BSL in second place, were already stretching away from the coast separated by 29 miles at dawn on Wednesday with the Cape Verde Islands 190 miles off their bows, four boats were still working down the coast of Africa led by Cessna Citation in third consistently averaging 12-13 knots overnight and taking 49 miles from the leaders between Tuesday afternoon and dawn on Wednesday. In fourth place, Financial Crisis dropped back 26 miles behind Cessna Citation during the same period, trailing the New Zealand-Spanish team by 84 miles on Wednesday morning with Phesheya-Racing and Sec. Hayai trading fifth and sixth place furthest north and closest to the African coast.

For Colman and Ramon, the night of fast and impressive sailing left feelings of guilt on board Cessna Citation: “I have and addition to make,” wrote Colman the following morning. “It should be eight deadly sins. The list should read: coveting thy neighbour's wife; laziness; easy speed under spinnaker; gluttony etc, etc, etc.” The wickedness began at 15:00 GMT on Tuesday; “Since gybing yesterday off the coast, we have been eating up the miles with an easy relaxed lope that has taken distance out of those ahead - although there is a still a-ways to go - and padded our cushion to those behind.” As night fell, seven hours after the gybe, Colman was in a semi-trance at the helm: “I set into a rhythm of easily surfing the short waves into the silvery path the moon laid out before me. Head up; catch a wave; accelerate; zoom down passed the moonlit path as the instruments tumbled over themselves to catch up; 15 – 16 – 17 and finally 18 knots before the wave exhausted itself and the search was on for another easy ride.” For the former Mini 6.50 sailor, the process felt like cheating. “The procedure on the Mini was much the same, but crossing the ocean on a boat half the length and less than a quarter of the displacement of a Class40 is an altogether more strenuous exercise. Here, I barely got my toes wet!”

Early on Tuesday evening, 250 miles north-east of Cessna Citation, the South African duo of Nick Leggatt and Phillippa Hutton-Squire were averaging the best boatspeed in the fleet having spent extended periods hampered by lack of wind: “Today we have stayed inshore gybing off Boujdour and changing from the A4 to the our bluQube A6 spinnaker,” Hutton-Squire reported from Phesheya-Racing late on Wednesday. “We are now surfing down the waves at about 15 to 16 knots in 26 knots of wind,” she continues. “It is great fun, but it gets to your nerves at times.”