Global Ocean Race - Risking it all in the Doldrums

Overnight on Friday, the double-handed Class40s in the Global Ocean Race (GOR) continued to position themselves for the Doldrums with the leading boats around 600 miles north of the Equator. Leading the fleet, Campagne de France slowed marginally while BSL in second took ten miles out of the Franco-British Class40 between sunset and dawn on Saturday, trailing Campagne de France by 58 miles at sunrise.

While Colman and Ramon on Cessna Citation in third place remained 149 miles behind the New Zealand team on BSL and continued to bank miles to the west, the gamble of sailing through the Cape Verde Islands taken by Marco Nannini and Paul Peggs with Financial Crisis paid the Italian-British duo well, taking 17 miles from Cessna Citation and trailing the fleet’s youngest team by 67 miles on Saturday morning. 

Meanwhile, leaving the Cape Verde island of Santo Antao 45 miles to port, Phesheya-Racing in fifth place and Sec. Hayai in sixth were having a personal duel with the trailing boat’s Dutch crew of Nico Budel and Ruud van Rijsewijk winning back 12 miles overnight and trailing the South African team of Nick Leggatt and Phillippa Hutton-Squire by 45 miles on Saturday morning. At 08:00 GMT on Saturday, the impressive gains by Nannini and Peggs on Financial Crisis came to an end as the breeze began to shut down: “The wind is getting lighter and lighter,” confirmed Marco Nannini on Saturday afternoon. 

“There's little we can do other than press on and hope we can cover the next 500 miles to the Doldrums without going insane or getting stuck in a windless zone.” Between midnight and midday on Saturday, the duo’s speed averages on their first generation, relatively heavy, 2007 Akilaria Class40 dropped from ten knots to seven knots. “We keep chasing Cessna and although they invested yesterday in some miles going west, which clearly looks good today, the separation is not enormous and we'll gybe our way closer to their longitude playing the wind shifts.”