Global Ocean Race - Where’s the wind gone?

Throughout Friday night, the double-handed, Class40 Global Ocean Race (GOR) leaders worked down the eastern side of Lanzarote and Fuerteventura in the Canary Islands having opted to skirt the archipelago and leave the islands to starboard. At dusk, Halvard Mabire and Miranda Merron with Campagne de France continued to lead after four days at the front of the fleet, gybing close in to the shore of Lanzarote towards the lights of Costa de Teguise in around ten knots of northerly breeze before gybing back onto port and clearing the coast. Overnight, Mabire and Merron kept Ross and Campbell Field on BSL seven miles astern with the breeze dropping and clocking slightly to the east at around eight to ten knots as the two Class40s left Fuerteventura to starboard, heading eastwards, with both Class40s averaging seven knots, into the centre of the 55-mile wide channel between the islands and Morocco, making use of the southerly flowing Canary Current, before moving across to the African coast and grabbing the only available breeze in the area.

Shortly before dusk on Friday, the Fields met a familiar yacht north of the islands when they encountered the maxi yacht and 1989-90 Whitbread Round-the-World Race entry, Fisher & Paykel: “We were sailing along, minding our own business, when this IOR beast came steaming over the horizon on our line, big spinnaker up with mizzen staysail,” says Campbell Field. During the 1989-90 Whitbread, Ross Field raced with the late Sir Peter Blake on Steinlager 2, winning all of the event’s six legs. “Quite an impressive sight and I was dreading the start of old IOR stories from Ross,” he adds. During the encounter, the 82ft ketch came slightly too close for comfort: “We made our intentions clear and they sailed very close to leeward - which in itself gave us a few anxious moments as they struggled to keep her tracking in a straight line, so I got the camera out in case we needed some evidence for the big insurance claim as the underwriters might be a bit dubious with a description of the incident as ‘mounted by a dinosaur’.” An invitation from the bigger boat via VHF to a stopover in the Canaries and a barbecue was politely declined by the New Zealand duo: “When I explained that we were in a race and were close second to a French boat ahead of us by a few miles, they very kindly offered to go and run them over!” Campbell reports. “So they lumbered on ahead and over the horizon, although as we approached the northern tip of Lanzarote we overtook them again, which in itself is quite interesting; a 40ft boat racing around the world overtaking a yacht that - in its day - was a huge, state-of-the-art racing machine. According to Ross, there were damn near high-fives all round when Fisher & 

Paykel hit 10 knots and hitting 20 was an event worth writing a book about!”

Prompted, possibly, by the sight of an old adversary, Field Senior launched into the blogosphere: “Campbell reckons his old man doesn't understand what a blog is, let alone how to type one and I am sure he thinks that I don't know how to use a computer!” wrote Ross, whose primary communications portal on Steinlager 2 would have been an SSB set with the size, weight and power-demand characteristics of an industrial, deep fat fryer. “We have had some fantastic sailing since the start and really pleased how we are going,” he adds of progress on his sixth circumnavigation race. “Made a couple of mistakes and let my old friend Halvard Mabire get through us outside the Med, but we are right on his tail now, he’s right in our sights, just on the bow and Campbell is convinced that we are getting closer - I hope he’s right.” Throughout Saturday morning and afternoon, Campagne de France and BSL remained between six and seven miles apart with Mabire and Merron’s new Pogo 40S² and the Fields’ Verdier-designed, 2008, Tyker 40 producing matching speeds in the diminishing breeze.