The Race - 0630 - 5/3/01

The amount of globe we have to swivel round to find the rest of the fleet tells the rest of the story - Team Adventure (orange) is clawing her way up the South Atlantic, and is about to tackle the eponymous zone of high pressure.

There must be something about Warta Polpharma, the Polish entry - as Commodore Explorer and under the command of Bruno Peyron this boat had a terrible time rounding Cape Horn in their epic first Jules Verne circumnavigation (under 80 days).

Returning to this part of the world with a different crew and name, the Cape had been lining them up for the same treatment for most of the back end of last week. And over the weekend, the low pressure finally caught up with them. The navigator, Darius Drapella reported, "The wind isn't really a problem, we had more than 79 knots last night, it's more the seaway that's a problem for us.

"When you have waves over ten metres like we had, it really becomes difficult. We carried as little sail as we could, then we went down to bare poles and we also trailed a drogue to slow us down and steady the boat in the storm." As Darius Drapella recorded winds of 85 knots, Warta-Polpharma made the smart call and dived for shelter behind two islands of Tierra del Fuego, Islas Lennox and Nueva.

It's not over either, the South Atlantic offers little respite as Warta Polpharma sails north (above). Drapella reckoned, "Another storm is forecast with 70 knots when we'll be between Argentina and the Falklands. It'll be just another storm for us in this race." But he had enough energy for some words for the winners, "Congratulations to Club Med, they've had a fantastic race!"

Meanwhile, back in the Southern Ocean, Tony Bullimore continues his circumnavigation, and this time the tortoise didn't come good - 'nuff said.

Standings (at 0300 GMT, 5/3/01)

1 Club Med - finished in 62 days, 6 hours and 56 minutes
2 Innovation Explorer 378.5 nm to go
3 Team Adventure +5405.7 nm
4 Warta Polpharma +6141.3 nm
5 Team Legato +8832.3 nm

Map images courtesy of Virtual Spectator, click here to go to The Race site for a free download of the software.