The Race - 1130 - 19/1/01

This morning (above) we can see Team Adventure's track (orange) towards Cape Town, and Club Med (light blue) has also turned north - it seems Dalton is easing off now that his closest competition is out of the game. Innovation Explorer (green) is over 700 miles behind, and Dalton's priority will surely be to protect his boat.

And while all this was going on, Innovation Explorer were just getting their Southern Ocean run started in earnest. "The wind has been back since yesterday afternoon," said Loïck Peyron. "We have 30 knots of wind at the moment and we've all sails set at the moment, full main, big gennaker and staysail. We can't do any better than that! So we've got more than 1000 square metres of sail aloft. We're doing 28 knots but the state of the sea and the direction of the wind are not ideal and are not allowing us to go any faster."



The forecast should allow Peyron to continue his blast and Dalton to protect his boat if he wishes (below). By tomorrow morning the low pressure system is filling and easing south, and there is a ridge of high pressure coming in behind it that will provide lighter conditions.

Dalton can choose to ease off as much or as little as he likes, by positioning Club Med to stay with the low, or let it slip away to the south. But there is plenty more breeze coming in with another system arriving from the east.

Behind these lead three - doing the tortoise to the hare at the moment, Warta Polpharma (yellow) are putting some easting in her southerly route for the first time as she curves around the South Atlantic High.

While Team Legato (purple) has picked up the south-east trades and is just visible at the very top of the 0700, 19/1/01 image, following the track of the others.

Standings (at 1100 GMT, 19/1/01)

1 Club Med 0
2 Team Adventure +266.5 miles and heading for Cape Town
3 Innovation Explorer +709.3 nm
4 Warta Polpharma +1881.5 nm
5 Team Legato +2,899.7 nm

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