Emma Richards update

James Boyd caught up with the Pindar skipper mid-South Atlantic on Around Alone

Emma Richards' crackly voice comes across the satphone and it sounds a lot more perky than it did when we spoke to her a week ago. Then she was mid-Doldrums having a experienced " a mini version of Hurricane Kyle" and thoroughly fed up having conceded second place to Frenchman Thierry Dubois. At the time she was struggling with the alternating calms and gale force winds that give the inter-tropical convergence zone its pain in the arse reputation.

Since then Emma has sailed out of the Doldrums and has once again overtaken Thierry Dubois to regain second place. Over the course of the last week as both boats chase leader Bernard Stamm, she has crossed paths with Dubois' Solidaires and in ocean racing terms is currently neck and neck with him, Pindar now on the more easterly track south.

At the time we spoke to Emma last night Pindar was at 13.35S 21.49W making between 9 and 12 knots on a course of 160. She was experiencing 22 knots of breeze and was sailing under single-reefed main and solent jib, although she'd had full main up for most of the day. Now into the depths of the South Atlantic it is still T-shirt and shorts weather, although Richards says that today has been the first occasion she has felt the weather beginning to cool

When Pindar came out of the Doldrums last week, she was almost immediately on the wind, for a day or so hard on the wind. While this makes for an unpleasant ride on a flat bottomed Open 60, Emma says the conditions have at least been more constant. This has enabled the autopilot to do its job and, most importantly, has allowed her to catch up with her sleep (in the Doldrums she had to handsteer in anything less than 4 knots). She does sound remarkably improved since our last conversation.

Over the next few days the wind is expected to back and while to the south there is a nice ridge to sail down the left hand side of - bringing with it 20 knot northwesterlies that would make for a fast track south to the westerly rollercoaster of the Southern Ocean and the fast lane to Cape Town, Emma is fairly confident that she would not be able to pick up that system in time. However at present she is fishing a little weatherwise. Her Inmarsat B is down, so she can't surf the net and is relying on MaxSea GRIB files as her sole source of weather data.

Emma says she is basing her more easterly course on sailing a shorter distance to Cape Town and tactically this is one of the most interesting parts of any round the world races. To get to Cape Town first you have to sail around the west of the South Atlantic high pressure system, which Atlases indicate as usually residing over the centre of the South Atlantic, although usually isn't. If you don't give the high a wide berth there is the risk of falling into light winds, so the big question is: how much to cut the corner?

There have been occasional exceptions to this. In the 1994 BOC Challenge (the forerunner to this event) Isabelle Autissier demolished the opposition when, leading the fleet down the Atlantic, the high conveniently split in two for her - like Moses parting the Red Sea - allowing her to sail a direct course for Cape Town.

Currently she is in second place, although over the weekend she briefly dropped to third, but this is due to the Clipper Ventures' maths - because of the boats arc around the South Atlantic high they are measuring DTF along a series of waypoints and the next one of these is to the west of Pindar's track.

Richards says she is in regular email communication with her competitors Bernard Stamm and Thierry Dubois, although this is at a reasonably superficial level and they're not exchanging weather information.

She is over the moon about her position, but particularly because it shows that coming fourth on the first leg, 15 minutes astern of the third-placed boat, wasn't a fluke and that she really does have what it takes. She will not be drawn when I suggest that this is the most success we have ever seen from this boat...

Last week following Tiscali's dismasting a deal was done by the Italian team to secure Bernard Stamm's old mast from Bobst Group-Armor Lux - but how to get it from Brittany to the north west corner of Spain? Richards says she is very proud of her sponsor, the Scarborough-based printing and internet firm, Pindar, who stepped with a solution. They have a North Sea coaster called the Hatherleigh, the venue for the infamous and lethal 'Pindar' prerace parties and Andrew Pindar duly agreed to this being dispatched to ship the new mast down to Simone Bianchetti's stricken vessel.

The Hatherleigh has since been steaming back to St Malo for the start of the Route du Rhum, although whether it would be politic to have a party on board when the guest of honour is in the South Atlantic remains to be seen. I detect some lower lip trembling when I suggest this to Richards, who is still some days out of Cape Town and who relishes these evenings.

Over the last week there have been no major problems on board Pindar. There has been a small leak in the fuel line which she has sorted. Not being able to use the internet to get weather info could be problem in the long run, but she is working on a way of hooking up to the net via her Iridium phone, even if the data download rate is a rather pedestrial 9.6k per second (around a quarter the speed of a regular modem).