Poles update

Through the Doldrums and today the Equator. An update on Bank BPH's fully crewed non-stop monohull RTW attempt

Position at 09.45GMT: 01.46.547N 24.07.815W
COG/SOG: 190deg/8 knots
TWD/TWS: 000-080/9-10 knots
Pressure 1025mb
24 hour run: 267 nm
DFS: 3008 nm

Roman Paszke and his Polish crew on Bank BPH, the former Assa Abloy, are today set to cross the Equator and move into the southern hemisphere.

Over the weekend Paszke emailled thedailysail with an update. The crew have not been having any problems sailing their Volvo Ocean 60. "The crew is experienced and has sailed this kind of boat before. Of course, it would have been better to have even a
little more time to practice, but we had what we had and maximised the benefit from it. Looking at the crew you can see that we're not having any trouble handling our boat; we haven't had any serious problems yet."

Paszke says they took a route close to the African coast because at the time that was where the gradient appeared strongest and it was the shortest route.

To date they have had a few problems with their alternators, but they have now fixed it and - touch wood - they won't have anymore 'threatening failures'.

Despite falling foul of a break in the Trade Winds last week, their progress over the weekend has been good. Paszke skippered Warta Polpharma (the former Jet Services V/ Commodore Explorer) in The Race in 2001 says that in comparision the cat was more stable and faster, but they've got used to the monohull.