Motoring

Big run for Steve Fossett's Cheyenne as she gets her first taste of the Southern Ocean

Position at 0510: 41deg 14.550S 12deg 51.540W Course/speed: 078deg 24.5 knots TWS/TWA: 28 knots 298 degrees

Over the last 24 hours Steve Fossett and the crew of Cheyenne have been eating up the miles, covering a wopping 560 miles in the 24 hours up until 0510 this morning. The world's largest racing catamaran is now into the Roaring Forties and positioned directly to the south of the St Helena high. However the dominant weather is now to their south and Cheyenne is currently enjoying WNWerly winds of around 25-30 knots.

At present, depending upon how you measure it, Cheyenne is roughly 400-450 miles ahead of the equivalent position of Orange on her record breaking loop of the planet in 2002. Significantly Orange was much further north at around 35degS at this stage of her round the world record and had trouble breaking into the westerlies of the Southern Ocean. Cheyenne has shown none of these problems and we can expect her to pull out more mileage over Peyron's record over the next 2-3 days as they approach the longitude of the first major landmark of their tour - the Cape of Good Hope.

Weather wise there is an almighty depression centred at 56deg south directly south of them and if they keep up their present speed then they should be able to stick with this and thus enjoy similar fast daily runs for the next few days.

As ever the decision for Fossett and navigator Adrienne Cahalan will be a compromise between heading south to reduce the number of miles they have to sail versus the bigger conditions they will encounter taking this course of action and the probable fatigue this will place on the boat.

Cheyenne is a bigger heavier boat than the other first generation Ollier cats and so it is likely they will opt for a more southerly route. Orange didn't venture south of 40degS until she was two days to the east of the Cape of Good Hope.