Back on track

Geronimo gets the bit between her teeth again

After a terrible run through the Doldrums that saw them only manage 254 and 225 miles on two consecutive days, Olivier de Kersauson and the crew of Geronimo, his Cap Gemini and Schneider Electric sponsored maxi-trimaran are now back on the pace. Up until 2317 this evening they had notched up a much more impressive 521.32 miles at an average of 21.72 knots. As the chart above shows Geronimo is now some 150 miles behind Bruno Peyron and Orange's record pace from 2002 and 35 miles ahead of Cheyenne's position at the same time.

Weatherwise the South Atlantic high is not entirely playing ball. It appears to be developing into what the Geronimo team as describing as a 'slug-like' shape from the west to east which means that de Kersauson won't be able to cut the corner and head southeast early for risk of being captured by light winds. However it looks likely that by Wednesday de Kersauson's luck may change and despite only being into the low 30s in terms of their latitude they may find themselves into a band of strong northwesterly winds associated with a depression deep in the Southern Ocean. Provided the South Atlantic high doesn't move south (as it is unlikely to in this scenario) it will provide de Kersauson with a fast passage down to the 40s.

From there it will be interesting to see if de Kersauson follows the tradition passage that maxi-multihulls have taken through the Indian Ocean at around 40degS or if he is able to dive south deep into the roaring 40s and cut down the miles as Steve Fossett and Cheyenne have been able.