And where are the Poles?

We look at the progress of Roman Pascke and his Volvo Ocean 60 non-stop round the world trip

Position: 19°46.211 N
Daily progress: 219 NM
Average speed over the last day: 9.1 Knots
Current heading: 185°
Wind speed: 15 Knots
Wind direction: 030°

Information coming out of Roman Paszke's Bank BPH campaign to become the first recorded non-stop around the world in a monohull (they're sailing the former Assa Abloy Volvo Ocean 60) has been sketchy since they started on 17 February, some nine days ago.

The first three days of their voyage appear to have gone well - logging more than 300 miles each day.Yesterday's position shows them on the beach off northwest Africa. Today we only have a latitude for them - which puts them something like 350 miles northeast of the Cape Verdes. We don't have a position for the boat for the 24 February but it looks like the boat has been suffering from a lack of wind since they passed through the Canaries on Monday and since then have only been managing around 180 miles per day.

The forecast charts show that they should be now into the Trades, albeit blowing a modest 15 knots. This is lighter to the west and hence probably why the Polish team has been hugging the African coast.