New handicap leader

An update from the Heineken Cape to Bahia Race

Following ten days of incredibly resolute performances by Gawie Fagan and his three-member crew in the Heineken Cape to Bahia yacht race, Suidoos 2 has relinquished her handicap lead. After a close battle fought over several days in ever lightening wind conditions, Rob Meek on Windsong has overtaken the 29ft Suidoos 2 to head the handicap honours list in this epic trans-Atlantic crossing. Over the past 24-hours, Windsong has opened a lead of 3.5 hours over his closest rival, but as the boats tackel the unpredictable South Atlantic high, this can by no means be considered a comfortable lead.

Skipper Rob Meek was delighted by their ranking today, but hesitant to celebrate too early: “Now the question is, can we hang onto it? Gumption is beginning to look like a threat - she's very fast in light winds (but so are we), and she's further north than us. On the other hand, yesterday she was 300 miles behind us and she owes us time on handicap. The high is forecast to move South again and she could get the wind before us,” said Meek.

By position report time earlier on Friday, Polo Sport Gumption continued to baffle spectators - this time through radio silence. Gumption was the most northerly positioned boat of the whole fleet and speculations were rife that Nicholas Mace and his crew were planning a very tactical assault on their competitors into Salvador. However, in an e-mail to race organisers later on Friday, Mace admitted to major instrument trouble on board. “All our offsets were deleted. This was combined with a GPS failure and no communications between the PC and the instruments and GPS. The result was that we were steering further north rather than northwesterly - a blunder that has seen us lose 60 miles to Thunderchild,” wrote a disappointed Mace.

All is not necessarily lost for Gumption as her position at the top of the high gives her significantly more wind than the remainder of the fleet, which is literally becalmed. “We’re getting between 8-12 knots of winds and the forecast is that the calms in the south are due to persist for a couple of days, while we can expect 12-14 knot breezes in our area. Who knows, we might just be able to pull a great Houdini.”

The curse of the Atlantic has struck most of the fleet as the high pressure system doubled in size and brought most of the yachts to a crawling halt. Whether it is just the feared hole of the high pressure system or if the old fishermen’s superstition about Friday the 13th “A Friday’s sail always fails” is coming into play, only time will tell. Fagan has slowed down to an average of only 4.75 knots while the rest of the contenders are having to work hard to keep speeds up, which are currently hovering under 6 knots.

MTU Fascination of Power, skippered by John Martin with a naval crew, remains in third position with Auto Atlantic Thunderchild entrenched in fourth place. Double-handed entry Devonvale Broadreach continues a good performance to stay in fifth place, which is a very credible position if taken into account that they’re sailing two up against fully crewed competitors.

Adrenalina Pura, skippered by George Ehrensperger and Donald Wright, looks set to shatter the multihull crossing record of 15 days and could even beat the race committee to Salvador. With only 495 miles to the finish at an average boat speed of 13.7 knots, the big catamaran could cross the finish line as early as Saturday afternoon in an incredible crossing time of only ten days.