Jelik pulls ahead

Battle for line honours shaping up well in China Sea Race

With Jelik just ahead of Boracay at the 1800hrs position report, but drawing close to the Luzon Coast and a possible drop in wind strength, line honours in the 23rd China Sea Race are still up for grabs and an interesting battle is shaping up for honours on corrected time.

In IRC A, if all boats were to continue at the same speed averaged over the previous 10 hours, Mandrake would take the title ahead of Jelik, narrowly pushing Drumstick into third place. In IRC B, the new boats are doing well, with Blackjack on course for the double of line honours and corrected time, and Walawala looking likely to come second on both counts.

Baby of the bunch, Quest, is currently pushing for a third place on corrected time, ahead of Temujin and Barnstormer, but with over 200nm remaining of their race, anything could happen. Polar Star III has decided to call it a day and fire up her engine, so eight boats now remain in the division.

With Mark Thornburrow's Dream a new addition to the familiar line up of Premier Cruising Division, it looks as if Moonblue 2 will pip Hocux Pocux 2 to line honours by about an hour, but Dream should walk off with the top place on corrected time, with Shahtoosh pushing Moonblue 2 into third.

All the HKPN boats have over half their race still to go, so it's too early to make predictions, however on current forecasts, it is entirely possible that all five boats will make it into Subic Bay sometime on Tuesday.