Into yesterday

Geronimo crosses date line as southerly gale abates

Day 32
Position at 2317GMT: 51°00S 179°01W
24 hour run: 448 miles
Average speed: 18.66 knots

The Pacific Ocean has not been giving the Geronimo crew exactly a warm welcome as the weekend has seen them beaten by 7m seas on the beam and freezing gale force southerly winds from an intense depression to their east. Fortunately the depression has been tracking east faster than they have and today the wind abated a little and veered more to the southeast.

However the forecast is still not looking ideal for the French trimaran as the depression looks set to stall temporarily at around 50degS 165degW tomorrow before weakening and heading off to the southwest over the course of Tuesday. Therefore over the course of tomorrow Geronimo is likely to catch up the depression once again and her crew subjected to another miserable day fighting the chilling southerlies as they continue in the less than ideal westerly sector of the depression.

To make matters worse they are now more than 1,000 miles behind of Cheyenne's relative end of day 32 position.