Zephyrus rounds the Scillies

Monohull record likely to stand in Rolex Fastnet Race. Alex Thomson and Emma Westmacott report in from the race course

Satellite wind file from 08:03GMT showing northerlies across the race course.



Where is the centre of the high moving to? This is the question on navigator's minds as they head across the Celtic Sea, a majority still bound for the Fastnet Rock off southwest Ireland.

Yesterday the forecast looked like the centre of the high was going to move across Ireland, but this morning it is still to the southwest of Ireland making for a broad reach down to Bishop's Rock for the leaders, and a beat for the majority of boats still trying to make it to the Rock.

First around the Fastnet Rock early yesterday evening was, as expected, Neville Crichton's Alfa Romeo at 17:33. She was followed by Zephyrus V at 18:58:03.

This morning Zephyrus V rounded the Bishops Rock at 08:20, but at this stage we have no information from Alfa Romeo. If Zephyrus ahead or has Alfa Romeo simply not reported in?

At present the record looks unlikely to be broken. In Plymouth Marcus Hutchinson reports that there is 5-6 knots of southerly breeze and the visibility is down to 3 miles. In these conditions it will be hard for even the maxis to make the 15 knot average required to break the monohull record.

See below for reports from the race course

Rock roundings

Rounding	Boat	Skipper	Type	Time to Rock	TCC	Corrected	% to win class	Handicap pos
1	Alfa Romeo	Neville Crichton	Reichel/Pugh	1 - 07:23:08	1.664	2 - 04:13:32		1
2	Zephyrus V	Robert McNeil	Max Z86	1 - 08:48:03	1.693	2 - 07:31:55	6%	3
3	NOKIA - Connecting People	Charles Dunstone	Reichel/Pugh 76	1 - 11:26:47	1.49	2 - 04:48:54	1.10%	2
4	VMI	Sebastien Josse	Open 60	1 - 12:59:28
5	Leopard	Mike Slade	Reichel/Pugh	1 - 13:20:23	1.605	2 - 11:55:49	12.90%	6
6	PRB	Vincent Riou	Open 60	1 - 15:03:26			5.30%
7	Ecover	Mike Golding	Open 60	1 - 15:37:07			6.60%
8	Hellomoto	Pure Sailing	Volvo 60	1 - 16:04:20	1.45	2 - 10:06:17	10.10%	5
9	Skandia Set Sail	Offshore Challenges	Open 60	1 - 18:15:51			12.50%
10	Chaman 3	Dominique Wavre	Open 60	1 - 18:38:40			13.30%
11	Solune	Jean-Philippe Chomette	Nacira 60	1 - 19:05:10	1.426	2 - 13:26:27	15%	7
12	Venom	Windward Sailing	Volvo 60	1 - 19:20:23	1.477	2 - 16:00:46	18.40%	8
13	Volvo For Life Team Tonic	Nick Hewson	Farr 52	1 - 20:12:43	1.31	2 - 09:55:04	9.80%	4

Updates from the race course:


Last night at 22:30 BST Alex Thomson on board Hugo Boss reported that they were one third of the way across the Celtic Sea bound for the Fastnet Rock. At the time they had 10 knots from the north northwest. "We’re not making the course. We're tracking about 285deg." Thomson said it looked like they would round the rock today, but it was going to get light towards the Irish coast.

Following a disappointing first day they have made up considerable ground. "We went past Roxy the J/145 and we've got Tonnerre on our starboard beam and she’s the fastest boat in our class. On the starboard bow there's Jazz (another J/145)." Thomson said that Hugo Boss was enjoying the upwind conditions. "She’s still powering through it. We've got 9 knots over the ground."

At the time they were having a problem with the power system - the large bank of batteries on board were not accepting a charge. In the awkward motion crossing the Celtic Sea, a few of the crew had been seasick. Thomson sounded fresh and said he'd had a lot of sleep, leaving the boat in the hands of the watch leaders. "We're expecting some light stuff so I'll take some load off them then. When it comes up we can be ready."


Emma Westmacott, racing on board Conrad Humphrey's VO60 Hellomoto gave an update on their progress to the Daily Sail this morning. The former Tyco rounded the Fastnet Rock at 02:14 last night and are now making their way rather too slowly south towards Bishops Rock.

"At the moment there are a lot of boats going upwind but we can’t see any going downwind," said Westmacott. " Leopard is a couple of hours ahead of us but they are two hours behind on corrected time.

"Over the last 12 hours the wind has swung round to the north, but it had quite a bit of west in it. We were laying the Rock but we ended up having to beat. We were expecting it to go more into the north so we went left and took a hit right and edged onto the right side of the rhumb line and under the lee of the land it got lighter. But in fact it has only gone north in the last couple of hours. So we rounded and put a reacher up and then a spinnaker and it has been really light."

At the time of our conversation the wind was 5-7 knots and it was swinging from 025-333deg. "It’s all in the northerly quadrant but it’s all over the place, so it is quite a bit of work to keep the boat moving. The swell has changed, that's coming more from the northeast as well."

Westmacott sailed in the last Volvo Ocean Race on board Amer Sports Too a sistership to her present steed. "It’s exactly the same - just a nicer finish down below!" she said. "The ballast system is different and the bunking system, but living on board is still no sleep and lying on wet sails. It is not like the luxury of the liner in front of us ( Leopard)."

At present they are sailing under full main and Code 1 spinnaker. "It is a nice sail - much nicer than the one we had. It is difficult not to think about the sails we would have had up at different angles." Sail envy - an ugly thing...

On board Emma has been driving and giving tactical input. "We’ve been quite sensible in terms of making sure that the drivers and trimmers get some sleep. The bow team haven’t had much because we had to beat up to the rock so we had everyone on the rail up there. The drivers and trimmers have a couple of hours in the off watch. The boat is flat now so we’ve got everyone down below snoring away..."

"ith 175 miles to go to Plymouth their ETA is supposed to be early tomorrow morning, but that was on the assumption that there was more breeze than they are in fact seeing. "We’re only doing 6 knots at the moment."