Catching up

Peyron heads down African beachfront as de Kersauson gets caught in the north Atlantic high

Peyron and de Kersauson are sticking to their guns strategically as they both struggle to head south. As the image above shows de Kersauson's westerly route may be closer to the most direct path south, but today his maxi-trimaran is likely to suffer from a lack of wind today. This was certainly the case over the last 24 hours when Geronimo sailed just 324 miles compared to 472 and 495 over the previous two days. Orange II meanwhile sailed 395 miles - but over a longer course.

Because of their different tracks comparing the two boats' relative positions is not that easy. Taking a waypoint in the middle of the Cape Verdes makes de Kersauson still around 179 miles ahead of Peyron's maxi catamaran. So in the tri v catamaran battle all would seem to be even stephens still.

“Conditions are unstable and not really viable, but it’s fun to sail in such a varied range of weather, even if it is pretty tiring," recounted Olivier de Kersauson yesterday. "It demands a lot of attention and concentration at the helm and in the way we set up the boat. In just one day, the wind has ranged from 9-27 knots and swung around from north to northeast and back to north again. With systems as variable as this, helming isn’t always so simple when the wind moves about so much. But despite all that, Geronimo is a fantastic boat and she’s giving us a lot of fun, although there are a few too many calm patches for our liking”.