Hanging a left

Groupama 3 prepares to skirt the South Atlantic high

With her virtual opponent, Jules Verne Trophy record holder Orange 2, picking up speed and also sailing a shorter course to her east, so Franck Cammas' Groupama 3 has lost more than 100 miles of her lead in the last 24 hours. This has also been due to her encountering lighter winds over the course of yesterday afternoon.

While they have had to remain close to the Brazilian coast, costing them miles, Cammas and his crew have been lucky to be able to make the turn to the southeast, to skirt the St Helena pressure, so far north up the South Atlantic. They turned southeast mid-afternoon yesterday and only in the early hours of this morning did they pass the latitude of Rio.

This morning Groupama 3 is back up to speed, slowly regaining miles on Orange 2 and gradually turning her bow ever further left.

Weather-wise, Groupama 3 is just edging into the northwesterlies ahead of a front in the northeast quadrant of her first Southern Ocean depression centred at 50degS. The forecast for the next 24 hours is neither great nor awful as the depression. By tomorrow morning the European model has the centre of the depression moving NE to around 45degS but its fronts seem set to spawn an additional low with a ridge between this and the main depression. The effect will be favourable northwesterlies but very much less pressure, the winds dropping to 10 knots (and of course dead downwind).

Thursday the weather situation is looking more volatile still with an area of high pressure possibly moving over Groupama 3. So the next 48 hours are likely to be reasonably slow and will definitely see Navigator Stan Honey earning his money.