Doldrums-lite

Virbac-Paprec 3 and Foncia making good progress to the Equator in the Barcelona World Race

Images courtesy of Expedition Navigation Systems and PredictWind. If you can't see the whole of the table below (this depends which browser you use), scroll down to the bottom of the page.

Positions at 0830

A 3-4°N, the leaders in the Barcelona World Race should in theory be in the thick of the Doldrums, however at present the ITCZ doesn't appear to be giving them too much cause for concern. The satellite wind radar images for the area where they are indicates that the southeasterly trades, marking their entrance to the South Atlantic (even if they begin just into the Northern hemisphere) are due to kick in at around 2.5°N and there doesn't seem to be too much evidence of monster cloud activity in their area. So while the boats in theory could be at a standstill right now, instead race leader Virbac-Paprec 3 and Foncia have averaged 10.6 and 12.8 knots respectively over the last hour, even though admittedly this is substantially less than the 18.2 and 18 they had clocked up at the same time yesterday. We wait to hear back from the boats later today to find out how easy the transition into 'the south' has been.

Despite having her wounded crash box, Foncia and her crew of Michel Desjoyeaux and Francois Gabart have done well to reduce their deficit on the leaders down from 76 to 40 miles over the last 24 hours, although Virbac Paprec 3 will redeem this when they are first to launch into southeasterly trades. Foncia is currently taking a route through the Doldrums marginally to the west of the race leaders, but this may be partly due to ease themselves towards the Brazilian coast where they are hoping to put in to Recife on Friday.

With the leaders taking on the Doldrums, so there has been an inward concertinaing of the fleet and nowhere is this more apparent than in the second group of boats. Third placed Estrella Damm has cantered up from being 222 miles astern of Virbac Paprec 3 24 hours ago to being within 100 miles this morning. In fact Alex Pella and Pepe Ribes' red IMOCA 60 has had the highest run of the last 24 hours, covering up 371 miles.

At the back of the fleet Andy Meiklejohn and Wouter Verbraak have had a storming 24 hours on board Hugo Boss and have soared up through the fleet, rising from last (14th) to 11th (albeit one place being that of the dismasted Prèsident). This final wave of boats in the Barcelona World Race are currently passing the Cape Verde islands.