Barcelona World Race leaders 30 miles apart

Oceanic match races developing in the Pacific

Image above 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 0330 GMT

Competition is hotting up again in the Barcelona World Race. While prior to her stop in Wellington, Virbac Paprec 3 looked to hold an unassailable lead, this morning finds second placed Mapfre, just 30 miles behind her as the two boats follow their parabolic course to the next waypoint gate, the western end of which is current 341 miles away for Jean-Pierre Dick and Loick Peyron's boat. Conditions may have been a little better for the boat behind, but there is little else to explain why over the last 24 hours Mapfre has covered 396 miles while the race leader has only managed 330.

Through not stopping in Wellington, Pachi Rivero and Antonio Piris aboard Renault ZE Sailing Team (the former Virbac Paprec 2, winner of the last Barcelona World Race) are now up to third place, but all the boats immediately to the east of New Zealand are suffering from an area of high pressure currently located over New Zealand's south island.

While Boris Herrmann and Ryan Breymaier on Neutrogena are up to fourth, now a comfortable 126 miles ahead of Dominique Wavre and Michele Paret on Mirabaud, so last night (European time) at 2013 GMT so Groupe Bel and Estrella Damm departed Wellington, just a minute apart, following their 48 hour pitstop, rejoining the race in sixth and seventh places. These two boats remain separated by less than a mile this morning and are set for their own private match race across the Pacific.

Cook Strait action continues today with Hugo Boss and GAES passing through. The Hugo Boss team confirmed yesterday that they will not be stopping in Wellington, despite being unable to fix the problems they have reported with their mast track and Andy Meiklejohn heralding from New Zealand. “We know that we are currently disadvantaged without the ability to race under full sail, however we have weighed that up against the penalty for stopping," Meiklejohn reported. "It’s a tough call to make but we have decided to continue in the hope that we can make the repair later. Each day in the competition brings new challenges, and with boats stopping and positions changing daily, anything can happen still.”

Weather-wise, the race leaders have ducked a long way south to avoid an area of high pressure to their north. This is due to shift east over the next 24 hours and Virbac-Paprec 3 and Mapfre are due to see the northwesterly breeze increase over this time. They look set to have good westerly pressure for the rest of the week and into the weekend.

For the next group the forecast is more awkward. There is little respite from the high until the next depression rumbles east way to their south with the wind to build tomorrow ahead of the front. However for those further back in the fleet the main issue will be another depression, currently to the north of New Zealand which is forecast to move south, directly across the race course over the course of Saturday.