ETA? Only Mother Nature knows

Virbac-Paprec 3 expected into Barcelona on Sunday night-Monday

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 0830GMT:

243 miles to go for Virbac Paprec 3 at 0830 this morning which in normal IMOCA 60 parlance would be an average day's sailing. Unfortunately the nice hi-res GRIB provided by PredictWind indicates a zone of high pressure located over Andalucia at present, providing yet more headwinds for the Barcelona World Race leaders. This is set to veer into the southeast by tonight, but then drop tomorrow leaving a windless zone between the Balearics and the finish line off Barcelona. So an ETA? Who knows. Race met expert Marcel van Triest reckons Sunday night at some point. We arrive on Monday, so it had better not be until then... (see tomorrow and Monday's GRIBs below)

Meanwhile, 243 miles behind, Iker Martinez and Xabi Fernandez on Mapfre are into the Strait of Gibraltar and, in theory, with the wind now in the south for them, albeit light, they should be making better progress than they are. At the latest sched shows them slower than the race leaders.

Behind them among the next trio, Renault has been pulling out the miles in nice reaching conditions and with 750 miles before she passes Gibraltar, she is now up to 209 miles ahead of fourth placed Estrella Damm from 161 48 hours ago, although Pepe Ribes and Alex Pella's red boat is currently in the best breeze and sailing slightly faster. 

Click on image to enlarge...

Sadly for Boris Herrmann and Ryan Breymaier on Neutrogena they have had the worst of the weather and although their passage north has been more to the east of the boats immediately ahead of them, they have lost 200 miles on Renault in the last 48 hours. Tomorrow morning the forecast has the wind solidly in the north for all three boats with Renault and Estrella Damm will be making better progress to the mark, broad reaching while Neutrogena will still be pressed.

Dee Caffari and Anna Corbella on GAES are now past the latitude of the Cape Verdes, still trucking north across the northeasterly trades on a course similar to that of Estrella Damm and Renault. The forecast has the high shifting east so they should be able to loop around its western end in much the same way as Renault did with their respective high last week. Behind them Hugo Boss has 328 miles to go before she crosses the Equator.

Below: Forecast for Sunday 0830 GMT

Below: Forecast for Monday 0830 GMT