Difficult Doldrums

As an area of high pressure develops to the east of the Mini Transat fleet

Proto class positions at 0600 GMT

Series class positions at 0600 GMT

Charts above courtesy of Expedition/Tasman Bay Navigation Systems and PredictWind. Latest scheds below.

While on Friday the forecast indicated that crossing the Doldrums would be relatively straightforward, in fact this has proved anything but the case with an area of high pressure developing to the east of the fleet that for much of the weekend has left them becalmed. Normally competitors will sail into the Doldrums in ever lightening northeasterlies, tackle the Doldrums with its usual alternating calms and squalls, getting south as quickly as they can as they wait for the southeasterly trades to fill in. Instead the high pressure has caused the wind to veer into the south or SSE, on the nose, and as a result (as the charts above show) the entire fleet between 5-10°N have been forced to turn their bows on to a southeast course over the last 24 hours.

Satellite wind radar images of this area at the moment indicate that the high is in residence to the east of the fleet with the wind SSEerly for the Proto leaders. David Raison, leader on his scow Team Work Evolution for example was heading south at the 0600GMT sched yesterday but over the course of yesterday turned onto a southeasterly course, while overnight he has put in a couple of hitches west and now he and the two other Proto frontrunners, Thomas Normand on Financiere de l'Echiquier and Bertrand Delesne on Zone Large, have tacked southwest, indicating that the wind is more has backed more into the south. The satellite wind radar images indicate that the wind at present slowly backs as the boat go south, into the SSE at around 3°N (the leaders are currently at 6-7°N).

Astern of the three leaders - Normand, who has closed in on Raison, now just 9 miles (as opposed to 25 yesterday) with Delesne a further 15 miles back, in terms of DTF - the Protos are on split tacks with Jorg Riechers on mare.de furthest east, in sixth place despite being further south than Antoine Rioux or Lucas Montagne, in fourth and fifth, who are on a southwesterly tack and closer to the great circle. And across the fleet there is the whole gamut of boat speeds from 1 knot to almost 6.

If Raison is clinging on to the lead in the Protos, 150 miles back up the race track Eric Llull on Cocoa Noble, who for the last few days has been the runaway Series class leader albeit way out to the east, has seen his race decimated. Llull lost his lead at the 1600 sched on Saturday to the compact group to the west, led by Benoit Mariette on Odalys Vacances at the time with three boats within two miles of him. For a while yesterday Llull was totally becalmed and to get out of the hole was heading due east towards Africa in search of breeze. As a result at the latest sched he has plummeted to 11th place, 28 miles astern of Mariette.

Like the Protos, the Series leaders over the last 24 hours have come up against headwinds and so Mariette, with Vincent Kerbouriou on CGGVeritas just a mile behind him, have since the mid-morning sched yesterday been on a southeasterly heading as the boats astern of them have this morning have tacked back to the southwest. As a result just 27 miles separate the top eight Series class boats.

Out on a flyer to the west at the moment is Renaud Marie on www.runo.fr and it will be interesting to see how this tactic turns out. At the latest sched his boat was registering the highest boat speed among the Series frontrunners.

Among the Brits there is not much good to report. Dan Ditch on Soitec is holding 21st place in the Protos, 171 miles off the lead and on a port tack across to the southwest, meanwhile Pip Hare on The Potting Shed is in 24th place among the Series fleet, 98 miles astern of Benoit Mariette.

The casualty rate contines to go up. Aside from a few dismastings, retirements seem mostly to be due to rudder issues. Aurélien Ducroz retired yesterday morning in Mindelo in the Cape Verdes, while David Prono on Get it Right-www.esi-group.com has a broken starboard rudder, and transom damage. Brendan Archin on Association La touline has also retired, while Swede Ulf Brandstrom on GRPMS.com has pulled out with an infected knee. As a result seven Series boats are now officially out of the race, and they are likely to be joined by Bruno Simonnet who is en route to Cape Verdes.