Past Rio

Banque Populaire holding steady up the South Atlantic on her Jules Verne Trophy attempt

Chart above courtesy of Expedition/Tasman Bay Navigation Systems and PredictWind

Business as usual for Banque Populaire over the last 24 hours as she continues to make good progress up the coast of Brazil. She is now north of the latitude of Rio de Janiero and perhaps most impressive is that despite being close hauled on starboard tack, in the northeasterly trades, the 40m maxi-tri is still making an average speed of 19 knots... With this she has managed to maintain her 1000+ mile lead over Jules Verne Trophy pace setter, Groupama 3.

Over the next 24 hours, as they continue north, the crew can expect the wind to veer into the east and they will probably change course with this shift in order to give themselves some sea room to clear Recife, still some 750 miles to their north. In order to help them achieve this they put in a short tack to the east earlier today. Aside from the wind veering, the next hurdle will be the Doldrums, currently located at 3-5°N.

See Brian Thompson's latest blog.