Last days in the Indian Ocean

Stamm and le Cam now on the more southerly track among the Barcelona World Race front runners

Barcelona World Race leader Cheminées Poujoulat is making high speed again as it sprints due east for their final miles in the southern Indian Ocean. Crew Bernard Stamm and Jean Le Cam should pass into the Pacific late on Monday night or early Tuesday morning.

While they had lost just a few small miles to their persistent rivals on Neutrogena until yesterday, the margin is climbing again for smoking Cheminées Poujoulat as its average speed rose back above 20 knots this Sunday afternoon. The Swiss-French pair, who have lead since the dismasting of Hugo Boss on 14 January, have built their lead up to 208 miles this afternoon ahead of Neutrogena.

Image below (click to enlarge) courtesy of Expedition and Predictwind

The leading crew is now starting to experience strengthening winds and bigger seas as it comes under the increasing influence of a big low pressure system behind them which should slingshot them into the Pacific. Cheminées Poujoulat is straight lining east at around 48°S. Positioning relative to each other is now reversed as Neutrogena is now on a track about 100 miles north of Cheminées Poujoulat.

Neutrogena's José Muñoz reaffirmed that the strategy aboard Neutrogena reflects their routing decisions and takes little account of what their immediate rivals are doing. He and Altadill are well rested and ready for the next spell of intense, hard driving Southern Oceans weather: "We have always been doing our own race, obviously watching what is around us: the one in front, those who are behind, different conditions, and always looking four or five days ahead so we dont get ourselves too little or too much wind". Muñoz said.

Conditions have become more favourable at the front of the fleet for high speed reaching and so too in the lower rankings where Spirit of Hungary and One Planet One Ocean are now both reaching eastwards, parallel to the Antarctic Exclusion Zone. After battling upwind in tough conditions for what seemed like days, Nandor Fa and Conrad Colman reported today that they are relieved to be back to Southern Ocean 'brochure' conditions, making good speeds in the right direction.

The third podium place is still under the same kind of dispute as there is over first and second. Renault Captur in fourth and GAES Centros Auditivos, who have also been third, since Hugo Boss lost her rig, have 240 miles separating each other. Seb Audigane and Jorge Riechers on Renault Captur have been quicker, eroding miles from Anna Corbella and Gerard Marín.

The Sunday crisis is Conrad Colman and Nandor Fa's. They share a problem with perhaps hundreds of consumers around the world as the charger for their iPad is broken. But for them 1400 miles from Cape Town and 3100 miles from Perth, Western Australia, there are no fast track 24 hour deliveries and, for the meantime, no solution. Like their forebears hundreds of years ago, there are no more e-books and e-entertainment.

Colman reported today: "We measure our progress by dots on a screen and won’t see land again until we round Cape Horn in several weeks. I say this only because the charger for the ipad has broken, thus leaving us without books and can only turn around in circles with our own thoughts. It might make for an interesting social experiment… Put two people in a box for months on end and slowy remove outside stimulus and see what happens! I have clearly missed my calling as a social scientist/ evil genius !"

Positions at 1400

1 Cheminées Poujoulat (B Stamm – J Le Cam) at 12 834,1 miles from finish
2 Neutrogena (G Altadill – J Muñoz) at 208,3 miles from leader
3 GAES Centros Auditivos (A Corbella – G Marin) at 1175,3 miles
4 Renault Captur (J Riechers – S Audigane) at 1451,9 miles
5 We Are Water (B Garcia – W Garcia) at 2073,2 miles
6 One Planet One Ocean & Pharmaton (A Gelabert – D Costa) at 3028,2 miles
7 Spirit of Hungary (N Fa – C Colman) at 3536,2 miles