Almost there. Maître CoQ should clear Cape Horn in the next 12 hours, but the sea conditions may slow him as the winds, averaging 33 Knots but probably 20 knots more in gusts, will build up a nasty sea with troughs of 8 metres or more. Charlie Dalin in Apivia is hanging on to his coat tails, 146 miles behind and will probably have worse seas. Thomas Ruyant has dropped further back in 3rd place, now 478 miles behind about the same distance as yesterday. Louis Burton in Bureau Vallée brings up the tail end of the chasing group 734 miles from the lead in 11th place, and these 9 boats should get round before the next area of strong winds arrives on Monday evening.
Damian Seguin, sailing Apicil in 4th place is a double Paralympic Gold Medalist, born without his left hand, is 522 miles from the leader. He is showing that he does not consider what would be a handicap to most of us, as any excuse not to push hard in the toughest challenge for any athlete.
Pip Hare has moved up to 15th place. Charal, sailed by one of the favourites at the start but who had to return to Les Sables for repairs after the start, sailed by Jérémie Beyou, now in 18th place, continues to move up the fleet, now just 130 miles behind La Mie Câline, just showing what his boat is capable of. Sadly the competition between him and Alex Thomson was not to be.
Of course everyone expects the weather at Cape Horn to be nasty, but when I went round on the 17th January 1969 I was completely becalmed about 7 miles off the Cape and it was the current that pushed me round. The next two times the weather was not so clement and on Enza we hove to for a while. The last time was only a Force 6 with Skip Novak, but that does not really count as we had existed from the Beagle Channel and a real passage has to include the Roaring Forties and screaming 50’s.
If there is anywhere where you don’t want to hang around it is off the Cape, and I could see the dark, threatening clouds over Tierra Del Fuego and wondered when they would come out to sea and hit me. In fact they didn’t, but within the next day I had to put up with a gale from the east and very cold winds. It looks as if the leaders won’t have that problem as the winds look westerly for the next few days which will propel them into the South Atlantic and the relief of being free them from the endless westerly swell they have experienced ever since they entered the Roaring Forties at the south of the Atlantic.
Cape Horn is the main objective at the moment but once past they have to start working out how best to deal with a tangled meteorological situation in the South Atlantic. With such a close fleet the whole race placings could be turned upside down in the next weeks.