Team JAJO
Hello Sailors,
Last 2 days have been full of nice downwind sailing. You almost forget the feeling of the slaming and banging we have been doing on the upwinds in the mediteranian see before we went through the street of Gibraltar.
right now we are approx 650 nautical miles away from Cabo Verde. Today we went in between the Canary Island. It almost felt like a home coming for my spanish crewmate Simbad Quiroga. He is living there.
The mood onboard is good. After We are in the mix for the podium. The WindWhisper team is sometimes a little quicker but we have been able to do some technical repairs so hopefully we keep up with them and maybe attack the first place. We will see. 2 more days to the island of Cabo Verde.
Cheers, Jelmer
Skipper Team JAJO
Team Malizia
Hello !
After the epic Med navigation with very strong upwind, things are going better and better for us. After Gibraltar Strait, we had a North-West shift, so we were able to reach alongside the African coast. Quite bouncy condition with the boat foiling but at least it started to be fast !
Then our strategy bring us offshore to round all Canaria islands and their huge wind-shadow to port.
Going South, we can enjoy some very sailing conditions : downwind in 20 kts and flat sea-state with the boat fully foiling.
We are still a bit shy to push our boat too much as we are still discovering our new foils.
bests,
Nico from Team Malizia
Austrian Ocean Racing by Team Genova
Hi Race control,
We write you in good spirits. The last 2 days have been champagne sailing. There is enough wind and sea state to go fast with the FRO. Top speed of 32 knots and lots of water on deck.
The crew will be able to catch some sleep over de next hours. Not that it is needed because I quote one of the crew: Why go to sleep, while sleeping you miss out on sailing, who wants to miss out on sailing….?
Our ETA is late on the 21st early on the 22nd.
Regards
Gerwin
11th Hour Racing Team
Update from Amory Ross:
The ride continues. What a start to this race and its been relentless from the get go. I think we all have little things we’ve been hoping to get to when conditions abate but there has been no reprieve. The sample of water to pull from the OceanPak for lab testing? Ugh. The fun interviews for quiet days? Cleaning up the galley? A Buddhist podcast about working well under pressure from Antoine on Malizia? I’m afraid at this rate, and with the remaining forecast, it will have to wait until Leg 2 or Cabo Verde. There has been no opportunity for anything other than working, eating or sleeping. Merely moving around in anything more than 20 knots of wind on these boats requires all of your attention and focus; there’s little room for anything else.
As to the race, our westerly play didn’t quite pan out the way we’d hoped. The whole system we were sailing around slid east which meant we sailed past the layline and never got the big lift we’d anticipated. It happens! Oh well. Look ahead to the next opportunity to claw Holcim back. Optimistically, the new weather brings the Canaries into play and brings us a lot closer to Africa, so there may be some risk to the leader. They will always be first to new winds but if the winds are light, we gain. And if – with the now hourly schedule – we see Holcim super light, we could avoid the area altogether. There’s also ample track to just grind them down the old fashioned way in this wind: boatspeed. But we know they’re fast!
A big one for us today (Thursday morning) is just managing the islands and their wind shadows. A little more watch to watch than day to day onboard, which is always exciting… Back to it!
