Team SEB Speeds Into Second

Teams SEB’s eastern position on the fleet is now paying dividends, and they are catching the leader illbruck, who are positioned farther to the west.

After taking the second place in the last this six hour period, SEB has even started to accelerate more, doing 13 knots of boatspeed in 16 knots of true wind speed. As the wind shifted east of northeast, they jibed for on hour on port tack, heading further to the south, crossing the 18th parallel. At the time of reporting, they were 110 miles NE of Sta. Maria, one island of the Cape Verde Archipelago. After stopping at Porto Santo off Madeira and passing through the Canaries, they are not only experiencing a fast ride, but also do not miss out the nice places along the route.

Of the fleet to the west, illbruck has got more pressure by now and their speed is building to up to 8 knots. ASSA ABLOY, Tyco, Amer Sports One and Too and News Corp are still trapped in the light air bubble.

Disappointment lies in the words of Grant Dalton, saying that “I can’t remember a sustained period of no wind like this ever with the exception maybe off Cape Horn, last race, inside the Falklands when 4 of us parked for 3 days and a boat 500 miles behind simply sailed round the outside of us having stopped to repair their generator.”

The question for the coming hours and days will be, whether Team SEB manages to move into the lead and subsequently secure a position between the fleet and the next waypoint.

Email from Gurra Krantz on board Team SEB

Eating Miles

After being trapped for so many days it is a relief to get going. We are sailing in a NE trade [wind] and making good grounds, eating a lot of miles, hour by hour. Will it hold? We will soon find out. The only thing we can do is to sail the green one as fast as possible. Nothing lasts forever.
We have taken 80 miles out of the longitudinal separation despite the fact that the others are making a lot of westerly. At the most we had 380 miles separation… stay with the fleet somebody said.

We have been attacked by the fly fishes in a way not seen before. They arrive hundreds at a time and quite a few of them end up on the boat, even inside. Our arrangement with two companionways doesn’t make it easier. Smell of fish is spreading over the deck and the baby wipes are being used frequently. Tony mutter our sail coordinator and watch captain found one nearly dead fish under the sails inside the boat. He refused to remove it with the explanation that he hates flying fishes. We analysed it but could not find a cure for the problem. One thing is for sure though; he will find a fish in his sleeping bag if I know these guys right.

Looking at the length of this leg we are very happy to have 37 days of food on the boat. It will be a long leg and it is comforting to know that we can have full pace on our bodies the whole way. If somebody had asked us, how many days of food we were taking on this leg and we had answered 37, that somebody would probably have thought we were crazy. We had the same opinion about ourselves when making this decision, but now we feel better about it.

Position Report Day 13, 1004 GMT:

PSYachtLatitude LongitudeDTFCMGSMGTFHRDTLROC ETA PO
1ILBK19 41.40N026 10.04W0512521906.1122000.025 OCT 018
2TSEB17 53.65N021 13.03W0512923011.1244403.625 OCT 017
3AART20 04.32N026 14.20W0514622307.211221-00.825 OCT 016
4TYCO20 07.73N026 20.76W0514819505.510323-01.625 OCT 015
5NEWS20 05.84N025 37.56W0515723506.310432-01.025 OCT 014
6AONE20 11.64N025 57.96W0515721603.810732-01.325 OCT 013
7ATOO20 36.24N025 11.56W0519314800.811068-02.125 OCT 012
8DJCE21 02.64N023 26.24W0525015603.9064125-04.725 OCT 011