Since then it has been advantage the southern group led by Team Brunel. But this split decision is going to take some more time to fully work itself out.
Midway through their third day at sea on the double-pointer to Cardiff, things are looking better for the northern group as the southern boats head north in light winds, trying to close the 280-mile gap.
The southern boats look to have a complex few hours ahead as they try to avoid patches of calm while, in the north, all eyes are on a new depression coming up from behind that could benefit Dongfeng, MAPFRE and Turn the Tide on Plastic before the boats to the south.
An additional element for the northern boats is the Ice Exclusion Zone that protects the crews from lumps of ice coming south on the Labrador Current. In the next day or so the northern boats will skirt this zone as they sail the shortest course to Europe in big breeze and colder conditions than of late.
The big split in the fleet has been playing on our sailor’s nerves and that is hardly surprising on a critical leg for the outcome of the race. Of course the situation would be far more stressful for Charles Caudrelier and Pascal Bidegorry had MAPFRE chosen to stay with the southern group. In fact she is still 30 miles behind Dongfeng in sixth place while Dongfeng lies in fourth position, 30 miles behind the leader Team Brunel.
Kevin Escoffier summed up the challenge ahead. “We now have two groups of boats,” he said. “One going south in front of the front and three who gybed. For now the people who stayed with the front are better…but we are working hard to get the boat as fast as possible. We are ahead of everybody (in the northern group) and we took this decision, so we’ll see…we’ll see.”
Stu Bannatyne, meanwhile, was in philosophical mood and happy to take what comes. “There is nothing productive in getting upset about things you can’t control,” he said. “For example the other guys that are cruising off down there in nice breeze. There is nothing we can do about that at the moment.
“The bit we can do is sail well with the breeze that we have, so we have just got to work hard and as long we are doing well on the boats around us, that’s all we can do. We might end up a day behind but it won‘t be for lack of trying,” he added.
Latest position report at 08:38 UTC:
1. Team Brunel. DTF: 2, 162nm
2. Team AkzoNobel. DTL: 9.0nm
3. Vestas 11th Hour Racing. DTL: 9.5nm
4. Dongfeng Race Team. DTL: 19.4nm
5. Turn the Tide on Plastic. DTL: 42.9nm
6. MAPFRE. DTL: 50.6nm
7. Team Sun Hung Kai / Scallywag. DTL: 75.4nm
