In recent hours the cloud activity that caused havoc with boatspeed and direction seems to have abated and the southeast Trade Winds have been blowing steady, allowing good progress to the north.
Right now the boats are just 140 miles south of Recife and are on course to skim past the north-eastern corner of Brazil, close inshore as they look to benefit from the wind acceleration around the coast.
Up ahead the Doldrums look weak and patchy, meaning a potentially fast passage, although there will be some slower phases before the crews start to feel the influence of the north-east Trades.
On board Dongfeng the crew is still enjoying some marvelous sailing conditions – perfect for cruising sailors – and not too bad for racers. Dry on deck, warm weather, sunshine, lovely sunsets…and Caroline Brouwer has been taking her turn on the wheel.
Carolijn has been having an remarkable race and is one of only three members of Dongfeng Race Team – alongside skipper Charles Caudrelier and bowman Jack Bouttell – to have sailed on every leg so far. And she is still smiling…
Stu Bannatyne gave his summary of recent progress, including a cloud-hit that left the boat completely our of whack, setup for the wrong tack.
“Lots of nice sailing for today which is a bit of a change from what we have had over the last day or two,” he said. “There has been a lot of cloud activity, unbelievable actually.
“In one case, last night, we were sailing along with full stack and reaching along. Next thing you know we get a big rainstorm with thunder and lightning and we have to tack immediately. So we tack and we’ve got all the stack on the wrong side, water ballast on the wrong side, our OBR on the wrong side and we have to sail like this for a while.
“We can’t drain the water (out of the ballast tanks) but the wind has shifted so much you just have to do it. It didn’t work out that well for us in the end, we lost a lot of miles but that is the nature of the game - it is a lot nicer day today,” he added.
The latest positions on the Live Tracker show Turn the Tide on Plastic still ahead but now only 6.6 miles in front of second-placed Vestas 11th Hour Racing, with Dongfeng in third place, another 10 miles back. MAPFRE is still sixth, just over 50 miles behind the leader.
Position report at 8h25 UTC:
1 - Turn The Tide of Plastic 3 711nm from Newport
2 - Vestas 11th Hour 7.1nm from the leader
3 - Dongfeng Race Team 16.7nm
4 - Team Brunel 24.2nm
5 - AkzoNobel 27.8nm
6 - MAPFRE 49.9nm
7 - Scallywag 77.3nm
