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Photo: Wild Card (c) Richard Gladwell / Sail-World
Emailing this afternoon from a location 210 nautical miles North-East of Cape Reinga, and nearly 300 nautical miles from the startline at Westhaven Marina in Auckland, TeamVodafone Sailing have reported breezes of up to 20 knots, and boat speeds of 23-26 knot.s They set their first reef and trinquet at 1000hrs today, and have now added a second reef.
"All is well and we are ticking off some miles today," says crewman Stu MacKinven.
Earlier this morning they reported a much lighter SSE breeze and a sloppy sea.
A crewman onboard Equilibirum reported to the sailing website Livesaildie.com that they were frustrated waiting for the Easterly to kick in. The website reported that spurts of breeze were followed by patches of nothingness - making trimming the kite in the dark very difficult. At 1300hrs, Equilibrium was in third place, about 23nm behind V5, doing about 10knots and heading due North.
Squealer reported in post dinner yesterday that they were well settled into their night watches, heading under masthead spinnaker direct for the Navula Passage. At that point they were abeam of Wild Card and just ahead of Outrageous Fortune, hoping fervently that the breeze would hold. At 1300hrs today, they were holding on to third place on line, and second on PHRF handicap.
Pictured here are the crew of Outrageous Fortune, yesterday evening off the Northern coast. We are told that the catering onboard - smoked fish pie on Day 1 - is over a very high standard. Now well out of sight of land they are currently holding their own abeam of Squealer and Wild Card, and making good nearly 8 knots.
Ray and Andrew Lodge's family owned boat, Wild Card (pictured top), is currently leading on PHRF and IRC handicap.
Vision, the Ganley Cruiser that started on Wednesday, has 486nm to finish, and is doing 8.9 knots of boat speed.
The race is supported by Manson Anchors, PredictWind.com, and TNL GAC Pindar.
TeamVodafone is expected to arrive in Musket Cove at between three and four days. To establish a new record, it must complete the race in less than 103 hours, 20 minutes and 57 seconds - the time it set in the 2011 edition of the race. However, the keelboats will need to finish in 103 hours, 38 minutes and 16 seconds to set a new monohull record.
A front is expected to cross over the racecourse from Monday night, providing rain and a stronger push from the South.
Media Coverage so far:
If you didn't catch Martin Tasker's interview on TV1 News last night, take a look here - the piece starts about 7.50 minutes into Sports News. And also, a pre-race interview with Blair Tuke courtesy of Yachting New Zealand, here. Blair is the Olympic Silver Medallist crewing aboard David Nathan's entrant, V5. The race start was also covered on TV3 news.
For more information:
Visit www.rnzys.org.nz for bulletins and access to the Yellowbrick tracker, and also check in at the RNZYS Facebook page for photos and commentary
