Minnehaha Continues Leading The Slow Ascent North

Big week-end ahead.





In the un-aptly named Pacific, Ian isn’t slowed down too much by his torn mainsail, and Jeremy has resumed his course towards Cape Horn after the front yesterday. 600 miles from the rock, he is a little further east than he would like but keeps a good distance to the Chilean coastline: 250 miles, or 5 times more than Abhilash at the same latitude! Unlike his Atlantic mates, he can count on accurate weather information.
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With 20,000 miles and five months at sea, 70% of their voyage is complete.


The leading yachts are starting to show little signs of fatigue requiring constant maintenance, just as they are undertaking the most difficult part of the course. They had 1800 miles to run between the end of the exclusion zone and the Cape Horn but now a storm has changed all that. The window that had opened last week for Simon Curwen to reach Cape Horn before February 8 has now closed and a succession...

UPDATE : French/English.. Arnaud GAIST Golden GLOBE RACE 2022 is retiring from the #GGR2022 Message just received..... With the Barnacles and my weakness in the mast it would be Cape Horn in APRIL the route back is to St Helene and back to Les Sables d'Olonne.


https://goldengloberace.com/live-tracker/




Arnaud's retirement makes 8, which is 1/2 half of the fleet which set sail from les Sables d'Olonne on September 4th, some 88 days ago....

GGR entrant Guy deBoer runs onto rocks at night in Canaries while the fleet moves through the first ‘film gate’


It was South African GGR entrant Kirsten Neusch?fer (SA) who relayed Guy deBoer’s VHF radio Mayday call to GGR Race Control on Friday morning at 03:10 am UTC.

Guy’s Tashiba 36 had run aground on the North coast of Fuerteventura, just 10 miles from the Lanzarote Marina Rubicon film drop gate he had passed a few hours before. He had activated...

https://goldengloberace.com/live-tracker/


As expected, the GGR fleet has split into two as the wind kicked in: a group of five led by Damien Guillou and Tapio Lehtinen are heading west in 25-30 knots of south westerly and 3-4 metre waves, while the rest led by Pat Lawless, Simon Curwen and Kirsten Neuch?fer are heading towards the Galician coastline in confused seas and 15-20 knots of wind. Some electrical problems for Ertan Beskardes who has had a short circuit...