As the rest of the fleet enter the Northern Hemisphere, the teams are continuing to implement the best strategy to continuously improve their performance. However, the significance of this achievement hasn’t gone unnoticed by the crew.
Qingdao’s AQP, Rhiannon Massey says:
“Crossing back into the Northern Hemisphere, it feels like a real milestone in the race for me, and feels as though we have really completed a large section of the race now.”
This is clearly a special moment for the fleet as WTC Logistics Skipper, Rich Gould indicates:“For all crew crossing the equator is a special occasion, as in this day and age of jet travel, the number of people that get the opportunity to cross from one hemisphere to another by way of the sea is very limited.”
There were various invitations for King Neptune to come aboard - can we expect to see a visit from the King himself? Only time will tell. Perhaps he can have a word about the best strategy to implement for the rest of this leg?!
Each of the teams are planning their next plan of action with regards to battling the weather conditions.
Skipper of Dare to Lead Guy Waites reveals: “Sitting neatly between those two goals is a perfectly forecasted wind hole, a whopper of a wind hole that could leave us drifting for a whole day and where there are wind holes there are opportunities, so stand by for a potential reshuffle of the fleet!”
Unicef’s Skipper Ian Wiggin is looking to make efficiencies:
“For now, we have been focused on trying to improve our upwind performance in order to make the boat more efficient. You would think that having sailed halfway around the world at this point, we would have this figured out by now. But as our sails stretch, different ideas are developed, and we keep experimenting.”
For David Hartshorn, Skipper of Seattle, it’s all about reacting to the ever-changing conditions.
“Our first few hours in the Northern Hemisphere were marked with some very fickle winds, constantly changing direction, making finding a tack that gave us anything like a decent course difficult, resulting in both loss of speed and ground against the rest of the fleet.”Visit Sanya, China opted to go into Stealth Mode, Skipper Seamus Kellock revealed:“Now we’re sneaking along, no one knows where we are. Well we do. It has been a pretty uneventful past 24 hours, only a little squall this morning and a couple of tacks to maximise on those wind shifts but other than that it has been plain sailing really. We have been making good miles towards the scoring gate, but are unsure if we will be in the first three to it.”
The race couldn’t be tighter and as it stands Ha Long Bay, Viet Nam remain in pole position with WTC Logistics in second place, closely followed by Dare to Lead.