Leg 2 - Kapstadt - Wellington - Start 28.November 2011
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27 December 2011
Down to the wire for the Leg 2 finish
A tough Christmas Day for the westerly Class40s in the double-handed Global Ocean Race (GOR) was followed by a headwind hammering for the two leading boats to the east on Boxing Day in the Tasman Sea. With the fleet’s distance accordion beginning to squeeze in a tune-up to the Wellington arrival overture, boats are closing up as diverse weather effect the fleet after 7,000 miles and 27 days in Leg 2 from Cape Town.
After a very tough and demanding crossing of the Indian Ocean, Cessna Citation in first place and BSL in second face an area of light winds on their final approach to Cook Strait and the finish, while Campagne de France in third will carry the breeze longer. Below Tasmania, Financial Crisis in fourth and fifth placed Phesheya-Racing will keep in strong, following winds as they transfer into the Tasman Sea.
Christmas Day marked the 16th day at the front of the fleet for Conrad Colman and Sam Goodchild on their Akilaria RC2 Class40, Cessna Citation: “We had thick fog the whole day with visibility to a couple hundred metres at the best of times,” reports Sam Goodchild. “However, the bright side was our three-day wait for wind finally came to an end as we started covering some decent miles again and by the evening we were slamming upwind in 20-25 knots.” The new breeze was welcome, but northerly and Cessna Citation was beating north-east to the finish line. “I spent 15 minutes on the bow doing a sail change with every other wave drenching me from head to toe,” recalls Goodchild. “The only thing I could think of was it was mid-afternoon in the UK and there were millions of people stuffing their faces on copious amounts of good food that I could only dream about,” he admits. “Jealousy reached an all-time high.”
Colman and Goodchild celebrated Christmas with headwinds as the duo closed into just under 800 miles of the finish line and Colman’s hometown, Wellington, at the southern tip of New Zealand’s North Island. By Boxing Day morning GMT, however, the wind strength had increased to 30 knots with huge waves in the Tasman Sea. “Boxing day we spent slamming upwind and pushing hard, spending most of the time hand steering and keeping activities to the minimum….eating, sleeping, sailing and a bit of navigating,” Goodchild continues.
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