Australian has Kiwi in his sights

by Offshore Challenges on 12 Jun 2004 Australia’s Nick Moloney has been chewing-up miles overnight. His Open 60 Skandia continues to make great strides on third place in the Transat race, which reaches its climax in Boston this weekend.

Her deficit has dwindled from 110 miles on Dominique Wavre`s Temenos yesterday to 84 miles on New Zealander Mike Sanderson’s (now third placed) Pindar on Friday.

Pindar’s broken daggerboard looks to have cost Sanderson second place into Boston this weekend, will it now cost him third? In a call between Sanderson and Moloney overnight Mike expressed his frustration with the current conditions

Skandia was the fastest yacht in the top six overnight, covering 189.61 miles in the 24 hours up to 0900 GMT.

Fifth-placed Conrad Humphreys on Hellomoto sailed into a hole last night and could only watch as Skandia pulled away to put 95 miles between them.

Briton Mike Golding on Ecover holds the lead. He has a 37-mile buffer on Temenos with 365 miles to sail to Boston.

In a call to the Skandia Multimanager Shore Team in Boston this morning Nick said that he was 'pleased with his position but is expecting to sail into some light patches soon' he had been on the phone with some of the other sailors in the fleet - including his good friend JoJo on VMI, who had been heading towards New Foundland overnight - 'looking for ice for the finish party beers' as they chatted, they compared the conditions - both sailors have found it very very cold - colder than the southern ocean when they sailed together to win the Jules Verne Trophy on the maxi catamaran Orange - ' This race course is the coldest there is...the nights are really very clear with incredible stars, but really cold, we are certainly looking forward to the warmer weather ( and the welcome ) that we can expect in Boston, I am really really looking forward to the finish line - but we have some tricky conditions to get through'



IMOCA POSITIONS 1300 GMT
NAME / SKIPPER / LAT / LONG / DIST
1. ECOVER / Golding / 43 05.72'N / 63 08.56'W / 346 to finish
2. TEMENOS / Wavre / 43 02.32'N / 62 18.88'W / 41.6 behind leader
3. PINDAR ALPHAGRAPHICS / Sanderson / 42 55.88'N / 62 13.12'W / 40.67 behind leader
4. SKANDIA / Moloney / 43 09.04'N / 60 24.36'W / 120.49 behind leader
5. HELLOMOTO / Humphrey's / 41 47.20'N / 58 18.40'W / 220.75 behind leader
ABD CHEMINÉES POUJOULAT - AMOR LUX / STAMM
ABD PRB / RIOU
ABD VIRBAC / Dick