The Global Ocean Race has its third leader in three days as the six boat fleet head for Capetown, South Africa - 6100nm distant - on the first leg of the round the world race.
Current race leader is Campagne de France (Halvard Mabire and Miranda Merron) who at the 0600 UTC sked were 1.7nm ahead of Buckley Systems (Ross and Campbell Field) with previous leader Cessna Citation (Conrad Colman and Hugo Ramon) in third place 10nm behind the race leaders.
The fleet headed through the Straits of Gibraltar on prediction at 2100hrs UTC, with BSL enjoying a handy lead of 6.5nm over Campagne de France.
However the tactical choice to head for the North African coast, proved in hindsight to be not the best option, and as Campagne de France stacked up to windward, she began to close in on the race leaders.
The Fields elected to cover and head back out to sea, but were only sailing at just above 5kts to the 10kts of Mabire and Merron.
At 0900UTC Once the two NZers had closed in on Campagne de France, they paralleled, and although the speed of boat boats had dropped to 5-6kts, the Fields were 5nm astern, with Cessna Citation almost 20nm behind the leaders and sailing at a pathetic 3kts - indicating that winds were light towards the African coast.
The old maxim for this part of the ocean 'the West is Best' was once again proven correct.
The prognosis from Predictwind is for light to moderate breezes for the next five days with the racers being recommended to stick to the Moroccan coast as the head for the Cap Verde Islands.
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