Barcelona World Race Gaes girls floating

by Barcelona World Race on 12 Apr 2011 Barcelona World Race duo Dee Caffari and Anna Corbella are currently becalmed at the Balearics waiting for a hint of a breeze.

They may have been blessed by downwind conditions for their return into the Mediterranean but they spent most of last night floating rather than sailing judging by their overnight average of just 2.1kts. At 0400hrs UTC the girls were making just 1.8kts with 160 miles to go. That puts them just north of the latitude of Ibiza, some 16 miles NE of Denia on the Spanish mainland.

Dee Caffari wrote this morning: 'So close yet so far. This is the story of last night. As the sun set we watched it sink below Cabo de Nao and it took with it all the wind. We have floated all night long with a hint of some breeze filling in only to find it short lived and from a different direction before the next puff makes us think the same. With the main land on one side and Ibiza on the other we have been lucky to avoid the shipping as our boat speed has left us very vunerable. We hope this will change and we hope to start moving. Any direction would be good and towards Barcelona would be a bonus!!'

Andy Meiklejohn and Wouter Verbraak are 1130 miles from the Straits of Gibraltar still making NNE with slightly slackened trade winds, averaging less than 7kts overnight in 13kts of breeze.

FMC are at the latitude of Cabo Verde islands, 305 miles to the west in a NE'ly trade wind of 18kts, so Gerard Marin and Ludovic Aglaor are making 10kts upwind, while Jaume Mumbru and Cali Sanmarti are 220 miles SW of Rio in 10kts of NNE'ly Barcelona World Race website