Kontrol continues to close on Maverick II in the Melbourne to Osaka race

by Rob Kothe on 11 Apr 2003 Race leader Maverick is now 550 nautical miles south of has a computer forecast ETA of Sunday morning. As she moves north conditions have been variable and the crew are not so optimistic.

Here is the latest report from Kiwi skipper Brian Petersen

‘Yesterday mornings lovely breeze slowly died away to nothing, leaving us becalmed for a couple of hours. Just on dusk a light NW set in, quickly built to 25 knots and veered to the NE, allowing us to sail course.

Stayed like that all night so have had a wet, fast and very bumpy ride. Still blowing 20 true, very confused seas running. Looking like a Monday finish, hopefully.’

The second Open racer and second boat overall Kontrol is continuing to close the leader. She’s now 556 miles north of the Northern Mariana Island of Saipan. Three days ago she was 220 miles behind Maverick II, now the lead has been cut to 145 miles. However she’s running out of runway and Maverick II will need to break something to lose this race.

Kontrol is stretching away from 1999 race winner Jon Sayers and work mate Joel Berg on Team FGI, the Sayer designed 10.1m Sumo 101 sport boat. She is holding Club Marine Wizard and Lulu, 425 miles north of Guam.
X-Dream and Plantronics are just over the horizon from each other 245 miles north of Guam.
Funnel Web, Beyond Outrageous and TMQ are north of West Fayu atoll in Micronesia and are now feeling the effects of a tropical cyclone forming north of New Ireland.

Sibby Mcfayden from Funnel Web is reporting 10 metres seas and building.

Not much fun for the Funnel Web crew who, having left their matches behind, have been eating cold food for the last 26 days.

That’s not great for appetites but Sibby and Ivan have another problem. Water in the food lockers has meant they’ve had to throw away a lot of their food and they are on hard rations after 26 days at sea.

Salaku, Boots and Naniwa a day’s sail north of the Equator are likely to be affected by the same weather system.

Fine Tolerance, some 400 miles further west in the Bismarck Sea will be less affected.

To see the latest position updates from the Argos tracking system
http://www.sail-world.com/tracking/52/OsakaCup_Satellite.html