ANZ Fiji Race - Hull puts the hammer down on Team VodafoneSailing

by Richard Gladwell, Sail-World.com on 6 Jun 2016 TeamVodafoneSailing has picked up speed and is now racing towards the finish of the ANZ Sail Fiji race at a speed of close to 25kts.

At 1115hrs on June 6, 2016, the 60ft trimaran had 250nm to sail to the finish line at Port Denerau, but at 4.00pm her speed had dropped slightly and she had 136nm to sail to the finish.

Based on her current average speed of 23kts and 4.00pm position, she has another six hours of fast sailing ahead of her.

The Simon Hull skippered trans-oceanic racer is expected to finish around 10.00pm Monday night NZT, that would give her an elapsed time of 59hours for the 1100nm race - an average of 18.5 kts, and excellent pace given that the first 10 hours of the race was spent in light airs

NEWSFLASH TeamVodafoneSailing crossed the finish line at Port Denerau at 22:31:03hrs on Monday 6th June just 59hours 31 minutes and 3 seconds after the start, meaning she went under the 60hr mark for the 1100nm course.

After a slower night when speeds dropped below 20kts TeamVodafoneSailing is believed to be sailing fast in the fresh SE trade winds averaging 23-25kts. The only factor that will prevent TeamVodafoneSailing faster is the sea-state and whether she has significant damage to her port daggerboard, which hit an unidentified underwater object on the first night at sea.

Unfortunately the port daggerboard is the operative board on starboard tack which TeamVodafonesailing has been sailing since clearing Great Barrier Island, after a start in light airs on Saturday morning.

The first monohull, the Volvo 70 Giacomo (Jim Delegat) has picked up speed from this morning and is now sailing at 18kts with just under 300nm to the finish, which will take another 17hrs giving a projected finish time of around 9.00am on Tuesday Race Tracker