Atlantic Cup: Converging winds

Published on May 28th, 2018

(May 28, 2018; Day 3) – In the last 24-hours of the Atlantic Cup, there’s been a significant consolidation in the fleet. Yesterday afternoon the boats were sailing north fast and furiously and were divided into three strategic camps – left, center and right.

The lead group is coming from the center as 127-Amhas skippered by Micah Davis and Rob Windsor hold a very thin lead over the French team skippered by Catherine Pourre and Pietro Luciani on 145-Eärendil

“it’s changed an awful lot!” reports Windsor. “The weather files said we should have had 20 knots of wind and we have none! We are just trying to keep the boat going fast, we’ve got some surfing waves from behind and we then run into the northerly waves so we’re slamming a little now but it’s all to play for here!”

54-Dragon was well positioned yesterday afternoon until they damaged their A2 spinnaker which pushed them to the back of the pack. Mike Hennessy said this morning, “We no longer need the missing A2, only because it is blowing 2.5 from the North with gobs of shear. Good times and Dragon conditions. Although we will need about 15 hours of this to be able to close the gap in excruciating slo-mo.”

The leaderboard shuffled through the night as the boats sailed into lighter winds left by converging winds from two different weather patterns giving a chance for the boats further back to consolidate their position.

The oldest boat in the race, 37-First Light and the much newer 101-Power of One are still the most westerly boats and appear headed to pick up any land breeze available. With the winds forecast to be light approaching New York Harbor, the sailing intensity will increase. First arrivals are anticipated tomorrow between 4am and 6am (local time).

Details: http://www.atlanticcup.org