Competition heats up

Our strategy for last week seems to have borne fruit, but it has also served to make the final 600 miles even more exciting and competitive.  It threw Financial Crisis into a dilemma, as expected, and panicked them into gybing west to try and cover us but gained us over 130 miles in their direction, leaving us with a deficit of just 45 miles at the moment.  As usual Cessna Citation seemed to feel comfortable with their existing lead but nonetheless we also gained 125 miles on them reducing their lead to 335 miles.  On the down side Sec.Hayai picked up on our strategy at an early stage and shadowed us closely, even getting a little further west of our track at some points and gained 165 miles over us, leaving them a mere 85 miles behind us at the moment!  We had a lot of fun threading our way through the Caribbean islands, and even got to chat with an old friend on the VHF radio as we passed St. Barths, but this was one place where Sec.Hayai got the better of us tactically, passing very close east of the islands but being very careful to avoid the lee of any land.

Cessna Citation is now just 215 miles from the finish and although they are in  very light winds now they should cross the line within 36 hours.  Meanwhile we continue to battle things out with Financial Crisis and Sec.Hayai, both of whom are onto our plan now and making the race very challenging for these final few miles.  Both boats are doing everything in their power to try and stay west of our track and both are doing a great job of boxing us in.  During these final miles we will transition from the trade winds to the Variables again, and already the wind is becoming less stable, with grey, drizzly, weather.  We anticipate one more night of good, fast running conditions and then the wind will gradually over towards the south and decrease as we come under the influence of the high pressure that causes the variable winds.  By keeping to the west we stay in slightly stronger winds, away from the centre of the high, for longer, but also get onto the Gulf Stream "conveyor belt" sooner.  This mass of moving water will carry us towards Charleston at the rate of a few knots even without any wind and it is critical to get into it ASAP.  We are about 250 miles from the edge of the Gulf Stream now, and Financial Crisis is 200 miles from the edge and doing their best to stay between us and the current.  It is a real challenge!  We know what we need to do, but the practicalities of achieving it are difficult!
 

The latest forecast shows the wind dying out completely just before the finish and so one of our final challenges will be to time our final approach gybe to perfection so that we are not swept past the finish line by the current, and perhaps more importantly, we do not sail any extra miles compared to the other two boats who are bound to be in very close proximity to us!  One challenge imposed by the Gulf Stream is that it has the effect of making a southerly wind feel less than it really is so, for example, if the current is running at 4 knots and the wind is forecast to blow from the south at 4 knots, it will feel as if there is no wind at all!  Conversely a 4 knot wind from the north will feel like 8 knots!  The forecast is for the former scenario which isn't going to make life easy but it should make for some exciting viewing!