Jolie Brise (UK) remains in the lead overall on corrected time in the transatlantic leg of the Tall Ships Atlantic Challenge to Bermuda, a lead she has been holding for over a week now. In second place is Tecla (Netherlands) with Spirit of Bermuda in third and Kruzenshtern (Russia) in fourth.
The placings for the Class D vessels have now changed, with Xsaar (Belgium) maintaining her lead, but now with Peter von Danzig (Germany) moving up to second place, pushing long time leader Urania (Netherlands) into third place and Rona II (UK) in fourth.
On the water, Peter von Danzig continues to dominate and is now over 100 nautical miles ahead of Spirit of Bermuda. Urania is then another 169 miles behind Spirit with Jolie Brise and Xsaar now fairly close together and closing the gap to the leaders.
Wind conditions continue to be fickle with some of the fleet enjoying strong breezes, while others suffer a dead calm. The forecast is for the north-north-east winds to continue, averaging around 7 knots.
Spirit of Bermuda suffered an agonisingly slow day yesterday with flat calm seas all around. They report that occasionally a light breeze would fill in and the crew would work quickly to take advantage of it. Then it dies back to nothing. Skipper Simon Colley says they may have another week’s sailing before they reach Bermuda but believes the crew wouldn’t tell you how long they actually been sailing. “They may know they have the midnight to four watch, what the chef is preparing for dinner or that it was their turn to scrub the deck this morning, but not that it’s Saturday,” says Simon. “Time is measured by the 48 hour weather forecasts, by how far we can travel in a fresh southerly on a close reach, and by how much rest you have till you next come on watch. It’s easy to get to a state where nothing outside the ship seems relevant and it feels like it will be like this indefinitely. It’s easy to feel this way - especially on windless days when you can see clear to the horizon, the clouds brilliantly reflected in the mirror of the sea.”
On board Tecla (Netherlands) they are all smiling again as they have found a north easterly breeze that has them sailing again. Jet Sluik reports that: “It was good to see everybody coming out to see what was going on as the ship started to hang and sing again (the singing is due to our propeller being connected to a dynamo, this connection makes a singing sound as we come to a certain speed). At that time it was raining, but nobody seemed to care. And now we have just six miles to go until we are halfway through our journey. Today we heard that Etoile had retired which is really sad. After a few days of no wind, we finally got some wind and have managed to get up to 7 or even 8 knots of speed, so to hear that one of the ships had stopped was a bit sad. Lets hope that the wind keeps up, touch wood!”