Transat AG2R: Conditions abate

First out of the front Nacarat eases ahead

Chart courtesy of Expedition/Tasman Bay Navigation Systems and GRIB (European model) from PredictWind

Positions at 0930 UTC:

After surviving their third frontal passage yesterday, so conditions are set to abate for the Transat AG2R fleet. It is quite something - a tribute to the boats and each team's preparation - that all 16 have made it through, even if a few have slowed up.

While they were level-pegging with Cercle Verte and Sepalumic throughout yesterday, so the first to hoist their kites as they exited the front have gained overnight with Erwan Tabarly and Eric Peron on Nacarat extending ahead now with a lead of 5.3 miles. Overnight Jeanne Gregoire and Gerald Veniard on Banque Populaire have also done well, pulling up to second at the first sched this morning.

"We were upwind in 30 knots as the front passed over us," said Veniard this morning. "Then we set the spinnaker." Gildas Morvan and Charlie Dalin on Cercle Verte have chose to stay longer under genoa and shift a little bit to the west.

The front crossed the fleet between 1630 and 2000 yesterday and behind it the situation has changed the wind plummetting from 25 to 5 knots but now back up to 6-15 knots and very unstable in direction, forces the crews to constantly change between spinnaker to genoa and back again. However the sea has flattened out and it has stopped raining.

The Artemis Offshore Academy's Sam Goodchild and Nick Cherry have managed to hang on to eighth place but exiting the front later have lost 5 miles to the leaders over the last 24 hours.

Nick Cherry reported yesterday: Days of the week have definitely become irrelevant now for me and sam onboard Artemis, the only two facts tha count are distance to the boat ahead and hours to the trade winds. Whilst the first figure has been a bit disapointing recently the second is always coming down.Although maybe not trade winds proper our latest forecast has the wind coming aft of the beam byt tomorrow afternoon some time.The thought of sailing a flat dry boat and not spending all night squinting through the slit between smock and hood trying to make out faint red numbers against the blackness is quiet apealing. Hopefully a change in angle will bring some more passing lanes too.

Oher news from onbord, I think I'm winning the beard growth contest, it's early days yet and with no independant varification it hard to be sure. I defnitely have an edge lngth wse so i think sam must be looking for better coverage. Still no fallings out or arguments yet. With there being ony two of us its pretty clear who didnt do the washing up, or ate the last chocolate etc etc so I think we're both pulling our weight. I do feel a little bad that due to our pre agreed division of labour sam has done the most headsail changes. A particularly unpleasant job since we're protecting a tiny patch of chfe on one halyrad by doing bare headed changes

All for now,
Back to getting soggy on deck

Nick