The Clipper Round The World 09-10 race is currently sailing through the Canary Islands on their second leg of the race from La Rochelle to Rio de Janeiro. There are ten yachts competing, Hull & Humber have played a tactical advantage of going into stealth mode and disappearing off the radar for 24 hours.
The trade winds have dropped leaving some wind holes around the islands, as you can see from the map below plotting their latest positions there has been a wide choice of routes for the boats to head through or around the islands!
Piers Dudin the skipper on Hull & Humber sent this report to the race office prior to the stealth mode “OK, so we had a plan, taking into account the light airs,” he said, “But we didn't factor in the possibility of NO WIND! So we are being especially stealthy in no particular direction. Hopefully a bit of sun will get the wind moving a bit but it's looking like a bit of a park up at the moment.”
With the lack of wind it will be interesting to see which of the fleet head for the scoring gate which is currently sitting in a large wind hole or if they decide to leave the gate and take the wind to head for the win at Rio.
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