Today's Sailing News 

The Race: Coming Together

We'll start with more talk of records by the sizzling fast Race Class cats. Innovation Explorer sailed from the Cape of Good Hope to Cape Horn via the Cook Straits in 21 days 7 hours 5 minutes. That was 1 hour 25 minutes quicker than leader Club Med. Therefore Innovation Explorer takes the record for the demanding and brutally fast Southern Ocean passage.

Contrast this with the last 24 hours when leader Club Med covered a mere 230 miles in 24 hours, losing 216 to 2nd place Innovation Explorer.

Club Med likely has another 24 hours of sailing at this slow pace. Currently they are being hindered by a NE wind and vicious seas. Then the winds will go east the first sign of consistent trade winds.

Grant Dalton gave this report: "The last 24 hours have been Hell.  Much worse than anticipated. The low that we had passed by yesterday came right back over the top of us and gave us 40 knot headwinds on top of this ridiculous sea." The big cat doesn't enjoy on the wind sailing according
to Dalton: "Off the wind catamarans are great, but they do not and never will go upwind. They are absolute dogs. The loads and shocks are just huge, it is like cannon shots going off all around."

Dalton closes by saying, "Seamanship and survival are everything right now."
Innovation Explorer should continue to have better winds. At least for awhile advantage to the trailing boat.

Team Adventure is in Wellington New Zealand. Work is well underway
on the carbon skin of the cat's forward beam. It'll be a minimum of 60 hours and likely more for Team Adventure in the Kiwi capital.

Warta-Polpharma will also make a stop in Wellington. This however is to repair organizer provided communication equipment, so it will be a
touch and go for the fleets smallest boat. 

They will then leave New
Zealand and step back onto the podium. Team Legato sailed 451 miles a fleet best in the last 24 hours. The distance from Legato to Warta is now 538. This should close more as Warta stops in port. Team Legato will pass through the Cook Straits if they are
blessed by consistent wind.

All throughout the fleet it's a changeable and compacting  situation. The front pair may come together. The back 3 boats should leave New Zealand waters almost together making for a good race to Cape Horn.

Times Clipper Update

Today marks the return of Sailing Daily's Times Clipper Update. The 8 boat fleet has left Hawaii for to sail west across the Pacific, off one side of the map and to the finish on the maps other side in Yokohama Japan. 

The leg will see some trade winds sailing to begin with. Then a crossing of the International date line. This will switch the longitude  line on their GPS displays to east.

The distance for this leg is 3750 miles. As a reference point  the outright record for this route is held by Steve Fossett sailing a
60 foot trimaran. His time 16 days an average of 11.29 knots. The fleet of Clipper mono hulls is expected to arrive in around 20 days or so.

Today's Fleet Update:

Leader: Liverpool Clipper by 25 miles

Best 24 Hour Run: London Clipper 156 miles 

Position: Fleet spread from 19 to 23 degrees north latitude. The leader
is at 23, the fastest boat at 19

Current Weather: ESE 10 knots

Weather Forecast: North change forecast

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 Today's Sailing News 

Olympic Sailing: Tornado Worlds

The Tornado catamaran the only multi hull class in the Olympics is currently holding its world championships. For the last time the class is
sailing without spinnakers. Future regattas will see the catamarans flying
spinnakers.

20 two person teams are sailing the regatta in South Africa. The
fleet has no North American teams.

Thursday saw two races sailed. Conditions were 12-18 knots winds 
with large swells.
For the first time there was a race winner from other than  Australia. The Netherlands team of Mitch Booth and Herbert Derecksen won race 5. 2nd were the current Olympic gold medallists Roman Hagara and Hans Steinacher. The leading Australian team of Bundock and Forbes finished 8th after a poor 1st leg.

They came back to their winning ways in the next race. They lead by 4 points over the team from the Netherlands. To date, one score has been discarded. The Austrians are 8 points back in 3rd place.

Cam Gram Quote

Team Adventure skipper Cam Lewis is not just a world class sailor 
he's also one of the best sailing writers around. He's writes daily reports/Cam-Grams from his Race Class cat. Here's an excerpt from today's: "We had a nice blast down the Cook Strait - up to 40 knots of breeze. We ended up coming in with a staysail and three reefs doing a good pace, doing 35 knots into the channel.We're back in civilization here. It's amazing. It's early Friday morning in Wellington. There are half a dozen BT Challenge boats off to the port."