Increasingly comfortable and confident, the all female crew of The Famous Project CIC are growing bolder with every mile that brings them closer to the roaring southern latitudes.
At 15:00 hrs Friday 12 Dec they were sailing at 9 knots and had covered 5,007 nm. This put them 1,822 nm off the record pace of Francis Joyon in 2017.
At the latitude of the Cape of Good Hope, located less than 1,800 miles to their east this Friday morning, Alexia Barrier, Dee Caffari, Annemieke Bes, Rebecca Gmür Hornell, Deborah Blair, Molly LaPointe, Támara Echegoyen, and Stacey Jackson have just experienced their fastest night since the start of their round-the-world race.
Perfectly positioned between a high-pressure system and a low-pressure system coming from the Argentine coast, they are taking advantage of an excellent wind angle to accelerate and make significant progress towards the African continent.
They need to maintain speeds of around 30 knots at the helm of the Maxi trimaran, a speed that is essential in their race to stay ahead of this low-pressure system, a veritable conveyor belt towards the next major milestone of their journey, the Cape of Good Hope and its neighbor Cape Agulhas, which marks the entrance to the Indian Ocean
The idea is to stay in this favorable wind, blowing at over 20 knots at the edge of the low-pressure system, and to race with it without being overtaken.
The approach to the Cape of Good Hope immediately presents a very clear choice of route, between a “normal” route to the south and a “conservative” route to the north. The crew and routers agree to stay north for the next 24 to 48 hours to avoid the “very strong” winds and gusts of over 60 knots further south.
The conservative route to the north is preferred in order to avoid high seas, allowing the crew to gradually adjust to these new conditions.
