Both Cheyenne and Geronimo reported in this morning, but again with different stories. Whilst the French trimaran clocked up another solid 393 mile 24 hour run, an average of 16.4 knots, the big American cat is still looking for solid wind and is now a full day behind Orange’s virtual position on the same day. Geronimo too has slipped behind the record holder, only underlying just what a blistering pace Peyron set in 2002. With Cheyenne giving their position as 246 miles west of Lanzarote at 0510 GMT this morning, they did record a good mileage yesterday and are still hopeful of making the Equator in 8 days and so still on track for a potential record. However, Geronimo has closed the gap between them by 198 miles.

From on board Cheyenne watch leader Brian Thompson reports.

‘It’s been a busy time in the Cheyenne sail loft, set up amongst the storage boxes in the long, narrow forepeak of the port hull. Each of the standby watches have had a rotating team of 2 working full time stitching up the 14 webbing strips holding the head of the blast reacher to the rest of the sail. I calculated that there were 900 holes made through the thick fabric and with 2 passes of the spectra thread that is 1800 passes of the needle with the palm pushing through on one side and the pliers pulling out the needle on the other. The whole job took 20 hours. Next we need to re-hoist the sail to get the luff tension correct and then furl it properly as much of it is unfurled and crushed into the forepeak at present.

‘Out here we are having more smooth sailing, a little light of wind tonight as we are having to go through another ridge of high pressure, but we expect increasing winds today. It is going to be one long downwind leg from here to the equator, with a few big gybes to get us down past the doldrums. The big gennaker is up and unless it gets too breezy we should be flying this sail for the next 4 days.’

To read his full report check out www. brianthompsonsailing.com