Whoa. I’m looking at what’s going on in the Mini Transat fleet, where Portuguese solo sailor Francisco Lobato is neck-and-neck with the two leading prototype boats.

That’s some achievement in a Pogo 2 production boat – glassfibre hull, fixed aluminium rig, fixed keel and around ?50,000 of yacht versus prototypes all in carbon and with canting rigs and scores of other technological advantages costing 2-3 times as much.

Lobato has been pushing his little 21-footer ROFF TMN (pictured above) hard downwind towards the first stop in Madeira and the other day notched up a top 24-hour run of 253 miles – an average of 10.6 knots.

They say the Pogo 2s should fare better against the lighter and faster prototypes when there’s wind sufficient for a reef and the differences count for less. Still, this is impressive. See more here 

Photo by Thierry Martinez