Global Ocean Race 2011-12

[mpowlison]

September 25, 2011

The Adventure Begins

At 14:00 local time (12:00 GMT), the six double-handed Class40’s in the Global Ocean Race 2011-12 (GOR) fleet crossed the start line in Palma, Mallorca, with Leg 1 and 7,000 miles to Cape Town ahead of them.


Following overnight rain, the sky cleared at dawn on Sunday and a very light breeze trickled through the Marina de Mallorca and the GOR Race Village as the teams, their shore crews, friends and families arrived at the dock to prepare for the start.


At 10:30, Father Miralles from the San Sebastián Church blessed the GOR fleet before the six boats headed out into Palma Bay at 11:00 led by Marco Nannini and Paul Peggs on Financial Crisis with the dock lines for the entire fleet let go by GOR Race Ambassador and round-the-world yachtswoman, Dee Caffari, assisted by fellow IMOCA Open 60 sailor, Alex Thomson.


As the six Class40’s milled in the competitor-only exclusion zone just south-east of the Camino de la Escollera, the team from the Real Club Náutico de Palma (RCNP) laid the start line close inshore. While the course was laid, the spectator fleet of around 100 vessels ranging from a 95ft classic ketch to a fleet of Lasers, including a party from the GOR’s host yacht club in Uruguay, the Yacht Club Punta del Este and the club’s Commodore, Horacio Garcia Pastori, fell into a holding pattern further offshore, south of the RCNP’s committee boat.


In the final 30 minutes before the start, the GOR’s Co-Race Director, Sylvie Viant, boarded each competing Class40 to ensure that the engine seals were in place and a team of support RIBs plucked shore teams from each yacht. With the afternoon sea breeze failing to arrive and a southerly breeze of around seven knots, the joint RCNP – GOR committee opted to shorten the inshore course from a nine-mile triangle to a single starboard rounding just under two miles from the start, allowing the fleet to clear the bay swiftly.


Former President of the Class40 Association, Jacques Fournier, fired the start gun with the Franco-British duo of Halvard Mabire and Miranda Merron and their Pogo 40S² Campagne de France crossing first, swiftly unfurling their gennaker. Close behind, Ross and Campbell Field crossed second with BSL opting for an inshore route close to the beach, their bright orange, windward rudder raised and Field Senior helming down to leeward. In close order, Nannini and Peggs with Financial Crisis and Nico Budel and Ruud van Rijsewijk on board Sec. Hayai crossed in third and fourth, with the South African duo of Nick Leggatt and Phillippa Hutton-Squire with Phesheya-Racing crossing ahead of Conrad Colman and Hugo Ramon with the new Akilaria RC2, Cessna Citation.


The Field’s inshore option paid well with BSL rounding the single mark and hardening up six minutes ahead of Campagne de France and the New Zealand father-and-son team held this lead as the fleet exited the bay. Behind Mabire and Merron, Nannini and Peggs with Financial Crisis arrived at the turning mark first, but Cessna Citation squeezed into the gap, forcing Financial Crisis off the mark and allowing Phesheya-Racing through ahead of Nannini and Peggs who swiftly lodged a protest against Cessna Citation via VHF and email.


The GOR fleet has around 450 miles of sailing through the Mediterranean before reaching the Straits of Gibraltar and the busy Traffic Separation Scheme (TSS) between Gibraltar and Morocco. Weather models predict an easterly airstream in the middle of the Mediterranean and the teams will head south to grab a good ride to Gibraltar. Having left the Med, the next turning mark is the Fastnet Marine Insurance Scoring Gate at the Brazilian Island of Fernando de Noronha, 2,800 miles to the south-west of Gibraltar.


During the two days prior to the start, Yellowbrick trackers were fitted to the six Class40’s and have been synchronised with the GOR’s Geovoile Race Viewer to provide position, speed and heading data for each yacht every three hours; information that will be sent simultaneously to the six teams at sea. In the GOR’s first position poll at 15:00 GMT, three hours after the start, the lead trio were separated by under one mile making slightly less than six knots with BSL leading, Campagne de France in second and Cessna Citation in third.


The GOR website will be updated twice each day throughout Leg 1 with reports from the boats while offshore racing enthusiasts can race Class40’s along the same route as the real fleet via the GOR’s Virtual Game.

[mpowlison]

September 29, 2011

Pushing south in confusing conditions

As the northerly breeze arrived on Wednesday afternoon, the double-handed, Class40 fleet in the Global Ocean Race 2011-12 (GOR) were on the move again following a period stuck in light airs north-west of Rabat on the Moroccan coast. Halvard Mabire and Miranda Merron with Campagne de France held the lead by four miles, running along the West African continental shelf chased by Ross and Campbell with BSL with both Class40s averaging around nine knots. In third place, Conrad Colman and Hugo Ramon on Cessna Citation had been reeled in by Marco Nannini and Paul Peggs with Financial Crisis and the South African duo of Nick Leggatt and Phillippa Hutton-Squire on board Phesheya-Racing with just 15 miles separating the three boats. Hampered by the loss of any effective offwind headsails on Sec. Hayai, Nico Budel and Ruud van Rijsewijk trailed the lead boat by 157 miles on Thursday morning in a completely different wind pattern north of the main group.


Having kept communications to a minimum on BSL since shortly after the start, Ross and Campbell Field broke cover on Thursday morning. “We’ve been spending all our time either sailing or sleeping,” explained Campbell Field. “We are hand steering almost 100 per cent of the time, although the pilots are very good and have been very well set up, after reviewing data they are slightly slower than driving, so for the most part, one of us is driving, the other sleeping or making coffee,” he reports. Off Tarifa on Monday night, the father-and-son duo shot out of the Mediterranean leading the GOR fleet in 40 knots of breeze and the comparatively soft sailing along the coast of Morocco has provided some time for reflection: “The Med is an interesting place of contrasts; stunning sunsets, teeming with dolphins, but - at the same time - littered with monstrous feats of engineering freighting our daily essentials all over the world,” recalls the 41 year-old Kiwi. “Initially, they can be admired for their sheer size, then you sit back and observe the mountains and mountains of unnecessary rubbish that is moved from one place to the other,” he notes. “Easy to say, I guess, from our little 12 metre space where we can’t just whip up the road and buy a steak from Argentina or cheese from Italy or a car from Korea. The Med isn’t only littered with ships, but with masses of plastic that we see daily out here with bottles floating about.”


At mid-morning on Thursday, BSL and Campagne de France ceased their course parallel to the coast of Morocco, putting 60 miles between the two boats and the African continent, heading south-west with the Canary Islands 370 off their bows. Clearing the coast was a relief for the Fields: “We had a few interesting encounters off the Moroccan coast,” continued Campbell Field. “A lone fisherman in his 30-odd foot traditional wooden fishing boat, 30 nautical miles from the coast…maybe just trying to feed his family?” he wonders. “Then a much larger and ominous looking fishing boat that could have just been curious and wanted a closer look.” In a briefing shortly before the start of Leg 1, the head Palma’s Salvamento Marítimo (Search & Rescue) advised the GOR teams of the piracy threat off the western coast of Africa in the corridor bordering the Spanish Sahara and south of the Canary Islands in an area closely monitored by the Spanish authorities. While the risk is far less than in the Gulf of Aden or off Somalia, in the Arabian Sea and across the Indian Ocean and methods are more opportunistic involving theft, rather than hijack and ransom, there is a risk with recorded incidents off Guinea, Togo and in the Bight of Benin. Although these areas are far to the south of the fleet, the GOR teams were advised to be alert. Fortunately for the Fields, the threat receded: “It did give us a couple of anxious moments as he seemed to be determined to get close to us,” concludes Campbell.


Throughout the morning and into Thursday afternoon, Campagne de France set the pace, managing to force one or two knots of extra speed from their Pogo 40S² in the light, fluctuating northerly breeze and increasing their lead over the Fields and BSL. In third and fourth place, Marco Nannini and Paul Peggs on Financial Crisis were racing down the rhumb line 18 miles ahead of Colman and Ramon with the New Zealand–Spanish partnership sailing Cessna Citation east of the direct route to the Fastnet Marine Scoring Gate off Brazil. Meanwhile, Nick Leggatt and Phillippa Hutton-Squire were suffocated by a personal wind hole on Phesheya-Racing, losing seven hours and around 40 miles to the four boats further south. “We have been becalmed since early this morning and we seem to be going nowhere,” confirmed Phillippa Hutton-Squire on Thursday afternoon. “So, for those of you who are worried about us, we are OK, but going mad very quickly! The gap between us and the front boats just seems to grow and grow.” Following a fast run from Mallorca to the Strait of Gibraltar and hurtling into the North Atlantic, the dead calm off Morocco is deeply frustrating for the South African duo: “It has become very hard to sit behind the computer and think about what to do next as all you can see is how far ahead the leaders are,” she continues. To prevent brooding over the three-hourly position schedule, Hutton-Squire and Leggatt have concentrated on collecting wildlife data and observations for the Environmental Investigation Agency research programme running throughout the GOR. “Mid-morning we were very lucky to be joined briefly by a small pod of Pilot Whales,” notes Hutton-Squire. “They did not stay long but swam around the boat and were off. We had not seen much sea life at all since leaving the Med so this was very exciting. This afternoon we have seen a few more birds such as terns, gulls and a gannet.”


With inquisitive fishing vessels and frustrating windless zones afflicting the fleet, further disturbing news arrived from Financial Crisis as the team’s mascot, ‘Clubby the Seal’ went on a rampage overnight: “Yesterday, just after 1800 hours, we all sat in the cockpit to read the news of the day and one particular email from the Global Ocean Race Communications team sent Clubby into a fuming rage,” reports Nannini. The offending text sent to Financial Crisis described the mascot as a ‘soft toy’. “We had to use the Category Zero watertight doors to separate ourselves from the evil mammal who ran around shouting bad words and wielding a Stanley knife,” explains the clearly shaken Italian co-skipper and photographic evidence of the heavily armed animal confirms a heightened level of peril on board. “It was not until much later that Paul managed to sedate Clubby with a bottle of J&B.” Nannini and Peggs report that they eventually regained control of their Class40 at around midnight. Other than sporadic attacks by the team’s whisky-fuelled, psychotic seal, all is well on Financial Crisis: “I guess we are starting to settle into life at sea,” reassures Nannini.


Unlike the New Zealand team on BSL, the Italian-British duo have relied more heavily on the pilot for the past three days. “Here we spend most of the time taking turns trimming the sails, but letting the autopilot steer, which seems the more efficient option, so we can recharge our batteries and rest a little,” he explains. Just four days into the race and with no on board refrigeration, Nannini and Peggs still have the option of fresh food: “Today we had brunch with eggs and bacon,” he reports. “An exception just for the first week and we’ll have an early dinner, probably some pasta as we’ve had freeze dried for main meals for two days.” With the temperature on board rising rapidly as the fleet head further south, the lifespan of any remaining fresh food loaded in Palma is becoming very limited and expedition-style food will soon become the staple diet for all the GOR teams. “If they just didn’t give the recipes such fancy names they may even be bearable, but when I read ‘Ginger Teriyaki Stir-Fry’ on the packet my hopes go up, but in reality I end up thinking; ‘what the hell is this?!’ at every mouthful.”


For the South Africans on Phesheya-Racing, the lack of breeze may well last into the evening while the leading duo should have the best of the northerly breeze at around 10-15 knots with Sec. Hayai taking the far longer, solitary route around the outside of the windless zone in approximately 13 knots of breeze. In the 15:00 GMT position poll, Campagne de France maintain a lead of five miles over BSL with both Class40s averaging ten knots. Trailing the lead boat by 50 miles, Financial Crisis is making nine knots in third with Cessna Citation in fourth remaining east of the rhumb line while Phesheya-Racing is still stuck in zero wind with the gap to Cessna Citation opened up to 40 miles.

[MLovett]

2 October 2011

Squeezing down the coast of Africa

The first week of racing on Leg 1 in the double-handed, Class40, Global Ocean Race (GOR) has taken the fleet 1,300 miles from the start port in Palma, Mallorca, out into the North Atlantic, along the coast of Morocco to the Canary Islands completing approximately 20 per cent of the 6,800 mile route to Cape Town. Following a light winds start on Sunday 25 September, north-easterly breeze arrived with the fleet surfing towards the 100-mile wide funnel between Africa and Spain leading to the Strait of Gibraltar. After two and-a-half days of racing, the fleet shot through the Strait into the Atlantic in an easterly, Force 7-8 gale led by the father-and-son duo of Ross and Campbell Field with BSL and followed by four Class40s in the space of four hours. While the bulk of the fleet turned hard left along the coast of Africa, the Dutch duo of Nico Budel and Ruud van Rijsewijk were battling to preserve their downwind sail inventory on Sec. Hayai with damage to the A2 asymmetric and the total destruction of the boat’s A6.

During the fleet’s first morning in the North Atlantic, the Franco-British duo of Halvard Mabire and Miranda Merron took an offshore option with Campagne de France, overhauling the Fields and taking the lead. By Tuesday morning, Campagne de France and BSL were averaging eight knots in northerly breeze and separated by less than one mile with Conrad Colman and Hugo Ramon on Cessna Citation 40 miles to the north-east, just seven miles ahead of Marco Nannini and Paul Peggs with Financial Crisis. While Budel and van Rijsewijk trailed the leaders by 162 miles in sixth place, they took Sec. Hayai west into stronger breeze as Nick Leggatt and Phillippa Hutton-Squire opted to remain near the coast, running into a personal wind hole that trapped their Class40, Phesheya-Racing, for almost 24 hours and the South African duo watched the fleet stretch out ahead of them to the south and Budel and Van Rijsewijk close in from the north.

Towards the weekend, the fleet’s approach to the Canary Islands was dictated by a predicted windless zone engulfing the archipelago and expanding north-east of the islands directly in the path of the GOR boats. Campagne de France and BSL squeezed east of Lanzarote on Saturday morning and headed for the African coast and towards what little breeze was available, while the remainder of the fleet were smothered by light airs. As the breeze shut-off, Marco Nannini and Paul Peggs in fourth place were north-west of Lanzarote with Financial Crisis: “It’s been a slow day trying to get the boat moving in patchy airs topping 3-4 knots,” reported Nannnini late on Saturday. “A cloudy morning meant that none of the typical sea-breezes formed during the day over Lanzarote, so we were left floating about like the many turtles we have seen in the area.” As the Italian-British duo bobbed around helplessly with the nearest hint of breeze 60 miles to their south-east on the other side of the island, the team’s mascot attempted to assist. “Typically, frustration and desperation are common feelings in these conditions, but Clubby cheered us up with his total lack of knowledge of the basic laws of physics, running up and down the deck armed only with his enthusiasm and a 12 volt electric fan trying to get some wind into the sails.” Defeated by Newton’s First, Second and Third Laws of Motion, the mascot abandoned further activity. “Eventually, exhausted, Clubby sat down and solemnly declared ‘there is more wind in my pants then in the whole of the Canaries’,” says the Italian skipper. “This we can confirm,” he adds.

On Saturday morning, Phesheya-Racing was 180 miles from the Canary Islands: “Nick and I did many sail changes trying to keep on the move,” explains Phillippa Hutton-Squire. “We were rather unsuccessful as it was very difficult in the dark, dark night. We could only feel a little wind or light air on our faces and believe what our instruments were telling us.” Putting two reefs in the main to stop the endless slapping of the sails, the South Africans could only sit and wait for some breeze: “We struggled most of the night with boat speed and trying to keep each other motivated,” she admits and eventually they started sailing south again at just four knots. “The sun soon came up and made it much easier to see the wind on the water, but it was only towards the middle of the morning that we really started to move,” Hutton-Squire confirms as Phesheya-Racing finally started to make four knots.

[MLovett]

6 October 2011

Into the Cape Verde sweat box

Shortly before midnight on Wednesday, Class40 Campagne de France reached the Cape Verde Islands leading the double-handed Global Ocean Race (GOR) fleet after ten days of racing in Leg 1 from Mallorca to Cape Town. As the Franco-British duo of Halvard Mabire and Miranda Merron left the island of Sal to port and entered the 150-mile wide archipelago, Ross and Campbell Field on board BSL followed in second place, 36 miles off the race leader’s starboard quarter, with both boats averaging ten knots in following breeze.

At sunrise on Thursday, Conrad Colman and Hugo Ramon in third on Cessna Citation were 127 miles behind the race leaders with a 96 mile lead over Marco Nannini and Paul Peggs on Financial Crisis as the two boats dropped south-west through the Atlantic in around 19 knots of north-easterly breeze. North of the Cape Verde Islands by 500 miles at sunset on Wednesday, Phesheya-Racing was making the best speed in the fleet at 11 knots in fifth place leading Sec. Hayai by 20 miles as the two Class40s began their route away from the coast of Africa.

By Thursday afternoon, the leaders were struggling through the islands in minimal breeze as the chasing fleet began to consider the Cape Verde options. Throughout Wednesday night and Thursday morning, Marco Nannini and Paul Peggs gybed constantly as they took Financial Crisis across the 400 miles of North Atlantic separating the Cape Verde Islands from Africa. “We've had mixed feelings all day about the route to follow,” admitted Marco Nannini as the duo approached the islands. “Cessna seems now committed to go west of the Cape Verdes which may be a successful flier considering that both Campagne de France and BSL have slowed down since reaching the archipelago,” he says. “As for us, we don't have any huge commitments and we're debating whether to go for steak at Santo Antao or Pizza at Boa Vista.” The duo are also looking ahead to the route south: “We’re trying to locate the fastest passage across the Doldrums and into the South Atlantic and by superimposing satellite imagery and weather model data, we concluded that steak is actually our preferred option,” confirms Nannini, taking the western alternative near the densely forested peaks and sheer ravines of Santo Antao.

[mpowlison]

11 October 2011

Into the darkness for Class40s Cessna Citation and Financial Crisis

After 15 days at sea in Leg 1 of the double-handed Global Ocean Race (GOR) the Class40s are straddling the Doldrums with the fleet leaders approximately 200 miles north of the Equator and sailing over the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. While Cessna Citation in third place and Financial Crisis in fourth are locked into the exhausting and potentially boat-damaging cycle of squalls and calms, the fleet leaders, Campagne de France and BSL, found the Doldrum’s exit and relatively stable south-easterly breeze early on Tuesday morning. Phesheya-Racing and Sec. Hayai – north of the leaders and taking the most western approach to the Doldrums – continue to make the best speeds in the fleet as their final miles in the North East Trades arrive.

On Monday evening, 26 year-old Hugo Ramon could already see evidence of the Doldrums crackling and hissing just over the horizon: “Yesterday we began to see lightning very far away,” he reported from Cessna Citation. “I feel a bit like Frodo Baggins contemplating Mordor in the distance. I know we have to enter into the realm of darkness and there is absolutely no going back.” Overnight, Ramon and co-skipper, Conrad Colman, sailed straight into Middle Earth with speeds dropping to sub-six knots as Marco Nannini and Paul Peggs on Financial Crisis piled down from the north averaging nine knots and taking 20 miles from the lead held by Cessna Citation.

By daybreak on Monday, both the Class40s were locked in the Doldrums with speed averages fluctuating from two to five knots. Conrad Colman had spotted the first towering wall of stacked cumulonimbus clouds on the previous evening: “These are so large that they can be individually picked out on our satellite images as they develop so much thunderous energy surging vertically through different layers,” he reported at midday on Monday. “These clouds rule our world completely and the towers of power can flip the wind 180 degrees and quadruple its intensity in an instant.” The immense and rapidly rising columns of air heated by warm seawater build the cloud stacks with the air eventually cooled at high altitude: “Rain starts to fall and soon all that vertical energy is going the other way. Droplets of rain push the air down which then splays out in all directions, like a jet of water on a spoon when it hits the ocean.”

The trick in the Doldrums is to evaluate which part of the vertical cycle a cumulus cloud is occupying and whether it is a ‘growing’ or ‘crushing’ cloud: “As the growing cloud sucks air into its centre, the tactic is to pass to windward as its suction will augment the prevailing winds and your speed,” Colman explains. “As a crushing cloud blows out in all directions, you need to be on the other side of the cloud, relative to the wind, in order to get the boost. Confuse a growing cloud with a crushing cloud at your peril as to pass on the wrong side means to be completely becalmed.” By mid-afternoon on Tuesday, Colman and Ramon had found some breeze – or the correct side of the clouds – and picked up pace to six knots with Nannini and Peggs 81 miles astern.

While Cessna Citation and Financial Crisis deal with the Doldrums, Nick Leggatt and Phillippa Hutton-Squire in fifth with Phesheya-Racing and Nico Budel and Ruud van Rijsewijk in sixth with Sec. Hayai were averaging between seven and nine knots 430 miles north of the leader. On Phesheya-Racing, Phillippa Hutton-Squire recorded a landmark: “Today the log reading reached 3,000 miles which is approximately 10 per cent of the entire Global Ocean Race route, so we are clearly making some progress!” However, their swift descent towards the Equator was threatened as all the signs pointed to a change in conditions: “The wind has been quite shifty and gusty since midnight on Sunday, so we have been working hard at keeping the boat trimmed correctly and have changed a couple of times between the A4 and the Downwind Code Zero,” she explains. “At the moment, we have the Zero up as the wind is shifting steadily eastwards as we approach a dark mass of clouds on the southern horizon and early this morning we saw flashes of lightening coming from the same area.”

In the 15:00 GMT position poll on Tuesday, Phesheya-Racing and Sec. Hayai were still in the easterly breeze, separated by 21 miles and closing down rapidly on Financial Crisis and Cessna Citation, taking over 40 miles from the lead of Nannini and Peggs since dawn as the longer, westerly option began to look increasingly favourable. As the South Africans head towards the Doldrums, Leggatt and Hutton-Squire are consistently logging and photographing wildlife and marine debris as part of the scientific research programme and partnership between the GOR Organisation, the GOR teams and the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA): “Last night we sailed close past a large, white plastic box floating on the surface, the first significant sign of rubbish we have seen in several days,” notes Hutton-Squire. “Sea life tally today: thousands of flying fishes and a lone petrel. Nothing else.”

On Monday, Halvard Mabire and Miranda Merron were still picking their way through the Doldrum’s cloudscape: “We still haven’t escaped the Doldrums and there are some spectacular cumulomonsters growing around us, but we have at least had some wind today, and not a moment too soon,” reported Miranda Merron. Campagne de France picked up speed in the mid-morning as Ross and Campbell Field hovered 11 miles astern with BSL. “The Doldrums have certainly lived up to their name with vast, windless areas and enormous cumulomonsters,” she continues. “The one thing that we haven’t had so far is violent gusts with the squalls and one moment there is an innocuous-looking, small cumulus cloud and ten minutes later, it has grown into a towering beast, and generally heading in our direction.” The scenery has been consistently dynamic: “Yesterday, we saw a waterspout and last night at sunset we were hemmed in on all sides by highly active clouds and we weren’t disappointed with the show - lightning, massive wind shifts and torrential rain which is always more fun at night!”

By 05:00 GMT on Tuesday, Campagne de France and BSL were clear of the Doldrums and into the South-East Trade Winds averaging a little under nine knots. By 15:00 GMT, they were 20 miles apart with Mabire and Merron squeezing an extra handful of miles into their lead since dawn. Campbell Field described the scene on BSL: “We came out of the Doldrums relatively unscathed,” he wrote on Tuesday morning. “Only one serious downpour which was very, very welcome and washed all that red Saharan dust off the boat and gave me a well-deserved rinse. There were numerous sail changes, one trip up the rig and a few sleepless days and nights, but it all seems a long time ago as we settle into the easy miles shy reaching to the south-west.” With Campagne de France the windward boat and the Fastnet Marine Scoring Gate 450 miles to the south-west off the Fernando de Noronha archipelago as the next target, flat-out speed is a priority: “It’s a two-horse drag race to Fernando right now,” continues Campbell. “Halvard and Miranda have taken the high road, we have opted for the low road and only time will tell how this will pan out. We think we have it right, but then again, probably, so do they.” Having handsteered constantly through the fluctuating breeze in the Doldrums, the focus is now on sail choice and trim: “Every spare item is stacked high and aft, the pilot is fully employed and minor trim adjustments are the routine,” he adds.


The Fastnet Marine Insurance Scoring Gate:

The Scoring Gate for Leg 1 is located off the south-western tip of Fernando de Noronha, a tropical island and UNESCO World Heritage Site located 220 miles off the coast of Brazil. The GOR Class40s must cross a short line between the island’s south-western headland and a waypoint located at 003 52.6S/032 32.0W.

Point scoring at the Fastnet Marine Insurance Gate and all other GOR Scoring Gates during the circumnavigation is based on the fleet size with points awarded in multiples of one. With a six-boat fleet, the winner receives six points; second place receives five points, third place receives 4 points, last place receives 1 point.

The same scoring system is applied to points awarded for each leg in the GOR, but with multiples of five. With a six-boat fleet, the winner receives 30 points, second place receives 25 points, third place receives 20 points, last place receives five points.

Having crossed the Fastnet Marine Insurance Scoring Gate, the next mark in the Leg 1 course is a red channel marker buoy at the Cape Town finish line approximately 3,361 miles to the south-east across the South Atlantic.