"Race leader Prodigy is getting back to speed again, with a daily run of 235 miles, the best in the Heineken Cape to Rio Race fleet, but City of Cape Town was close on her tail with 229 miles, amazing given the difference in boat size. How are they doing it? CCT skipper Gerry Hegie emailed: "On the helm last night, got the crew to pump the the mainsail down the surfs for a good 6 hrs. Having to do a lot of work to maintain our handicap lead at the moment. If we slack off one bit we will give the lead away. " Their other secret is food. "Hallan Batista has been cooking for the last couple of days. The Brazilians can cook well!"
Though as the leaders approach the halfway mark, just what is happening to the breezes is niggling the skippers. Slightly more south, and still second on handicap, Robtek's Ciao Bella had a zippy run of 209 miles on a 35-foot boat! Navigator Kathryn, 25, eldest of the five Robinson youngsters aboard emailed: "Night watches good, and all watches getting good speed, but now more challenging as the wind is lighter. Task now to catch Gerry and the boys." They also look better positioned than 42-footer Xtra-Link, in third place, which clocked 196 miles. "Full spinnaker in 17- 21 knots last night," reported Dale Kushner. "We are considering putting in a gybe sometime today to skirt the high pressure that is ahead of us. Itis moving southwards but perhaps not fast enough." In fourth place, quite close and clocking 209 miles on the Pacer 37 Cape Storm, skipper Sean Cummings sent a buoyant email: "Had an awsome run onThursday/friday.Routine on board has been frenetic, sail changes at all times of the day, tore the head patch off our masthead A1 on Tuesday. Spent two days painstakingly hand sewing ... then another two days fixing and sewing. We finally have a working A1 which looks likeFrankenstein. The last 6 days of sailing have been some of the best I've done in many years." "Some impressive surfs for long stretches eating up the miles. The crew are starting to feel the hard push ... suffering from rope burns ,sore hands andfingers, sore shoulders ... but a nice sea water wash cures most aches and pains. Biggest complaint so far has been lack of sleep." Also having a good run of 215 miles was the biggest yacht in the fleet, Grand Filou II. But her position at 28.38 south will make it difficult to catch Prodigy and contend for line honours. If anything the heavy 63-footer may be heading into calms.
Yet overall Prodigy's below-par performance is puzzling. Her rather erratic course, a series of wavy curves may be in part the result of “sailing the angles”, i.e. not directly downwind, but at an angle slightly across the wind, to get better boat speed. The swing-keel with a 3.6-ton bulb is no huge advantage in a downwind race. But perhaps like Cape Storm, Prodigy tore one or more of her big spinnakers earlier in the race, and is having to make do with smaller sails. More worrying could be electronics problems. The hi-tech racer did report both electronic and also rudder problems on the second day of the race, but since then has reported nothing. Electronics buff Steve Searle, who had taken photographs of the complex circuits spoke to the yacht on skype to help mend the problems.
In addition, Ilha Trinidade, and island 480 miles north of Rio is no longer a mark on the course, so this could indeed be a very fast race".
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