After catching up yesterday evening, the crew of IDEC SPORT got out in front ahead of SODEBO (catching up almost 45 miles in a few hours), the climb back up past Corsica has been tougher than expected. The many areas of calm have slowed the maxi-trimaran allowing her rival to get ahead again during the night.
The wind has returned
Since late this morning, the two crews have picked up some wind allowing to them to keep up an average of 14-15 knots. These speeds are putting a smile back on the faces of the sailors, who have hardly made any progress since yesterday.
At the moment, there is only a mile between the two boats and they are making similar speeds. With less than 24 hours to go to the finish, both are iun with every chance of winning this first edition of the Nice UltiMed. Rounding the tip of Corsica this evening should give us an idea of the gap between the two Ultimes, and it will be down to a few minutes. They will then have a lively crossing between Corsica and Nice before setting off again on a course that the Race Directors will determine depending on the time they first pass Nice. The goal is for the Ultimes to cross the line off Rauba Capeù tomorrow afternoon.
Gwénolé Gahinet, crewman at 1600hrs:
“It’s one for you and one for me with Sodebo. Since this morning, we have laways been within sight of each other. At the moment, we can see them clearly. We have been busy with the charts and AIS. Yesterday, that allowed us to get ahead: we saw that they had stopped in a calm. We went for a different trajectory and that paid off. In general, here in the Med, it’s better to be catching than caught. This duel between our two boats with similar capabilities is really great and we’re enjoying the contest.”
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