Race against time
Mark Slats closes to within 50 miles of Van Den Heede in nail-biting race to the finish.
16 January 2019
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With less than 1,700 miles back to the finish in Les Sables d’Olonne, 2nd placed Dutchman Mark Slats has sliced a further 393 miles out of Jean-Luc Van Den Heede’s lead In terms of distance to finish over the past 8 days. At 08:00 UTC today, the gap was just 49 miles, Slats having gained 205 miles in the past 48 hours.
Jean-Luc, whose Rustler 36 Matmut has led the Golden Globe Race since passing the Cape of Good Hope and at one stage held a 2,000 advantage, has seen his lead being whittled away ever since the 73-year-old Frenchman suffered a knock-down and sustained damage to his mast during a Southern Ocean storm in the South Pacific in November 1.
But Slats is pushing hard despite a few problems of his own. In a satellite call to Race HQ on Monday, the Dutchman reported for the first time that he ran out of fresh water supplies a week ago, and is now using his emergency desalinator to turn salt water into fresh. It is hard work. An hour of pumping with both hands produces just 750ml of water – barely a cup full. The average daily intake is 2.5litres – 3 hours pumping!
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Igor Zaretskiy reported that during a period of calm three weeks ago he had dived on Ohpen Maverick’s hull and completely cleaned the bottom of growth and slime. ”It was perfect” he said yesterday. So imagine his surprise when he dived again five days ago to find the hull infested with barnacles once more. “The biggest are 3.5cm long, but most are about 1.5cms. They are growing all over the hull.” His first efforts to clean the bottom again were thwarted by the sudden appearance of a 3.5m shark, but he will use the next period of calm to have another go. “So far, this must have cost me about 50 miles.”
In other news, third placed Estonian skipper Uku Randmaa whose Rustler 36 One and All, has also been beset by barnacle growth since crossing the Indian Ocean, is today caught in calms in the South Atlantic, some 3,000 miles behind the leading duo. He dived yesterday, and reported: “I’m swimming with dophins.”
800 miles to the South, American/Hungarian Istvan Kopar is making great progress northwards in his Tradewind 35 Puffin, seemingly having overcome his self-steering problems but had to stop for half a day to repair the wheel drum connecting ropes to the boat main steering.
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