Clipper 09-10 Round the World Race - Race 2 Day 6

Race 2: La Rochelle - Rio de Janeiro

Hull & Humber regains the lead

"The fleet has been blessed by brilliant sailing conditions since leaving the Bay of Biscay," says skipper of Jamaica Lightning Bolt, Pete Stirling. "In fact the conditions are typical of what you would expect to find in the Trade Winds - the same consistent wind speed and direction from behind providing fast downwind sailing."

This morning these fantastic downwind conditions are starting to fade, however, as the wind decreases in strength and the teams report shorter runs over the last 24-hours.

Yesterday a battle took place at the front of the fleet between Spirit of Australia, Qingdao and Hull & Humber, with pole position appearing to swap at every 6-hourly schedule. Despite holding on to the lead for a short while yesterday afternoon, Qingdao has since lost out to Hull & Humber, with skipper Piers Dudin and his crew managing to put some distance between themselves and the Chinese entry.

Chris Stanmore Major, skipper of Qingdao, is quite philosophical about the recent swapping of positions, saying, "Its a strange thing to push yourself in such a competition - it is a choice you make with a team of likeminded individuals, your team, which cause a series of events to unfold that, once entered into, cannot be escaped from and the only course of action is total commitment. Whether we are at the front, or at the back, one thing that characterises Qingdao's crew today and everyday is commitment. Hard work? We eat it up! Long hours? Bring it on! Sleep? We'll sleep when we're dead thanks!"

The forecasted wind direction and strength is looking very stable over the next 48-hours and many of the teams are taking advantage of this stability to undertake routine checks and essential maintenance. "It is in these conditions that the crew has to be particularly conscious of chafe as sails and ropes can stay in the same place for hours or even days on end," explains Jamaica Lightning Bolt's Pete Stirling. "Several crew kept themselves busy yesterday as the anti-chafe police. This involved checking every conceivable area of the boat for chafe and finding a solution for it when required."

Cape Breton Island has made some ground over the past 24-hours, slowly moving up the fleet and currently lying in fifth place. Skipper Jan Ridd says, "We are pleased with our gains on Uniquely Singapore, Cork and Team Finland but a bit disheartened that we are not making any inroads on the lead pack as yet. They have established a comfortable lead and must be feeling pretty confident, but there is a long way to go!"

Noticing the Canadian entry's recent turn of speed and currently lying in eighth place is Pete Rollason's team on board California. "The last 12-hours have been a little mixed, says Pete. "Using our own on board calculations we appear to have gained a few miles on the front six boats. However, Cape Breton Island seems to have been on a charge and we have also lost a couple of miles to the two boats behind us. Overall we are not in a bad position and we are looking forward to seeing the latest weather files. It will be interesting to see if the anticipated change in conditions around Madeira will materialize at about the time the fleet is passing the island. This will lead to some strategic decisions being made as to the routing south west thereafter as we approach the scoring gate."

Team Finland and Uniquely Singapore appear to have taken a bit of a gamble by going east and west respectively overnight. With both heading in opposite directions, only time will tell which team has made the better decision or whether the best option would have been to go down the middle as the leading group has done.

"At the moment we have gone quite far out to the west," explains Uniquely Singapore's skipper, Jim Dobie. "By doing so we are hoping to have more breeze than the guys inland, although I'm not sure how long we want to head out this way because at some point we will need to go further south."

With the first of the scoring gates of Clipper 09-10 just 500 nautical miles ahead of the lead group, all the teams will be studying the weather files carefully as they vie to take the first three points of the race from La Rochelle to Rio de Janiero.

Clipper Race Director, Joff Bailey, says, "It will be interesting to see if any of the teams consider using their stealth mode to gain a tactical advantage over the next 48-hours. By doing so they will essentially hide their position from the rest of the fleet for a period of 24-hours. Judging when to do this is critical as they can only go into stealth mode once during this leg of the race. Over previous years this first Atlantic leg has been won and lost at the Canary Islands so I'm curious to see what will happen this year."

Spirit of Australia's skipper, Brendan Hall, says, "The first move in this very long chess game is about to be played as we approach Madeira and the Canary Islands. Will we go east, west or through the middle? All our hard work over the last five days could be lost if we get the decision wrong, so I'm feeling the pressure."

Positions at 0600 GMT: Sunday 27 September

Hull & Humber, 3842nm DTF
Spirit of Australia, 3848nm
Qingdao, 3862nm
Team Finland, 3909nm
Cape Breton Island, 3937nm
Uniquely Singapore, 3941nm
Cork, 3942nm
California, 3990nm
Edinburgh Inspiring Capital, 3993nm
Jamaica Lightning Bolt, 4038nm

Full details of positions, updated every three hours can be found at www.clipperroundtheworld.com