Team Francesca Clapcich Powered by 11th Hour Racing in The Ocean Race Atlantic - Day 2

On board Team Francesca Clapcich Powered by 11th Hour Racing in The Ocean Race Atlantic © Francesca Clapcich | 11th Hour Racing | The Ocean Race

After one day racing in The Ocean Race Atlantic, Francesca and her crew on 11th Hour Racing are handily placed in third position in the six-strong Ocean Race Atlantic fleet, as the boats negotiate a light wind patch in the Gulf Stream.

11th Hour Racing is just over eight miles behind the early leader, Team Malizia, and close behind second-placed United by the Ocean skippered by Paul Meilhat. Close behind 11th Hour Racing, is Embrace the Challenge in fourth place, and then there is a gap of 12 miles to DMG Mori Global One in fifth position. Conrad Colman and his non-foiling IMOCA, MSIG Europe, completes the line-up.

After surviving heavy thunderstorms and lightning on the way out to the start from a virtual line 120 nautical miles off the New York coast, the first hours of the 3,200-nautical mile race to Lorient in Brittany saw all the boats sailing on port tack, heading southeast.

Will Harris (GBR), who is onboard alongside Francesca with Elodie-Jane Mettraux (SUI/FRA) and Alberto Bona (ITA), said all the navigators were hunting for more wind in the south early on, and trying to make the best of the Gulf Stream which can have a decisive influence on a boat's relative performance.

"There was better pressure if you went further south and also there's the Gulf Stream pushing pretty nicely," Will told us in a voice note from a dark cockpit. "As it turns out, now that we are in the lightwind transition, the Gulf Stream models all seem to be pretty wrong. So we are sort of trying to guess where the currents are and especially in this light stuff, that's quite important."

Will says they are happy with their positioning relative to the centre of the new low pressure system forming to the north of them that will propel them across the Atlantic towards Europe. "Our current positioning is not too bad," he said. "We would probably be happy to be a little bit further north for when the new wind starts to fill in. We are one of the furthest east boats and that's where we are trying to go towards the finish. So I guess the next few hours will tell us if we get lucky with a bit more wind, or Malizia does better further in the north."

Once they get into the new breeze the speed is going to increase and the magic carpet ride to the east will begin. "It's going to be very fast reaching still," summarized Will. "Let's see how we go tonight with this light stuff. It's really tricky, especially with the Gulf Stream making it pretty complicated."

Will said he was happy with how things were going despite one nervous moment early on before the start when a lightning strike nearby caused a momentary power outage. "It was a worrying moment because this boat's not got a great history with lightning, so we were a bit nervous coming out to the start, but all seems OK," he said.