Cape Horn

Just passed Cape Horn at dawn local time, though being over 100miles south of it, there was no chance to see tip of South America..

This is my 4th time around, and although it would have been great to see the land, I am just happy to be back in the Atlantic Ocean, with the boat in fine shape, and a good weather forecast for the next few days..

We had a celebration of a delicious and perfectly chilled bottle of Champagne Mumm, some chorizo sausage and our last two loaves of bread. A feast indeed..

We almost certainly now have the record for the widest rounding of the Cape by any racing yacht, to go with our likely furthest south for any racing multihull at 62S!

But of course, the serious, big one today, is that we on Banque Populaire have sailed faster from Europe to Cape Horn, rounding all the three 'Great Capes', than any vessel before..30 days and 22 hours..that is 1 day 6 hours ahead of Groupama3.

Now sailing East still, as we are not going to make the classic turn north at Cape Horn, but continue on this latitude to take advantage of the strong downwind conditions of a low pressure to our East. Once closer to the low, we can gybe and get a long way North in its good winds.

Currently we have 35 knots of wind and we are sailing with 2 reefs, small gennaker and staysail at 30 to 35 knots of speed, temp 6C..back to a normal day at the office in the Southern Ocean!

Normally rounding Cape Horn indicates a dramatic change in the weather - flatter seas, clearer skies, warmer waters, but for us no change for a couple of days. But they should be fast days, where we can put some miles in the bank over Groupama3, and that's what counts..

Going on deck now for four more hours of high speed surfing!



Brian