Recharged leader Goodchild prepares for Arctic Circle turn

Goodchild feels the race has gone quicker than expected “It feels like we've done about 10 days worth of sailing in three days… all in different conditions.” He concluded on the morning radio calls. The MACIF skipper expects to cross the Arctic Circle in the small hours of tomorrow morning. 

“ The last 24 hours have now been fairly good actually. The wind's dropped, or been down, so I managed to get some sleep and right now the wind's just started to come back in now, so I've taken the big sail down and I'm starting to get ready to manage this little depression that's ahead of us. But overall the last 24 hours have gone pretty well. I banked some sleep. I really was pretty tired.”

He adds, “These boats aren't very easy for sleeping when you're slamming off waves and jumping off foils. We were hoping north of Ireland it would come down a bit and then it was really unstable winds,  with lots of squalls and gusts and lulls, and instability. One thing after another led to being quite tired. I don't know how many hours I slept last night, but quite a lot.”

“ Right now we have this low pressure system that's just building in front of us, and it's crossing the whole path. So we're going to have to go through it. It’s a bit like we're going on a bear hunt. You can't go around it, you've got to go through it. So basically the wind's going to pick up to over 30 knots. It should be fairly short-lived, and then we're going to sail straight out the other side of it into light winds and then I hope for the best for me.”

He explains his routing to the crossing point, “You don't actually have to pick the exact point until you're on it, which is definitely a bit different. You're looking at several weather scenarios, weather forecasts, and each of them would say it's best to cross it at a different point. None of them are agreeing. It is probably going to be a little bit decided by the weather or at the last minute. But at the moment, I’m looking at the weather forecasts and giving them as many options as possible and trying to find out where they end up narrowing the point down to.”

And while some routes for the later runners suggest going east of the UK he is looking at the possibility or a passage through the Irish Sea

“For me it is not looking east of the UK, but maybe east of Ireland is an option. And there's another big low-pressure system coming into Ireland in the next few days, and that's going to animate our way south, if you like. We are going to have to get through that. So a couple of routes actually go east of Ireland, one to hide from the very strong winds and the sea state, and then the light winds from the ridge behind it. We will see how they develop in the next couple of days. First, just to figure out where we're going to cross this up the circle, and then we'll have another low-pressure system to give us a beat on the way home"

This race was always going to be fairly intense going across systems. It was hard to see lots of changing conditions, lots of strong winds, light winds, and transitions, and big sea states. So it is kind of as expected. 

And Italian skipper Ambrogio Beccaria (Allagrande Mapei) is also in recovery mode, banking sleep and loooking forwards to a big pasta lunch as he settles back into ‘full on’ race mode after diving to free a buoy from his keel.

“ I was very, very tired, because the race was intense and I had a lot of trouble, a lot of trouble, too much for me. I have a lot of electrical problems, then pilot problems, it was energy, energy thing, it was very hard for me. Yesterday I dived to get the boat free from this fxxing rope that was under the water, and so now I am very  much better than yesterday. Now I can cook some nice pasta with the pesto that my sponsor bring me from Italy, so and then I can have quite some few naps. Now I'm full on.”

The dive cost him miles but he is back on the comeback trail, 
“ I stopped for at least one hour, a little bit more, because I spent 40 minutes, trying to free the boat without diving, and then I choose to dive and I spent 15 to 20 minutes in the water. With with the first dive I was able to free the boat from this rope, but then there was a huge buoy with some ropes tied around the keel, so I spent 10-15 more minutes to get everything done. The keel is no longer perfect. I'm quite lucky, because I do a lot of diving, and so I'm quite comfortable under the water and in the water, and this was quite a bit of a luck. But it was actually very, very hard, because there was still 18 knots of wind with some squalls, so the boat was moving around a lot. There were some big waves.  It was very, very stressful, I admit I cried a little bit before diving, because of the stress, I was very very stressed, and then once I was in the water actually it was way better than what I was expecting.

And the Italian plans to play safe with the route back south, keeping to more open water rather than chance the riskier option of high traffic areas 
 

And in fourth place Italian American Francesca Clapcich (11th Hour Racing) has been stuggling a little with headaches and stomach pain which she feels are getting better. Again, like her rivals, she is focussing on sleeping well, eating well, noting this is a good phase as her boat is fast and there is 'not tonnes of trimming to do."

Frankie reported this morning, "It has been quite easy conditions in the last few hours. So it has been definitely a good way to recover for a little bit. I am trying to avoid ending up too much in the west because I don't want to get caught in the ridge of high pressure with the wind shifting left and dropping. So I might have to gybe and just commit and do a little hitch to the east again."

Mode:Recovery
She looks back at the last days, "We were on a pretty big sea state, quite windy, the boat was slamming pretty hard. At one point I even got seasick that of course it doesn't help that much with the energy level. It’s been pretty hard to recover physically. But so far a really great experience, you know, it's something that we will find in the Vendée Globe, this level or even worse, and I'm really happy to test it in this race.

Her priority is very much to sail her own race, make her own decisions. 
" Definitely MACIF and Quéguiner are a bit far away right now. They put down a pretty strong pace since the beginning of the race. But I'm in the pack and I'm happy to sail my race, I'm happy to sail my mode with the boat and keep learning and to keep making my own decisions. And in the end we will see how that will work out."

It's not a super easy weather situation we are in between two low pressures. One is like a new low pressure coming in and the other one is more like an older one comes passing through and you kind of get stuck a little bit in between. So it's really trying to play this low pressure that is on the west and get a nice run all the way to 'the circle'. And then the way back we might start with some lighter breeze at the beginning and then we will see that at one point it's similar to what we found on the way up. Some pretty strong westerly breeze on the coast of Ireland and the UK. I don't see any other strong options for the beginning of the way back and the end of the race is really unknown yet. 

Thankfully the well proven and prepared boat has given few problems so far, 
"I had a few issues with a furling line, but nothing really major that doesn't allow me to like sail at the full potential. I think the only, you know, the only downside is I don't have a like inline peeling ready to go because one of the furlers, the furling line is not good anymore. So if I need to change sail, you know, I need to basically drop one and hoist the other one. So it's a bit slower, but in the end it's not a big drama. So far so good."

"The boat is really strong. It's a really good boat for this condition. So I'm happy. I'm happy how I managed also the strong stuff and keeping the boat and myself in one piece."

Most of the time I am enjoying it. I am definitely still recovering a little bit. Still have some like headaches and stomach ache and so yeah, just trying to take care of myself more than anything. The boat is feeling good. It's feeling fast. So there's not like loads of like trimming and intense things to do. So it's a good moment for me to really try to take care of myself a bit more and hopefully this headache and kind of stomach ache will go away soon. And I will, at that point, I will definitely start to enjoy it way more.

It is pretty amazing how the sun rises, you know, three in the morning. It is pretty cool. It's a really special place in the world, you know. We're almost at 60 degrees North, so we're getting there.