It's not every day that a crew makes up 250 nautical miles within three days on a long-distance race. This is only possible when ideal wind conditions for the hunters and a focussed performance from the crew come together. This was the case for Lennart Burke and Melwin Fink up to the 20th day of the second leg of the Globe40 circumnavigation.
Globe40: Waves from several sides, water ingress into the cabin
"Yes, we reduced the gap quite a bit. We had very good conditions and were able to really step on the gas. That should continue for a while, but it has to be said that the choppy sea definitely slowed us down a bit," said Melwin Fink, explaining the Globe40 situation on Wednesday evening.
On the morning of 22 October, the youngest crew in the fleet not only had to master 30 knots of wind on the way to the longitude of the Cape of Good Hope, but also had to fend off waves from behind and from the side. "It completely cancelled us out a few times. Once the wave even broke over the side of the boat and ran into the cabin," reports Melwin Fink in the evening from the Southern Ocean, where the German crew was travelling east just above the 42nd parallel south and was due to pass the longitude of the Cape of Good Hope in the coming hours.
They have kept the rum from their first equatorial passage to celebrate their first big "Cape experience" just over 400 nautical miles south of South Africa's southern tip while the chase continues. Their gap to the leading team Belgium Ocean Racing - Curium has melted from around 510 to just under 260 nautical miles within three days.
Can the frontrunners still be caught?
For Lennart Burke and Melwin Fink, this is a reason to be happy on their first circumnavigation, but not to be overconfident. "We're still fast, we should still have a bit more wind than the others. But it won't be as fast as before," is the realisation on board the German Pgo 40 S4.
The furious race to catch up over the past few days has given rise to new puzzles: what is still possible for Lennart Burke and Melwin Fink in the next eight or nine days to the finish, if the latest forecasts are correct? "It will definitely be very exciting to see what all the boats do now, because we're facing tricky conditions and everyone has to make good decisions," says Melwin Fink.
Lipinski also wrote to me this morning. He's sure we'll all arrive at the same time." Melwin Fink
On Wednesday evening, the Next Generation Boating Around The World team sailed in slightly lighter conditions at times. Melwin Fink said: "There's not so much wind right now. We have 24 knots now. But it's supposed to go up again tonight, then go down again and go up again tomorrow. It's going up and down a bit at the moment. And the wave is huge and very criss-crossed at the moment."
Attack in Globe40: different from the others...
None of this stopped the next generation from storming towards the longitude of the Cape of Good Hope that evening. Lennart Burke announced that the crew had launched a new attack. "We are now taking a different route to the others! Current routings say that we will finish with all three boats within 45 minutes. But we are still the last boat," said Melwin Fink, not without humour.
What is certain is that the tension on this second stage of the Globe40 is set to rise in the coming days. The stage finish on La Réunion is approaching. The Belgians Benoït Hantzperg and Renaud Dehareng continue to fight a breathless duel for the lead with Ian Lipinski and Amélie Grassi.
The routings currently predicting a finish for the early morning of 1 November are "absolutely not to be trusted", Lennart Burke noted with a wink. The crew is expecting weaker and very changeable winds from 24 October. Everything is set for a final thriller in the sailing chess in the Indian Ocean. Click here for tracking. The positions are updated every four hours.
