In Globe40, the top teams continue to keep themselves and the fans on tenterhooks. Earlier in the evening of 26 October, both Team Crédit Mutuel and Team Belgium Ocean Racing - Curium still had 1089.7 nautical miles to sail to the stage finish port. They were so evenly matched that the tracking could no longer show the difference. So the tracker simply showed the same distance to the line for both of them. The question: Will one of the boats win the race on leg two and if so, which one? Click here for tracking.
What else is possible for Burke and Fink?
Just as exciting is the question of whether Lennart Burke and Melwin Fink can still catch up with the two stage dominators? The Next Generation Boating Around the World team had managed to reduce the 670 nautical miles gap they had on 17 October to 162 nautical miles by late Sunday evening. Lennart Burke says: "We're doing great so far. We are fit. Our boat is also super fit. And we're really happy about the good preparation we've put in. Especially in the material.
We're still young and wild. We can still take a beating." Lennart Burke
Burke describes the current situation at sea in relation to the two boats ahead of the German team as "brilliant". His explanation for this assessment: "It doesn't seem quite so bad now that we weren't always quite so fast in the past and weren't quite so lucky. We can actually make up for almost everything now. So it could be exciting again - really cool. Those ahead of us keep getting caught up in the doldrums and we can now get closer and closer - with the wind."
His team would now benefit almost permanently from at least a little breeze, says Burke, but he has no illusions in the current Indian Ocean waters: "I'm assuming that we'll be in the doldrums again. Then we'll have to see how we get out of it." The tension remains - and will continue to rise.
It's a bit of a poker game. But our strategy is actually to stay on course as much as possible." Lannart Burke
The reason for sticking to the shortest course to the finish is simple, as the Stralsund native, who lives in Hamburg like his co-skipper Melwin Fink, explains: "The routing changes slightly with every new weather forecast we download. We've already had a few outliers in the last few days, when the routing wanted to go far south again. Or straight north again and then east. But we decided against it every time because it's too risky to deviate so far from the direct course on the way to the finish."
The burden of the long second stage in Globe40
Instead, Burke and Fink follow the course line to La Réunion at around 36 degrees south latitude. Burke says: "That actually works very, very well. So far, we've always been in a better position here than if we'd travelled further out." Physically and mentally, the youngest crew in the Globe40 field is in good shape, as they themselves report. This Sunday, they also had the topic on the table themselves on board and realised that dealing with the long duration of the leg has become easier.
"We're actually a bit out of the woods now in terms of the stage duration. The first and second week of the leg were particularly tough mentally, because we knew that we still had so much ahead of us. And that you were going to be at sea for such a long time. You often question what you're doing here. Whether it all makes sense and whether you're not needed much more on land. Especially because we have such a great team, great companies and our friends."
Everyone is waiting for us. And live their lives - without us." Lennart Burke
However, the crew "got used to everything" as the second Globe40 leg progressed. Lennart Burke said: "In theory, if you had to, you could sail a bit further now. Then we wouldn't have to do this northern loop (editor's note: from the Cape of Good Hope up to La Réunion and then back down again on leg three), which costs us quite a few miles."
Enough of freeze-dried food
However, Lennart Burke and Melwin Fink are very much looking forward to arriving at the Globe40 stage harbour in La Réunion. Burke said: "We are looking forward to arriving, to all the amenities ashore, good food. Food is an issue on board. We haven't really warmed up to the Freezedried... During the short legs, it was always fine. Transat was also fine. Now it feels like we've been living with the stuff for two months, but it's not great."
You just force it in now because you know that you need the energy and can't perform otherwise." Lennart Burke
Beyond that, however, the young circumnavigators value their race around the world. "We are enjoying the time and are very grateful that we have the opportunity to gain this experience," says Lennart Burke. What have they been most pleased about on this leg so far? Burke thinks a little longer and then says: "I think it's just the great conditions we have. And this extremely changeable weather."
They remember a different experience from the Transat: "There we knew it like this: fast southwards, through the hard zones, and then it was really only downwind towards the Caribbean. It really is like that here, that we always have different weather with every front. Sometimes upwind, sometimes reaching, sometimes downwind, sometimes stormy, sometimes calm - it really is such a mess."
An albatross every day at Globe40
Lennart Burke describes the experience with strong currents, which the team is currently leaving again, as highly interesting. "It was very exciting to see how the sea changed almost every hour: sometimes steep waves, sometimes almost no waves, waves from almost all directions, sometimes really long, beautiful waves. That was very impressive. Just like the wildlife out here on the ocean, which we hadn't expected at all."
In the last two weeks in particular, the German Globe40 challengers have been accompanied by large flocks of birds. "There are also a lot of albatrosses," says Lennart Burke, "we actually thought they were rare and that we would only see them super rarely. But in fact, we've seen an albatross almost every day over the last week. Really impressive. And great, because otherwise you only ever heard these stories. Now you get to experience it all for yourself. Brilliant."
Well networked with Starlink, the Globe40 sailors can also follow what is happening at the Mini-Transat or the recently launched Transat Café L'Or. "We can see everything that's happening out there. Really tragic with the Ocean Fifties. It's also really strange that so much has happened so quickly, when you're sailing much more attentively than after a week at sea."
It must have been really hellish conditions." Lannart Burke
The two Class 40 sailors are particularly looking forward to watching their classmates' race in the Transsat Café L'Or from afar. They competed in the 2023 race themselves, so they think it's "super cool to know what's coming up". Lennart Burke says: "We had similar conditions back then. It was also really stormy at the start and really, really hard and cold and wet. Now you can really sympathise. You know exactly what they all have to put up with. But also what they can expect when they get further south... It's a dream!"
Globe40 sailors keep their fingers crossed for mini-soloist Lenz
Lennart Burke describes the Transat as a "nice race, tough and challenging". Together with Melwin Fink, he hopes "to be able to sail it again as soon as possible". The Mini-Transat, in which Burke and Fink got to know each other so well during the preparations for their participation in 2021 that they are now sailing partners, business partners and good friends, is "a bit boring at the moment, because there is so little wind and so little happens", admits Burke.
But, says Lennart Burke: "We are definitely keeping our fingers crossed for Hendrik (ed.: referring to Vector sailor Hendrik Lenz). He has made a great development in the last few years. He deserves to finish in the top ten. And we are also keeping our fingers crossed for all the other German participants, to whom we naturally feel connected. And especially Roland (editor: referring to the Austrian Roland Welzig), because he still had his boat at our boatyard in August."
Lennart Burke and Melwin Fink also wish all Vector sailors success, as their company Next Generation Boating bought the mould from Vector in May of this year. The shipyard in Poland had wanted to sell it. "Because we are so attached to the class and want these boats to continue to be built, we said that we would take over the mould."
Staying true to mini love with the Vector shape
The motivation is clear, as Burke happily explains in the middle of Globe40: "This way, we can keep the class and the Vector design alive, which we are very convinced of. And if someone ever needs a new boat, they can order it. It's also interesting for larger repairs to have the mould to build pieces that can then be used in a boat. That's why we're pretty happy that we now own this mould and have the opportunity to build minis."
