Globe40: Stage two of the circumnavigation underway - Burke and Fink in front

A promising start to leg two for Lennart Burke and Melwin Fink. The German duo led the fleet into the night off Mindelo after the sunny, light-winded Cape Verde start. The marathon leg of more than 7000 nautical miles will take the eight double-handed crews into the Indian Ocean to the island of La Réunion.

The second stage of the Globe40 is around twice as long as the Route Du Rhum. It leads from Cape Verde over around 13,000 kilometres to La Réunion in the Indian Ocean. This is roughly equivalent to the distance between Hamburg and Cape Town as the crow flies. The North Atlantic, the South Atlantic and the Indian Ocean form the new territory for most of the Globe40 starters, which they want to conquer on their course around the world in October. This includes Lennart Burke and Melwin Fink, who opened the longest race leg of their career at 5.10 p.m. German time on 2 October.

The whole route is completely new to us! We're very excited and really looking forward to it, but we also have a lot of respect." Lennart Burke

A good six and a half hours later, the duo from Hamburg led the classification of the eight two-handed teams shortly before midnight, just ahead of Lisa Berger and Jade Edwards-Leaney on "Wilson Around the World". Lennart Burke and Melwin Fink had opened up a nice little lead late on Thursday evening ahead of Globe40 leader Ian Lipinski and his new co-skipper Amélie Grassi as well as Benoït Hantzperg and Renaud Dehareng from Team Belgium Ocean Racing - Curium. Click here for the tracking, which is updated every four hours.

Globe40: in the race with a new A4

The arrival of the new A4 spinnaker had already made the German duo happy the day before the start. Its predecessor had unfortunately gone overboard on stage one. This had caused the Next Generation Boating Around The World team a painful loss of speed in the second half of the stage. Now they can once again operate at full power in all wind ranges. Click here for the YACHT preview of the second leg.

Initially, this worked well in some very light winds. The fleet sailed towards the 16th parallel north in the night to Friday. 15 nautical miles separated Burke and Fink at the front and Melodie Schaffer with Julia Virat on "Whiskey Jack" at the back of the fleet. The Canadian and the Frenchwoman stood out on day one of the second Globe40 leg because they had deviated significantly from the course of the other seven crews to the west.

With the start, the Globe40 crews left a hard-hit but resilient place: The teams had bid farewell to Mindelo without any loud fanfare. The island was hit hard by Tropical Storm Erin on the night of 10/11 August, which later developed into a hurricane. The storm claimed 14 lives on the archipelago and left severe devastation in its wake.

Crédit Mutuel and Globe40 help children with school supplies

For a month and a half, traces of it were and still are visible, but most of the infrastructure has been restored. The Globe40 organisers took part in a campaign launched by Crédit Mutuel to provide more than a thousand children from destroyed schools with school supplies. The hurricane did not affect the resilience and friendliness of the Cape Verdean people or the magnificent seascapes of the archipelago.

Weather expert Christian Dumard had outlined an outlook for the second Globe40 leg before the starting signal on 3 October: "The fleet is likely to start from Mindelo in light winds from the east. The first obstacle will be the famous squid belt, which could live up to its reputation. It appears to be very active at the weekend, including thunderstorms, squalls and calm winds in the equatorial area."

As soon as the fleet reaches the southern hemisphere, the conditions should become more favourable, according to Christian Dumard. He predicted a long reaching leg and a downwind section when rounding the notorious St Helena High.

Strong current and good hope

Dumard continued: "As the 40th parallel approaches, things will get serious. For many, it will be the baptism in the south. In addition to the low-pressure areas, you also have to deal with the Agulha current, which comes from the Mozambique Channel." This brings back memories of Boris Herrmann's descriptions during the Vendée Globe, when the Imoca soloists bucked through the Agulhas current.

Christian Dumard immediately explained why this is the case: "This current, which is as strong as the Gulf Stream, can reach up to five knots in places. So you have to slalom through its twists and turns to find the favourable current conditions and avoid the large counter-currents that can create monster waves."

After the Cape of Good Hope, the Globe40 challengers will set course for La Réunion, where they will have to negotiate frontal passages and then the high pressure area of the Mascarenes before arriving north-west of the island. Christian Dumard described the final hurdle on the way to the finish line as follows: "In the last twelve hours, they will have to cope with the calm winds in the lee of the island (3600 metres high) before crossing the finish line."

Long stage, high scoring factor

The second Globe40 stage is scored with a high coefficient of 3.0. After the prologue and the first stage, the first points have already been awarded, but the gaps are small: "Crédit Mutuel" (1.5 points) leads the overall standings by just two points ahead of Team Belgium Ocean Racing (3.5 points). This means that the difference between the leaders and their first chasers is less than one place in the current stage.

Only half a point behind the Belgians are Lennart Burke and Melwin Fink, who were second in the prologue, which was rated 0.5, and third on stage one. Here are the intermediate results in the Globe40 after the prologue and the first of six stages in the two-handed race around the world.