The Globe40 thriller of the second leg could come to an end for the top three on Saturday. But how? At the front of the field, it looks as if the breathless duel between Ian Lipinski and Amélie Grassi on Crédit Mutuel and Benoît Hantzperg and Renaud Dehareng from Team Belgium Ocean Racing - Curium will continue to the finish. On the morning of 29 October, not a mile separated the two teams after almost four weeks! In the end, the Belgians were again just ahead.
MacGyver deployment in the mast
But the eyes of the German sailing fans are fixed on the boat behind them: Lennart Burke and Melwin Fink continue to attack They continue to have the more powerful winds on their side. For the first time, the duo from Hamburg were able to close the gap to less than 100 nautical miles on Wednesday. On 17 October, Burke and Fink had once fallen 660 nautical miles behind the leaders. Twelve days later, there is not much left of that in the exciting approach.
On Wednesday morning, the Next Generation Boating Around The World team was able to give a more accurate finish forecast for the first time in the changeable conditions in the Indian Ocean as they approached La Réunion. While the French and Belgians in the latest position update at 10 a.m. German time While Lennart Burke and Melwin Fink still had 602 nautical miles to go to the finish harbour, they had 99.6 nautical miles more to go.
"We now have an ETA. That should be Saturday afternoon," reported Melwin Fink from See. He had just completed an unplanned mast deployment because the second wind sensor had also failed. "We had no choice but to repair the second one at sea," explained Lennart Burke. The MacGyver mission was a success.
What else is possible for the German Globe40 hunters?
And the chase continued for Lennart Burke and Melwin Fink, who were impressed by the battle for the stage win raging in front of them. Melwin Fink said: "The duel at the front is crazy again! They're really up against each other. That's really crazy. But, of course, it also happens very quickly here in this doldrums area if you're not so far apart that you keep bumping into each other."
Melwin Fink's prediction: "It will definitely go on like this until the finish. It will be tough for those at the front. And us? We will also move up a bit. It's very, very exciting!" Can Burke and Fink really catch up with the two front runners? Melwin Fink says: "It's not impossible, but it's tough because there aren't that many options left to get close to them now. We can only do it by boat speed, so to speak."
There is still a longer downwind. We can still make up a few miles there. And after that, the pecking order will probably be set." Melwin Fink
Three days before the expected finish, Melwin Fink categorised the course of the stage: "Of course, nothing is impossible, but we'll also be happy if we manage to get very close to them, because we have such a blatant distance. But of course we'll give it our all and are ready for anything."
The final strategy: lurk, learn, seize opportunities
The gradual reduction in distance over the past few days has been a "huge motivation" for the team. "We've been shortening the distance for a few days now. That's a real push. Of course we want to try everything we can to still be at the front. That's a lot of fun," said Melwin Fink. The strategy for the final sprint is clear, said Fink,
The tactics are simple: don't leave a metre behind, go full throttle, don't take any detours and keep a close eye on the weather!" Melwin Fink
The current weather conditions are keeping the youngest crew at Globe40 very busy. Fink explained: "We are watching the weather very closely, hoping that any options will open up for us or that we can learn from the mistakes that are being made at the front. We are observing and thinking very, very carefully."
Melwin Fink also took a look back at his own speed record, which his team has just set with a boat speed of more than 30 knots, on Wednesday at the 30th parallel south: "That's amazing with a boat like that! Incredible, almost a little frightening." However, the top speed actually happened "relatively easily": "We simply surfed down a huge wave with Code Zero, J2 and the first reef in the mainsail. That went well..."
The last pasta festival in the Indian Ocean
In the meantime, things are not going so well when we look at the remaining provisions. "It's like always at the end: the good food is gone. We're struggling to get by and are really looking forward to fresh food, salad and a nice piece of meat so that we have something solid between our teeth again and not just the porridge we eat all the time."
However, pasta lovers Lennart Burke and Melwin Fink had a little highlight in store for this day: "We make pasta with pesto or carbonara all the time when we still had eggs. Today we're having the last portion of pasta with parmesan and everything that goes with it. We also have an onion and garlic left. We'll motivate ourselves again with that."
The young sailors are also moved by overarching thoughts as they sail further out to sea. Melwin Fink explains: "The Indian Ocean is a completely different, new experience. Especially here with all the currents we have around the Cape of Good Hope. Very exciting! It can be very unpleasant, as we have found out. But also very, very cool when it can really push you forwards, depending on which direction the current is coming from. Or how you can take it."
Globe40: Excitement also in the chasing pack
You have to be "very, very attentive", says Fink. He continues: "It's not at all like sailing straight ahead in the Atlantic. It's something completely different and a mega experience. We're proud that we've managed to pull it off so well." In the meantime, the pursuers of the furious three in Globe40 have also passed the Cape of Good Hope, or have just done so on 29 October. Around 900 nautical miles behind Lennart Burke and Melwin Fink, the Brazilians José Guilherme Caldas and Luiz Bolina on "Barco Brasil" sailed on towards La Réunion in fourth place.
Around 300 nautical miles behind them, the battle for fifth place is closer. Austrian skipper Lisa Berger and her co-skipper Jade Edwards-Leaney continue to attack Frenchmen Thibaut Lefévère and François Martin on "Free Dom" with "Wilson Around the World". On Wednesday morning, the two Spitzbug Class 40s were only separated by around 35 nautical miles.
Lisa Berger and Jade Edwards-Leaney have also been able to report impressive speeds with their 2010-built and self-overhauled Akilaria RC2 in recent days. On 27 October, Lisa Berger reported: "This is what it's like when you switch from "Go now, Wilson, go, go, go!" to "No, no, no, Wilson, please stop!". The swell was enormous last night. Last night we had average wave heights of five metres. Every now and then some waves were twice as high - very fascinating and intimidating."
Lisa Berger continued: "Wilson flew down these huge waves. That allowed us to reach top speeds of over 25 knots several times. Wilson did it all by herself while we stared at the numbers on the display and hoped there was enough room in front of her for that speed..."
