It's hot, of course. After all, you're sailing towards the equator. But the guys on Puma and Telefonica, who are still in a neck-and-neck race, could smell the south-easterly trade wind long before they felt it and before it pushed their boats again. Puma has the better end of the stick at the moment and was about 12 miles ahead of the Spanish in the early going. The jokes for the equator baptisms have of course long since been prepared. It will be unpleasant for the rookies, who will soon be crossing it under sail for the first time, but great fun for the others.
There's little to laugh about at the moment on Camper and Groupama, who were trailing 135 and 315 miles respectively in the 05:00 position report and still had single-digit values on the Speedo, while the two leaders were already hooking into the fresh wind and heading for Fernando de Noronha at around 13 knots. This is the island off the Brazilian coast that needs to be rounded before setting course for South Africa.
Meanwhile on land, the two teams from Sanya and Abu Dhabi that were eliminated from the stage are working feverishly to load their floating vehicles, which will be transported by freighter to the stage finish in Cape Town, where they have to be repaired for the second leg.
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