Geronimo ahead of schedule

Everything continues to go well on board Geronimo as she makes rapid progress towards the Equator. With the trade winds remaining reasonably stable, she has managed to average 21.88 knots over the past 24 hours.

The Cap Gemini and Schneider Electric crew have moved further West to try and find the best position from which to attack the Doldrums (ITCZ: Intertropical Convergence Zone), which appears to be moving around quite a lot at the moment; a fact which concerns everyone on board. It is very difficult to predict whether the Doldrums will be predominantly to the West or to the East of this stretch of the Atlantic in 2 day’s time and indeed what area they may cover.

The great grey trimaran continues to extend her lead over the time set by Orange and is now some 100 nautical miles nearer the Equator than the maxi-catamaran was at the end of Day 5. This lead is all the more encouraging to the Cap Gemini and Schneider Electric team, because the time set by Bruno Peyron and his 12 crewmembers in their dash to the Equator was extremely fast at 7 days and 22 hours.

The absolute record for the southward leg to the Equator was set in 1994 by the late Sir Peter Blake and the crew of the catamaran, Enza. That time of 7 days, 4 hours and 22 minutes was set in a head-to-head duel with Olivier de Kersauson and his crew of four on Lyonnaise des Eaux.

At 03:00 GMT today, Geronimo was just 760 nautical miles from the imaginary line that separates the two hemispheres.
At 15:00 GMT today (16:00 French time), Geronimo was off the coast of Sierra Leone, having averaged 21.23 knots in the previous 12 hours.

Geronimo's position : Day 5

Geronimo's position at 03:00 GMT

The boat's position at 15:00 GMT today (16:00 local time)