The Transat - Four Way Match Race

Anyone accusing single-handed offshore racing was an uncompetitive event for adventure seekers, should look at the results at the front end of The Transat's Open 60 division where the fight is as tight as any one design class.

Six days into the race and after some 1,400 miles sailed at the halway point, the last 24 hours has seen the lead change three times. Since the dismasting of Virbac on Friday evening, Mike Golding and Mike Sanderson have been swapping the lead but this morning a new face has entered the competition. Swiss sailor and Around Alone winner Bernard Stamm hung on to his northerly tack for longer yesterday and reached the 'new breeze' faster. This morning as Golding and Sanderson have been struggling out of an area of light winds, so Stamm has been sailing down from the north at twice their speed and by the 1100GMT position report today had taken the lead.

On board Ecover Mike Golding sounded exhausted, admitting that he had only had around 80 minutes sleep in the last 24 hours. "Yesterday must count as one of the hardest days I’ve had at sea in many respects," said the man who has sailed around the world four and a half times and who now must be the UK's most travelled single-handed offshore racer. "I've had an extraordinary day of work. I've changed to pretty much every sail in the wardrobe at some point. It was a very long day and last night I was hoping to be able to get some rest and it went very very light - so it needed constant attention to keep the boat going."

Golding's keel canting problems have been compounded once again by the light conditions in which he has not been able to heel the boat enough. "I either dump the keel and do a manoeuvre, or I sail along very flat which makes the boat sticky."

The Open 60s to the south including Conrad Humphreys on Hellomoto and Nick Moloney on Skandia have been struggling in the grip of light, fickle winds. "I had a pretty fast night with bursts of over 20 knots," commented Moloney. "As the depression moves north I am going to get pretty strong headwinds and I'm not going to be reaching - that is my concern at the moment." This morning Moloney was reporting 7 knots of true wind speed although the latest positions at 1500GMT this afternoon show Moloney has managed to pass Marc Thiercelin on Pro-Form moving up one place into eighth. Humphreys who had caught up to within six miles of Sebastien Josse's sixth placed VMI was becalmed for eight hours. After going to sleep Humphreys said he woke suddenly to find his boat becalmed, but oddly with the bottom batten broken in his mainsail. "I've no idea what happened, as according to the charts the NW wind should have been building through the day, and when the shift came I thought I was through. So I've just spent two hours replacing the batten and now the boat is starting to move along at just over 3 knots." Again, the 1500GMT positions show Humphreys making some gains back on VMI.

Among the ORMA 60 multihulls the spread is much greater with a 150 miles separation between leader, Vendée Globe winner Michel Desjoyeaux, Thomas Coville on Sodebo and third placed Franck Cammas on Groupama. With less than 800 miles to go to Boston, Geant's lead would seem unassailable were it not for the multihulls having to cross a high pressure system. This could open up tactical opportunities for those astern, enough though fatalistic Franck Cammas thinks otherwise: "He [Desjoyeaux] is going to have to make a big mistake or break something. There is no weather system ahead that can stop him, and he has got a lot of room to manoeuvre to avoid the calms. For me it is going to be very difficult to come back, but I'll do my best."

The legendary French router, Jean Yves Bernot, who is working with Desjoyeaux said today that he expected the green and white trimaran to arrive in Boston on Tuesday night (European time).

After yesterday's carnage there has been little reported today. Karine Fauconnier who has pulled up to seventh place following her semi-successful southerly flier said that one of the floats of her trimaran Sergio Tacchini had suffered a glancing blow from a whale, whose tail had narrowly missed obliterating one of her boat's three rudders.

The 'iceberg alley' no-go zone imposed on the skippers by themselves has proved a success with the only sightings to date being on radar. Last night Cammas spotted three bergs and three oil platforms while Thomas Coville reported passing within four miles of a large berg. It is likely that the Open 60 skippers will also adhere to the gentleman's agreement to avoid the ice zone when they reach these parts on Tuesday.

Back in the UK 'Operation Hatherleigh' gets underway later this afternoon. Pindar's 116ft long former sidewinder trawler is due to set sail from Portsmouth's Gunwharf Quays tonight (Sunday) bound for Plymouth prior to heading out into the North Atlantic to intercept Jean-Pierre Dick's dismasted Open 60 Virbac.

"When I saw that he'd dismasted and broken his boom as well I thought the poor guy is going to be stuck with a bit of a tough deal about how he is going to get back," said Andrew Pindar, Group Chairman of the Scarborough-based print and electronic media company and backers of Mike Sanderson's Open 60.

"The Hatherleigh is leaving later this afternoon to go to Plymouth. She has a full compliment of crew because she could be away for 12 days, so they will be fully into watch systems. They provisioned up this morning. They will go into Sutton Harbour [in Plymouth] bunker up and we are picking up two of Virbac's shore crew there. The idea is to transfer Jean-Pierre on to the Hatherleigh so he can warm up and feed while his shore crew go on board the boat. Motorola and Ecover have lent us spare Iridium phones and she will set sail from Plymouth tomorrow morning." The Hatherleigh crew, including BT Global Challenge skipper Andy Dare, hope to tow Virbac back to port.

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