Cheyenne Pulls Out A Lead

Steve FOSSETT and crew aboard the 125′ maxi-catamaran Cheyenne marked the end of their 3rd full week on the Round The World Sailing Record attempt with their best 24 Hour yet – 573 miles posted at 0510 this morning, an average of nearly 24 kts.

With this excellent run, Cheyenne extended her lead over the 2002 record track of Bruno Peyron and Orange to 944 nm (measuring along the course to Cape Leeuwin waypoint) – a lead of almost 2 days over their ‘ghost ship’ target.

Friday conditions remained cold, but superb from a sailing standpoint, with consistent westerly winds in the 19-23 kt range – what Cheyenne watch captain Brian THOMPSON (GBR)describes as:

“Still perfect sailing conditions as we track east – keeping pace with a high pressure system to our north which is allowing us to sail in relatively light winds and seas for this latitude. It’s a balance between the lesser distance and the normally worse conditions further south. Now we are having our cake and eating it too, having the benign conditions close to the high whilst being south and sailing fewer miles.”
(see Brian’s complete report below)