Race 14 Day 4: Boats prepare to gybe and race upwind with shift in direction

The fleet is making significantly better progress with the wind picking up and forecast to shift round to the north later today.

The skippers are weighing up their options of when to gybe onto course in the unreliable wind. A complicated low pressure system is moving eastwards ahead of the fleet, and if the teams can stay in its coat-tails then the wind should gradually come round to the north to help them along. 

The leading yachts are picking up extra speed from the Gulf Stream current from being further south.

Jamaica Get All Right, the most southerly yacht, is now leading the fleet, with Switzerland falling into second and Derry~Londonderry~Doire down a place into third.

Pete Stirling, skipper of Jamaica Get All Right, said: “In the course of 24 hours we have gone from being completely becalmed going nowhere with the windseeker up through to the light weight medium weight and now the heavy weight spinnaker with full mainsail as the wind has built.”

Matt Mitchell, skipper of Mission Performance, in sixth, said: “It's been a great day sailing and we have been making really good progress. Our boat speed has been a bit better than some of the other yachts around us and we have made some great gains on the rest of the fleet.

“The breeze has started filling in a little more now and is set to increase over the next few hours as well as shift around a bit more to the north. Anticipating this shift we chucked in a gybe a couple of hours ago in order to get a bit of a better angle coming down on the northerly.”

To track the fleet's progress, click here.

To read all the skipper reports, click here.

To read the crew diaries, click here.