​Race 1 Day 31 Atlantic Trade Winds Leg draws to a close

Race 1 has drawn to a close, with the final seven teams battling for final positions and leaderboard points in the Atlantic Trade Winds Leg off the Brazilian coast.

After the race was shortened due to extremely light winds, ClipperTelemed+ finished in sixth position, Visit Seattle in seventh, PSP Logistics in eighth, Mission Performance in ninth, Da Nang - Viet Nam in tenth, IchorCoal in eleventh and Unicef in twelfth.

South African-sponsored entry IchorCoal made up a 700-mile deficit over the last three weeks since leaving Portugal to overtake Unicef in the last day of racing. IchorCoal’s redress of 81 hours 11 minutes will be re-calculated by using the average time taken for the finished yachts to have travelled from Cabo Frio waypoint to the finish, meaning it will finish higher than eleventh overall.

In the final hours, Mission Performance managed to close the gap on PSP Logistics from 19 to 9 nautical miles. Mission Performance Skipper Greg Miller describes the fight:

“Up PSP Logistics popped on the chart plotter, just 19 nautical miles in front of us, so it was with renewed vigour we all rallied to make ‘Missi’ (our Mission Performance yacht) go faster, to eke out every morsel of wind in the sky and push us ever closer to PSP Logistics.

“As the time for our Race 1 came to an end at 0000UTC we had closed the gap to around 9 nautical miles, but Skipper Max Stunell and PSP Logistics were fighting hard to maintain their place and fought well. Although not a perfect finish to a great race, this has definitely been an amazing experience for all the crew.

“There have been ups and downs, as there is on any journey, but the Mission Performance Warriors have weathered the storms, learned from their mistakes and become a team to be reckoned with for future races. As the Skipper, I am proud to lead such a strong and dedicated crew and I look forward to the next stage of this amazing opportunity.”

Upon finishing Race 1 at 0000UTC Wednesday night, Visit Seattle Skipper Huw Fernie was also proud of his team’s achievement. He said: “Yesterday we were celebrating 5 knots of boat speed, today we were dreaming about it! What a drift that was, I've never drifted quite like it.

“Seventh to the line is such an achievement for us all. This is the result we have been working hard to achieve for most of this race. We've had moments of brilliance (and obviously a few that weren't so brilliant) and the journey has been, in all, fun.”

The teams are now all motor-sailing towards Marina da Gloria where they will arrive over the next 24 hours.

Race 2, the Stormhoek Race to the Cape of Storms from Rio to Cape Town, South Africa, starts on 7 October, and daily update will resume the following day.