Wind backs giving Sir Robin Knox-Johnston more favourable conditions

Sir Robin Knox-Johnston has had a more peaceful night in the Route du Rhum race after a very tiring 24 hours of rain squalls and wind shifts.

Sir Robin, on his Open 60 Grey Power, has dropped back into fourth position in the Rhum class after holding onto third place for almost 36 hours.

Saturday and Sunday saw consistent rain squalls and wind shifts of up to 95 degrees which meant Sir Robin had very little sleep as he was constantly trying to analyse the wind and keep the boat moving.

The squalls appear to have passed and the wind has increased now and Sir Robin is in around 14 knots of Northerly/East-North Easterly wind. He is making 10.1 knots and has 1283 miles to go to the finish line in Guadeloupe as of 10.30am GMT Monday.

Current ETA into Point a Pitre, Guadeloupe is 25 November.

Here is his blog sent Monday morning.

It is official. This is now a temperance ship! The heat created a high evaporation rate for spirits, so now there is no reason to dilly dally out here and all the more reason to hasten to Guadeloupe.

Dropped one place, by three miles. Surprised it was not more after yesterday.

Andrea Mura’s Vento de Sargena has dropped more than 100 miles south so might be sailing a more direct course. I am currently about 10 degrees above the course I require, but can gybe nearer the time.

And the weather has become more cooperative. It was a largely settled night with the wind slowly backing which suits as we can make within 10 degrees of the direct course for Guadeloupe. The Grib files don't show anything untoward coming up, but they did not show yesterday either. So a good night for catching up on sleep with safety lookout check every hour, despite the electronic alarms.

In fact there is a square rigger four miles away right now, slowly crossing from starboard to port, making about 12 knots. White hull, three masts, not sure whether it is a ship or a Barque. It came up nicely on AIS (Automatic Identification System) and its lights were clearly visible. Anyway, she is not answering calls on Channel 16 VHF.

RKJ

Questions have been received for Sir Robin to answer over the next few days from the computer on board his boat. The responses will be posted on the Clipper Race site and on Twitter and Facebook.

You can track Sir Robin and Grey Power here on the official race tracker.

It updates every hour.

The Clipper Race posts his blogs here.

For the latest updates, see the @ClipperRace twitter feed. You can also follow Sir Robin on Twitter here.