Leaders are well out beyond the Scilly Isles

The First 24 hours of the race has now passed and all yachts are still racing, writes Oscar Mead on the OSTAR website . The leaders are well out beyond the Scilly Isles and heading south west towards ten degrees West.

We are not sure who is leading as the satellite tracker on Anne Caseneuve’s trimaran has not reported her position today. On the satellite tracker Reini Gelder on his trimaran Light for the World is shown as being in the lead by some distance and is being followed by Okami, Vijaya, Spinning Wheel Jager.

It would seem that on handicap Dick Koopmans who designed his own yacht Jager is doing particularly well and is currently ahead of many larger yachts in the class above his own and is well ahead of the other yachts in his class. We have heard some of Marco Nannini’s audio  /www.blogstar.org.uk>reports and he seems to be in good spirits and enjoying some boisterous sailing in 25/30K of wind but he did say that he was experiencing a quite nasty cross sea.

We have also had a report from Dutchman Bart Boosman who has had a difficult night. First he lost a halyard up the mast and then more seriously at 0230 his fore hatch was washed overboard leaving him with a large hole on the foredeck down which water was pouring with every new wave. He reefed down quickly to stop the yacht from shipping more water and set about making a new hatch cover from one of his floor boards. By 0700 the job was completed and he was able to speed up again.

Whilst writing this report we have received an email position report from Anne Caseneuve at 1535 UT of 4639N 1102W which puts her well up with the leaders. Her shore team report that ‘tous va bien’.

For further information on the race look at our tracker page on this site and read blogs from some of the skippers.