Posts from the Ràn yacht racing team: "Sunset and Remaining miles"

How lucky are we? How many times does someone see such a sun set from the Atlantic ocean 700 miles or so away from shore. Here is to share with all readers so you can feel a bit part of this trip too. Huge ball of fire in the middle, orange sky and clouds around the sun. Further blue and light green colour sky, with the shadows of clouds all around. The water is light silver, silver to white in some cases, like the bow wakes on either side when the boat is braking into the water. 20 knots of boat speed, few more knots in wind speed, course of 270 degrees. With 700 miles to go approximately, we have now sailed the equivalent of 1 Fastnet race, 1 Sydney to Hobart race and 1 Newport to Bermuda race. One more equivalent of a 600 miles Classic race and we will have completed this course!

The course record time of this race is held by last year’s line honours winner, Hetarios, a 220 foot ketch (view this in your mind, it is twice as long as Leopard and with twice the amount of masts so many more sails!) Hetarios crossed the finish line off Virgin Gorda after 8 days, 10 hours, 58 minutes and 30 seconds.

To beat this time a boat would have to race at 13.2 (vmg) knots in average during the entire trip. This is a very high target considering an average speed for the Fastnet race is around 10 knots.

So far Rán-Leopard has averaged 16 knots for the last 2000 miles. In order to beat this year's record, we need to sail a faster average speed than 10 knots for the remaining 700 miles...so watch the space.