| At sea. Atlantic Rowing Race: Row4Life looking at the moon |
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| Wednesday, 21 December 2005 | |
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Charlie and Phil: I’ll be looking at the moon, but seeing you.. Good news, the fleet is now racing back in the right direction and making progress towards the finish. Today’s rankings show that Digicel and C2 have managed to put in some solid SW miles, having broken free of the cluster that stayed together for so long. Spirit of Cornwall, Atlantic Prince and EDF are doing the same, but are still a long way further north, so will lose miles when they come South. Charlie and Phil are also back on track, also pointing in the right direction and slowly clawing back the miles that they fought so hard to keep. NB - "miles covered since yesterday” is the "overall distance of race as the crow flies" MINUS "current distance to finish as the crow flies" - i.e. if boats are poking out WEST, it appears that they are closer as it doesn't allow for them having to come south. So this makes it LOOK as if boats in the West have travelled further. Also worth remembering is that all other teams have spent 7/20 days on sea anchor. Charlie and Phil have done fantastically well to hold their own with just drogues. As Charlie said on Sunday, please Father Christmas bring following winds, and please let it be today! Thoughts of breaking the record are long gone for the teams and it has been very trying week for the teams with extremely rare weather conditions – not quite what they signed up for! Once they get their Christmas wish of Northeasterly winds positively pushing them in the right direction, we will see their mileage pick up to at least 50 miles a day and as the boat gets lighter and the equatorial currents kick in, we can even hope for up to 100 miles a day. When Charlie rang yesterday he sounded shattered and glum. Yesterday was probably the worst day for morale so far, but thank you to Philippe Ponnelle who emailed Charlie and Phil with the story of Christian Marty. In 1981 he windsurfed across the Atlantic, taking 37 days to get to Guyana! The 23 ft Row4Life boat felt fleetingly like a luxurious palace in comparison. Today’s message from Charlie (emailed in in the middle of a sleepless night...) “Whilst u all pack etc for xmas PLEASE think of the work of these two charities, it's why we are doing this and the work they do is so fantastic so any spare money really welcome...Xx” Whilst there is nothing you can do to help with the weather, what you CAN do is boost their morale by donating online today. Please help cheer them up as they struggle with another day of winds from the wrong direction. This would make a real difference, not only to Charlie and Phil’s frame of mind, but also the two charities and the thousands of people they are fighting to help over Christmas. A big thank you to Angela Roden of The Royal Marsden Cancer Hospital for her message to the boys yesterday. They really loved it. Angela wrote, “Moon riding high over London this morning, leaving a silver track on the Thames. I'll be looking at the moon, but I'll be seeing you....Have a good day Charlie and Phil.” Ranking / Boat/Dist to finish/Dist since start/ Dist covered since yesterday 1 1) Mayabrit /2116 /815 / +2 2) Spirit of Cornwall /2177 /754 /+17 3) Team C2 /2197 /734 /+28 4) EDF /2203 /728 / +6 5) Atlantic Prince /2206 /725 / +19 6) Team Scandlines /2223 /708 / +20 7) Digicel /2247 /684 / +26 8) Row 4 Cancer /2295 /636 / +2 9) Making Waves /2301 /630 / -6 10) Sun Latte /2320 /611 / +7 11) Row4Life /2333 /598 / +7 12) Gurkha Spirit /2339 /592 / -9 13) Bout de Vie /2341 /590 / +11 DAY : 21 Date : Tuesday 20th December 2005 Polling time : 04:14 Distance to virtual leader (DBL) lead: 217 Row 4 Life is crewed by Charles Woodward-Fisher Philip Harris http://www.row4life.com/ Event website http://www.atlanticrowingrace.co.uk |
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| Last Updated ( Wednesday, 21 December 2005 ) |
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