| Velux 5 Oceans: Mike Golding making 17-19 knots under full spinnaker |
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| Saturday, 28 October 2006 | |
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Coralie Rassinoux: “Every mile is precious.” Mike Golding reiterated again today as he ate a few miles into the substantial lead of Bernard Stamm. After his unexpected stop in La Coruna to make repairs, Mike was pleased this morning to have gained a seemingly tiny four miles into the substantial lead of the Swiss Breton who won the last edition of the race. Since yesterday evening he has pulled in another 14 miles on Japan’s second placed Kojiro Shiraishi. “It may seem like not much, but to me it feels like the rot has stopped so it feels a little better this morning.” confirmed Golding. Despite Stamm’s sizeable margin Mike has been giving his all to get back into the race. With a gusty north easterly winds he has been taking spells on the helm to ensure he can utilise the biggest possible sail area. He was making 17-19 knots under full main and big spinnaker with ECOVER eating up the miles. Racing well to the west of the entrance to the Mediterranean, Alex Thomson is slightly further inshore and was computed to be 52 miles behind ECOVER. Mike’s only job pending is to make a repair to a spinnaker which suffered a small nick when a wave pulled it out of the squeezer. “It was pretty lumpy at the time and I thought everything was strapped down but it just got a small rip in it which I will have to get round to in due course.” “The boat is going well, slowly getting headed I hope so that we can get down to the (rhumb line) course. I had a little gybe in the night and that helped and we did not lose any miles to Boss, and even gained a little back on Bernard which is a start. That is the end of rot I hope and it is nice to see that. You know that you are in a period when it is just going to get worse and now you can start to think that I have a chance of making some miles back.” Golding says he is reasonably happy so far with his position relative to Alex on Hugo Boss: “He’s always going to try something on the inside, but I have pushed even more west. I think he ended up in there because he was a little lighter (winds) and so had to sail a little hotter (sail a higher wind angel to go faster), so I am not sure that is a particular tactic.” “The fact is that if you draw a line between where we are and where we will cross the equator then I am nearly between that point and him, so that has to be OK. I am reasonably happy. There might be some benefit to being inshore, but in the end you have to get west.” “Who knows what will happen up ahead. Bernard is a long way ahead. He may slow a bit at the Cape Verde Islands. Every mile is precious regardless. When I ripped the kite I thought about a gennaker, but you just can’t afford to think like that. You just have to think of grinding in the miles, little by little.” www.mikegolding.com Velux 5 Oceans album |
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| Last Updated ( Saturday, 28 October 2006 ) |
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