Steve Fossett's 125ft maxi-cat Cheyenne is maintaining good speed as she heads towards the Cape of Good Hope on her round the world record attempt

Steve Fossett and crew aboard Cheyenne maintained their strong round the world record pace over the past 24 hrs (447 miles, averaging 18.63 kts) as they reached the latitude of Cape of Good Hope early this morning.

Now well to the south but slightly west of the current record holder’s position at the same time in 2002, Cheyenne remains 76 miles ahead of the RTW record track of Orange after 13 days, calculated by measuring ahead to the next probable course waypoint – South of Cape of Good Hope.

With the breeze shifting gradually to the north (a true wind direction of 360 degrees was reported at 0510 today), Fossett and navigator Adrienne Cahalan continued to maintain their tactical longitude around 30-31 degrees west throughout Thursday and into Friday morning. As they begin to round the High (now to their north and east), the strong westerlies which will carry them east are still farther away – at about 38 degrees south latitude.

Date: 20/02/2004

Time: 05h10 GMT

Latitude: 33 18.440 S

Longitude: 30 29.630 W

Avg Speed: 16.77 kts

Distance to Finish: 16527.54 nm