Eastern trade winds help race leaders pick up speed as they head for Salvador 22/10/07

Yves Le Blevec (Actual) is sailing at 200 miles per 24 hours. He is now only a few miles away from land, and with speeds of 7-8 knots should be moored up in Salvador in little over a day.

Taking postions this morning, David Sineau (Bretagne Lapins), Yann Riou (Caméléon) and Kristian Hajnsek (Adria Mobil) failed to be officially placed as none of these strongly placed boats’ beacons were picked up.

Sineau should be about 100 miles from Le Blevec, followed by Ronan Deshayes (PCO Technologies) and Fabien Desprès (Soitec). Fabien was this morning only 35 miles away from the second stage podium, reaching incredible speeds of 9.1 knots.

At Fernando do Noronha archipelago, boats are starting to close in on each other. The race mark is as usual creating a traffic jam, and there could soon be about ten boats sailing tack to tack. For most of the competitors it is the first strip of land they’ll pass since Cape Verde.

Hervé Piveteau (Jules – Imprimerie Cartoffset) should enjoy the Series fleet leadership on reaching Brazil. But he must be vigilant. In the last 24 hours Piveteau has lost five miles from his lead over Julia Gérard Marin (C.n. Llanca).