At 21h42 yesterday evening, Derek Hatfield crossed the imaginary line that is the equator.  There were no celebrations this time, as he was busy trying to make the boat go faster. This was his fifth crossing, the third in this boat.  Derek is fighting to stay in front of Jean-Baptiste Dejeanty,  who is now only about 30 miles behind him and the winds have not been kind, so he is working hard to keep ahead.

 

"I'm at 60 degrees to the wind and am sailing at 11 or 12 knots hugging the wind to move towards the east...It is reassuring (to be in close contact) for two reasons; Firstly, that creates an emulation allowing you to get 100% out of the boat, and to adapt your performance to those of the others and it is also  reassuring to see all these exceptional sailors sharing more or less the same analysis as far as their trajectory and strategy are concerned..."  Yann Eliès (Générali) yesterday evening

 

Jonny Malbon (Artemis) is tonight in 18th place 820 miles from the leader.  Here is his daily message received this evening.
"All good onboard – squall school again this morning for a few hours  they are just everywhere.  Lets hope tonight is a little more relaxing, but I doubt it.  Boat feels great and its good t make some miles back.  Learning a lot about how to reach with her – getting some good speeds, and certainly helped us get past Unai last night. Sights set on Steve now!!
Cheers,
Jonny and Artemis II"

 

Dominique Wavre (Temenos) is in 11th place 234 miles from the leader.  Like those just ahead of him (Brian Thompson and Marc Guillemot), he has been busy analysing the weather, as the leaders slow down:
 "You really get the feeling that you’re heading into a zone where there will be less wind. There are clouds of all shapes and sizes in the sky, which is an indicator of some intense weather activity. I’m studying the weather a great deal at the moment. I’ve set myself a position to pass through the core of the high pressure. The situation is still complicated. There are two zones of high pressure. One is evacuating itself towards the east, and the other is forming in the west. It’s imperative that we avoid falling into it and also avoid the squalls, which could stop us in our tracks. It’s not easy though as not everything is visible in the satellite images. I’m not too displeased about my position for the time being. I hope to have a slightly more favourable breeze than those further east. It’s an interesting situation and the race is exciting, but a small part of our performance will be down to luck. We should see what’s what this weekend.”

"In the next 2-4 days it looks a little bit tricky because we have the high pressure of St Helena but after that I think the first one that arrives the other side of the high pressure is in a very good shape for the race.  It's a little bit too soon to say about catching the first low pressure.  Maybe in 3 or 4 days we will be in quite a good westerly wind to get to the ice gate.."
Sébastien Josse (BT)

"59 miles to do to cross the equator! This is my 5th time crossing that magical line and it is always special having the GPS just flip over from North to South, no fanfare or special signs, it doesn't care so much. For me this kind of marks the end of phase one in the race - start line to the equator. Phase two starts immediately and takes us down to the south.    

It's a little slow today it seems, more upwind work as I get into the weather systems south of the equator. The doldrums were non existent this time across which is lucky. Normally it is a slow painful crossing with many black clouds to negotiate, thunder and lightning storms and big wind holes that can last hours. Most of the fleet crossed without stopping I would imagine. I'm very tired today as I had a long night on deck watching for ships and monitoring the autopilot. Three ships came directly from the south, head on and very close. It's a little intimidating to have a large ship playing chicken with a small sailboat. About midnight the autopilot decided to tack the boat while I was asleep and I was rudely awakened with the boat totally on its side going sideways on the opposite tack. It took me about an hour to get it all back on track again and luckily no damage. I guess the pilot needs some attention so I think I will call him  Joshua,after that famous Canadian Joshua Slocum who was the first singlehander to go around the world." 
Derek Hatfield (Algimouss-Spirit of Canada) in his daily message.