The leaderboard shuffled through the night as the boats sailed into lighter breeze left by converging winds from two different weather patterns giving a chance for the boats further back to consolidate their position.  As morning arrived, 95- Talanta and 81- Esprit Scout moved up nicely into the top half the fleet.

With the winds forecasted to be light approaching New York Harbor, the sailing intensity will increase.  Full concentration is required to keep the boat’s momentum up, and constant attention to the weather gribs and current information can make the difference.  In this area of the race course, the Gulf Stream moves off to the north east and back eddies and swirls appear. A boat just a mile away can easily slip past in a hurry.

Watch the tracker overlaid with Predict Wind to get another layer of the puzzle. A wind shift of a few degrees can mix up the leaderboard instantly.

Question: Looking at the online tracking it appeared that First Light and Power of One were heading for an area of very low opposing current, whilst having similar wind conditions (12-16 knots from the SW) to most of the others. Am I reading the charts wrongly because their speeds have dropped to just over 1 knot and many of the others are also less than 4 knots?

Answer: From the information we have it looks as though the area First Light and Power of One are in is very light current of mixed directions, but they entered into the windless zone first, which is why their speeds dropped so much. The axis of the gulf stream does head off away from the rhumb line so there is potential for the rest of the teams to get into some strange, weird, sideways currents as they make their way towards the coastline where the currents are more favorable. However, all of the teams are entering into a convergence of systems, which will have light winds that over the next 24-hours will be generally from the south of less than 5 knots. The conditions on board will take a lot of concentration and work to eek out every knot of boat speed possible.