The crew on Swan 651 Gaetania sent these pictures from the race course.

We’re finally out of the clutches of Sicily and into the fresh south-easterly breeze.

Infanta is sliding along on rails, one of the most comfortable upwind boats I’ve been on.

That’s 14 tonnes of mahogany and oak for you.

This is a beautiful boat, a peach to film on, and we’re enjoying sailing her around such a picturesque track. Dawn rising over the volcanoes was TV gold, as we say.

John and crew were stoked to lead overall through the Messina Strait, kings for a day, but light winds are not our forte.

So upwind for a while, Infanta stretching her legs, a classic boat for a classic race.

Now on the final leg, Lion Logic have been in full ‘hunting’ mode overnight. Knowing there was nothing to gain following everyone else, co-skippers Tim Thubron and Jim Bennett chose to go much further South on the leg from Pantellaria to Lampedusa.  As we converged on Lampedusa it is very rewarding to see we have made great gains on the water – so it was a gamble that paid off!

Crew on board are all happy, enjoying the fabulous conditions and still fighting to the very end!

It’s been a tough night beating all the way from Pantelleria to Lampedusa . We’re all in deck pushing the boat hard. Still found time to eat though and Matthew cooked up a great plate of penne with Bovril. You’ll have to look that one up if you’ve never heard of it ….

We’re approaching the next turning point at Lampedusa now at 2am but the wind is light and the sea lumpy. It’s slow progress to this mark

We should be on our way back home in a couple if hours and with some luck we’ll pick up some more places. We’re still in with a chance for Class 4  honours.

Next stop …. The RMYC some time tomorrow hopefully.

Juno Racing Team – Rolex Middle Sea Race 2013 Campaign was shaking off those Xp’s at Favignana. Soon the results at the next gate will be known. Keep those concentration levels high and we hope you are not going for the Dolphin counting trophy only!

Toasting the Immortal Memory on Trafalgar Day 2013 on La Réponse            Rolex Middle Sea Race

Just getting to capo San Vito on NW coast of Sicily after frustrating snakes and ladders of last 24 hrs with long windless periods. Now doing better. Realised that an awful lot of bottles of water were disappearing in the neat. Rationing now commenced with each having named 1.5 l bottles for Tues//Wed/Thur.

Today being Trafalgar Day we toasted the Immortal Memory, unfortunately no French or Spanish boats nearby!

Posted at 22:10 20th October

We Have been laying stil for The last couple of hours. Did 3nm in 3 hours.
But finaly we got wind and moving again. All Boats are lined-up at Filicudi Island. Seems to be à new start!

Greetings from Kings Legend

Gerard

Close Racing with Caro

Date: 21/10/13

Time:  05:00

Location: 38.14.37N 12.42.68E

This is a short one as we’re about to lose phone signal and im pretty busy onboard. Some real testing times over the last 4 hours. A shut down followed by a the wind building to 15 knots under Code 0 where we peeled to a J2 and its now died to nothing again. When we do have breeze in the 2-3 knot region it is very very unstable and has often tacked the boat without warning. We’ve lost a lot of ground recently and we can see how much the pack ahead are pulling away from us. We’re eager to play catch up, we just can’t get past Tripoli to get into the pressure.

To make matters worse our keel issue has raised its head again. The port ram seems to have blown a seal from the loading it was under at the start. We’re down on hydraulic fluid again but we have a plan in place that should see us get to the finish. Finger crossed!

Hungarian Canting Keel 60, Wild Joe at Stromboli