East or west? Golden Globe fleet splits as Guillou and Lawless close on the equator

Damien Guillou and Pat Lawless are within sight of the equator. Guillou was about 120 nautical miles short of the line, Lawless roughly 160 miles behind him, both making 6 knots aboard Solarem and Silvermines Hydro. It's the payoff of the narrow Doldrums corridor Guillou gambled on days ago: once across, both boats face nearly 2,000 miles, roughly two weeks, of steady southeasterly trades carrying them fast down the South Atlantic. The real question now belongs to the rest of the fleet.

Everyone behind them is picking a side of a genuine east-west split. Helga Marie "Mara" Løvenskiold Kveseth and Daniel Pinsky are running together to the west at 3.5 and 4 knots, their daily totals telling different stories depending on how directly each has sailed. Andrea Lodolo has pushed briskly the same way, close to joining them. Henry Wootton made the more surprising move, deliberately crossing ahead of the western group on Privateer and turning back east after grinding out hard miles under two reefs and a staysail to get there in the first place. Ertan Beskardes, Guido Cantini and Etienne Messikommer have stayed closer to the rhumb line, and it's not looking like the safer choice. Race founder Don McIntyre's forecast has fading breeze and possible multi-day calms closing in on that group within 36 hours.

The wind itself is due to swing north and settle in by 1 October, which could hand the western boats a way around the next windless trap before it fully forms. Further back, Louis Kerdelhué, Matt Woodside, Isa Rosli and Gunnar Christensen are all making between 3.5 and 5 knots, and a building northerly over the next 12 hours could give that group 48 hours of proper sailing, a real chance to close the gap on the boats ahead. Pär Nyman's run of good luck with the weather is about to soften, but only briefly. A north-northeasterly should pick him back up and carry him along with the chasing pack rather than leave him behind it.

McIntyre likes the west for the next two days, though nobody will know for certain until the wind does what the forecast says it will. Storm aside, he called it a pretty reasonable Doldrums passage so far.

Guy deBoer's situation moved forward slightly rather than resolving. Someone has now been assigned to inspect Spirit's rig in Lanzarote, though the surveyor still has to sign off on the structural work and take responsibility for the boat's seaworthiness before any restart in Chichester Class gets any closer to real.

One thing worth clearing up: Kveseth's radio contact with her shore team, mentioned in earlier coverage, is entirely within the rules. Scheduled radio calls have been pre-approved and recorded by race management since 2022. The actual breach, and it's a minor one, was using the GGR Window Live broadcast itself to pass logistics messages, not the radio call.