Yi Qun Liu (Yves) and Trekka still lead the Globe 5.80 Transat qualifier, but Viivi Moisio is reeling him in. At 20:00 UTC on Monday 2 November Flow was 5.5 nautical miles behind, down from about 9.5 nm at midnight. Her 66.2 nm made good over 24 hours was the best in the fleet, a day after a whale damaged her outboard.
The breeze that carried the six little yachts through Monday is fading. Both main forecast models give the fleet about 2 knots tonight, and a north-westerly could arrive on Wednesday.
Globe 5.80 Transat 2026 qualifier: miles made good towards Lanzarote
Nautical miles gained on the 565 nm tracker course, start (31 Oct, 14:00 UTC) to 2 Nov, 20:00 UTC. Four-hourly tracker positions, interpolated where a report fell between them.
Source: Globe 5.80 Transat live tracker (YB Tracking). Origami's flat line shows her return to Marina de Lagos overnight on 31 October.
Race at a glance
Leader: Trekka (Yi Qun Liu, China), 426.3 nm to Lanzarote
Second: Flow (Viivi Moisio, Finland), 5.5 nm behind
Third: Capucinette (Katherine Urpani, Malta), 8.7 nm behind
Fourth: Inimini (Matthew Freestone, UK), 12.6 nm behind
Fifth: Meraki (Bruce Payne, Australia), 26.0 nm behind
Sixth: Origami (Dean Frost and Lee McCarthy, UK), 82.7 nm behind
Best 24 hours: Flow, 66.2 nm made good towards the finish
All six boats reported at 20:00 UTC on 2 November, 54 hours after the start. Distances are from the race tracker.
Can Flow catch Trekka?
She is making a good fight of it. Over the 24 hours to 20:00 UTC, Flow made 66.2 nm towards Lanzarote, Capucinette 62.9 nm, Meraki 62.4 nm, Inimini 59.7 nm and Trekka 59.4 nm. Yves still has the most miles under his keel, 143.5 nm over the ground since the start, but the pack behind him has stopped losing ground.
The leaders are about 127 nm south-west of Cape St Vincent and roughly a quarter of the way to Lanzarote. Flow, Capucinette and Inimini are a little to the north of Trekka, spread across about 9 nm.
Viivi told Race Control on Sunday that her rudder, windvane and hull were fine and only the outboard was hurt. Her own team's update says the whale bumped the transom, rudder blades and propeller a few times before losing interest after 10 to 15 minutes. Their verdict was that Flow is tougher than whales, and her pace on Monday did nothing to argue with that.
Race founder Don McIntyre singled out Matthew in his Monday morning update as the first skipper to change course and check on Viivi, calling it great seamanship and exactly the spirit the event is looking for.
How is Trekka staying in front?
Don admitted he was wondering too. In his update he joked that Yves might be sneaking in some motoring or hiding giant solar panels. His serious answer was that Yves trained well, prepared his boat properly and is making the most of the conditions.
This is Yves's first ocean race, and he is sailing a boat with history. Trekka is hull 01, the very first Class Globe 5.80 built.
Why did Origami go back to Lagos?
Race Control has now given the reason. Dean Frost and Lee McCarthy turned back to Lagos with an electrical problem on the first evening, then set off again around midday on Sunday.
They are now about 56 nm from Lagos and have made 34.4 nm towards the finish in the past 24 hours. Any boat still racing at 13:00 local time on 13 November is withdrawn, and on our sums Origami needs to average 1.98 knots towards Lanzarote from 20:00 UTC Monday to make it, with 509 nm to go and 257 hours left. Over the last day she has averaged 1.43 knots.
The real task is harder still, because the tracker measures a straight line and nobody sails directly to a finish. The two-handed crew still sounded in decent spirits. Their message to Race Control on Monday described a frustrating night with no wind, but otherwise everything was fine on board.
Messages from the fleet
The race has started publishing the short satellite texts that skippers send to Race Control, and most of them are about the lack of wind.
Viivi's message said all was good on Flow but the wind was super light. Yves sent two, the second pointing out there was no wind again. Katherine took a more direct approach and asked Race Control to please send some.
Don described Bruce as roaring away at 2.8 knots, then conceded it was not exactly America's Cup pace. Bruce's last post from Meraki signed off with his motto for the campaign, Every Mile Earned.
Viivi's last post before the start has aged nicely. With three days to go she said the safety paperwork was done, and all Flow still needed was toilet paper and a huge amount of self-confidence. On Monday's numbers, she found plenty of the second.
What is the weather forecast for the Globe 5.80 Transat?
Expect a near-calm tonight, light and patchy winds on Tuesday, a north-westerly around the fleet's area on Wednesday and light south-easterlies along the course on Thursday. This is our own reading of the free ECMWF and GFS models on PredictWind. Routing and paid weather services are banned in this race, so the skippers are working from free forecasts too.
Tonight. Both models give the fleet about 2 knots at 1017 to 1018 hPa. There is more breeze further south, 5 to 8 knots from the east halfway down the course and 7 to 10 knots near Lanzarote.
Tuesday, about 11:00 UTC. Still very light around the fleet, and the models cannot agree. ECMWF has 2 knots from the west-south-west, GFS 7 knots from the north-east. Mid-course ECMWF shows 10 knots from the south-east, GFS barely 2.
Wednesday, about 13:30 UTC. The breeze returns to the area where the fleet is now, although the boats will have moved on by then. ECMWF gives 13 knots from the north-west and GFS 10 knots from the west, both around 1014 hPa. With the course heading about 208 degrees, that puts the wind on the beam. Further south it is still light, 3 to 6 knots mid-course and off Lanzarote.
Thursday, about 15:30 UTC. A large area of 15 to 25 knot north-westerlies sits west of Madeira, but the course itself looks light again. About 100 nm down the track from today's positions, both models show 6 to 8 knots from the south-south-east, well forward of the beam, and only 3 to 4 knots near Lanzarote.
What to watch
The leading four have averaged 2.3 to 2.6 knots towards the finish since the start, but in the last four hours the front five slowed to between 0.7 and 1.9 knots. At Monday's pace Trekka would need about seven more days to reach Lanzarote, and the calm will push that out.
Watch whether the chasing pack can use Wednesday's breeze, if it arrives as forecast, to catch Trekka, and for whether Origami can find the extra half knot she needs to beat the qualifier deadline. The main race to Antigua starts from Lanzarote on 14 November.
For the background to Sunday's whale encounter, read our Day 3 report.
Meet the skippers
Read our profiles of Yi Qun Liu (Yves) and Trekka, Viivi Moisio and Flow, Katherine Urpani and Capucinette, Matthew Freestone and Inimini, Bruce Payne and Meraki, and Dean Frost, Lee McCarthy and Origami. The Globe 5.80 Transat is a sister race to the Golden Globe Race, which Go Boating follows every day.
