Five little yachts are due to slip their lines in Marina de Lagos at 00:01 local time on Saturday 14 November and set off across the Atlantic for Antigua. The Globe 5.80 Transat is down to five boats and six sailors after Yi Qun Liu (Yves) withdrew Trekka.
The race announced the change on its Facebook page, saying Yves had made the difficult decision to pull out of this year's Transat because of weather concerns. It respects his decision and hopes to welcome him back for the 2028 edition. Trekka had her bowsprit broken in a collision with a ship on the way back to Lagos on 6 November.
Portugal is on UTC at this time of year, so the 00:01 start in Lagos is 1:01pm Saturday in New Zealand.
Why is the Globe 5.80 Transat starting at midnight?
The Transat has never started at this hour before. The organisers joked that Don McIntyre won't start a race on a Friday, so the gun goes one minute into Saturday.
The weather had more to do with it. Viivi Moisio's team wrote that the start had been planned around the weather, to keep the boats out of headwinds and to get them across the busy shipping lanes in daylight.
The boats have been back in Lagos since the qualifier to Lanzarote was cancelled on 4 November, and Storm Charles crossed Portugal while they waited, with orange warnings from the Portuguese weather service and gusts of 100 to 120 km/h forecast for the mainland. Losing Lanzarote means the boats now sail straight to the National Sailing Academy in Antigua, about 3,000 nautical miles in a straight line and further in practice.
What is the weather forecast for the start?
A westerly is forecast for the start, 7 knots in ECMWF and 14 knots in GFS off Lagos, and both models bring in a south-westerly on Monday. These are our readings of the two free models on PredictWind, taken on Friday 13 November. The race bans weather routing, so the skippers make their own calls. The course runs south-west, so wind from the west or south-west is a headwind.
Saturday, start time. Off Lagos, both models give a westerly, 7 knots in ECMWF and 14 knots in GFS.
Saturday morning, about 10:30 UTC. The breeze off Lagos is 12 to 13 knots from the west-north-west in both models.
Sunday morning, about 11:00 UTC. At 35.5°N 10.5°W, about 130 nautical miles south-west of Lagos, it is 7 knots in ECMWF and 12 knots in GFS, still from the west, with a band of 20 to 25 knots a little to the north.
Monday morning, about 11:00 UTC. A south-westerly fills in. At 34°N 12.5°W it is 12 knots in ECMWF and 14 knots in GFS, and further north at 37°N 11°W both give 18 to 20 knots, with more beyond that.
Tuesday morning, about 10:30 UTC. It eases. At 33°N 14°W the models give 7 to 10 knots from the west-north-west.
These are average speeds at fixed points, so the moving boats will see something different and gusts will be stronger. On our reading, the boats that get furthest south before Monday should find the south-westerly lightest.
Who is starting?
Capucinette (Katherine Urpani, Malta), hull 28
Flow (Viivi Moisio, Finland), hull 195
Inimini (Matthew Freestone, UK), hull 109
Meraki (Bruce Payne, Australia), hull 178
Origami (Dean Frost and Lee McCarthy, UK), hull 47
The race tracker has all five due to start at 00:01 UTC, along with a support entry for race director Keri Harris.
How are the skippers feeling?
After the delays, they are looking towards Antigua. Matthew posted that he was on the pontoon for the start, with Antigua the next stop. Bruce called it the midnight special, five little boats and six skippers heading out into the darkness, and wished his fellow entrants well.
Viivi's team said she was more than ready after all the preparations, delays and setbacks. In her recap of the qualifier she described turning Flow round for Lagos as crushing, though she knew it was the right call, and said the boat was repaired and ready. Katherine's page said she was already halfway to her fundraising goal before the start.
Bruce had a port solar panel to fix after the qualifier's squalls damaged it. He has asked followers for favourite quotes and poems, and will draw one to read each day at sea. On 11 November he marked Remembrance Day in Lagos with a minute's silence alongside Matthew. Bruce wrote that four of the entrants are ex-servicemen, and that he was thinking of two comrades killed in a military aircraft crash.
The race filmed boat tours with the skippers during the week, among them Katherine on Capucinette and Matthew on Inimini.
How to follow the Globe 5.80 Transat
The boats carry YB trackers that report every four hours, and the race posts updates and videos on its Facebook page. Our next report will look at how the fleet handled its first night at sea.
Meet the skippers
Read our profiles of Katherine Urpani and Capucinette, Viivi Moisio and Flow, Matthew Freestone and Inimini, Bruce Payne and Meraki, Dean Frost, Lee McCarthy and Origami, and Yi Qun Liu (Yves) and Trekka.
For Trekka's collision and the fleet's return to Lagos, read our last report, and for Don McIntyre's reasoning on the cancelled qualifier, read our interview. The Globe 5.80 Transat is a sister race to the Golden Globe Race, which Go Boating follows every day.
