Viivi Moisio and Flow lead the Globe 5.80 Transat qualifier. At 20:00 UTC on Tuesday 3 November the Finnish skipper was 392.4 nautical miles from Lanzarote, just 0.7 nm ahead of Yi Qun (Yves) Liu on Trekka, who had led for most of the race so far.
It was a slow day in light airs. Looking ahead, both main forecast models now show a deep low north-west of Madeira by Sunday, with strong headwinds over the second half of the course.
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 3 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: Flow (Viivi Moisio, Finland), 392.4 nm to Lanzarote
Second: Trekka (Yi Qun Liu, China), 0.7 nm behind
Third: Inimini (Matthew Freestone, UK), 8.8 nm behind
Fourth: Capucinette (Katherine Urpani, Malta), 12.0 nm behind
Fifth: Meraki (Bruce Payne, Australia), 36.4 nm behind
Sixth: Origami (Dean Frost and Lee McCarthy, UK), 71.4 nm behind
Best 24 hours: Origami, 45.2 nm made good towards the finish
All six boats reported at 20:00 UTC on 3 November, 78 hours after the start. Distances are from the race tracker.
How did Flow take the lead?
In the last four hours of Tuesday. At 16:00 UTC Trekka was still 0.6 nm ahead. In the next four hours Viivi made 11.0 nm towards the finish, the best run in the fleet, while Yves made 9.7 nm. That was enough to swap places.
Over the full 24 hours Flow made 39.4 nm towards Lanzarote and Trekka 33.2 nm, well down on the 66.2 nm and 59.4 nm they made on Monday. Viivi has now sailed 182.5 nm over the ground since the start, more than anyone, and is a little under a third of the way to the finish.
She is doing it with a bent outboard. Her team's latest update says the engine damage from Sunday's whale encounter is still on her mind, with the motor still hard to use. They also report that she has company on both sides, Capucinette to starboard and Trekka to port, and that the one thing she wants is a lot more wind.
Who else is moving?
Matthew Freestone has Inimini up to third, 8.8 nm behind, after making 10.2 nm in the last four hours. Katherine Urpani is fourth on Capucinette, 12.0 nm back.
Bruce Payne on Meraki had the slowest day of the fleet, 23.5 nm made good, and is now 36.4 nm behind the leader.
At the back, Dean Frost and Lee McCarthy had their best day yet. Origami made 45.2 nm towards the finish, more than any other boat, and her gap to the race leader shrank from 82.7 nm on Monday evening to 71.4 nm.
Can Origami make the deadline?
She needs 1.99 knots. Any boat still racing at 13:00 local time (UTC) on 13 November is withdrawn. From 20:00 UTC Tuesday, Origami has 233 hours to cover 463.8 nm, which means averaging 1.99 knots towards Lanzarote. Over the last 24 hours she averaged 1.88 knots, against 1.43 knots the day before.
That target assumes a straight line to the finish, and the weekend forecast suggests headwinds.
What does Sunday's forecast mean for the fleet?
The team behind Katherine's Facebook page posted an early weather alert, saying current models show headwinds building significantly on 8 November, with gusts to 45 knots and seas to 4 metres. Given the slow progress so far, they expect that to catch the fleet about halfway down the qualifying leg. They also noted that the entrants and organisers have time to plan contingencies.
On Monday Katherine asked Race Control to send some wind. The weekend may deliver more than she ordered, and from the wrong direction.
Our own reading of the ECMWF and GFS models on PredictWind backs up the broad picture. Routing and paid weather services are banned in this race, so the skippers are working from free forecasts too.
Thursday, about 10:00 UTC. Still light. Around the fleet's current area both models give about 5 knots from the south-west to west-south-west, close to the course. Halfway down the course there is 9 to 11 knots from the south-east.
Sunday, about 18:45 UTC. Both models show a deep low north-west of Madeira, with 25 to 35 knots on its southern and eastern flanks. Halfway down the course ECMWF has 16 knots from the south and GFS 23 knots from the south-south-west. Near Lanzarote both show 16 to 23 knots from the south-south-west, at 1010 to 1013 hPa. With the course heading about 208 degrees, that is wind almost straight on the nose. West of the fleet's current position the models give 22 to 31 knots.
These are average wind speeds, so gusts will be higher. The forecast is still four to five days out and will change, but both models agree on the low.
What to watch
The front four are within 12 nm of each other with nearly 400 nm to go. Watch whether Viivi can hold off Yves in the light airs of the next couple of days, and how Race Control and the skippers plan for the weekend.
Race founder Don McIntyre and Jane are on their way to Lanzarote. The race says Don's tracker update posts will start again once they are set up there on Wednesday afternoon.
For the background on the whale and Viivi's chase, read our Day 4 report and our Day 3 report.
Meet the skippers
Read our profiles of Viivi Moisio and Flow, Yi Qun Liu (Yves) and Trekka, Matthew Freestone and Inimini, Katherine Urpani and Capucinette, 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.
