Guillou and Lawless reach the trade winds as Kveseth questions her own reasons for finishing

Damien Guillou and Pat Lawless have reached the southeast trade winds, and the rest of the Golden Globe Race fleet is stuck in exactly the calms the two leaders just sailed clear of. Guillou made 110 miles at 6 knots aboard Solarem, with the wind angle expected to keep improving the further south he goes. Lawless, on Silvermines Hydro, added 88 miles at 5.1 knots. Both are placed to open real distance while everyone behind them waits on breeze that keeps not showing up.

Andrea Lodolo and Etienne Messikommer have split tacks, and the numbers explain themselves once you know the rhumb line runs south-southwest. Lodolo covered just 20 miles despite sailing at 5.9 knots, all of it on the wrong side of that line. Messikommer made 76 miles at a slower 4.2 knots, but on the tack that actually counts. Race founder Don McIntyre reckons Messikommer has the better of it for now, though he may tack back if the breeze ahead of him fades. Ertan Beskardes is holding one tack for useful, unspectacular gains, 73 miles at 4.5 knots. Guido Cantini has found wind again too, 53 miles at 5.3 knots, hard on the nose, and said in these conditions you can forget about the boat and just sail it. Daniel Pinsky has almost nothing to work with, drifting at 0.3 knots, and his message from Exodus caught the day: baking bread while getting baked himself in the heat, wondering when the wind comes back.

Two skippers went on camera with more than a tactical update. Gunnar Christensen gave a raw account of the emotional aftermath of Tropical Storm Gonzalo, still working to find momentum again while staying committed to the boat and the race. Helga Marie "Mara" Løvenskiold Kveseth spoke just as openly, but about something harder to sit with. In her own words, she said she doesn't need to do the GGR, doesn't need to sail solo around the world, doesn't need to experience the Southern Ocean, and that her real focus is raising the profile of her foundation and the causes she's sailing for. McIntyre, who's watched sailors reach this exact point for fifteen years, offered his own read: once that shift happens in someone's head, finishing gets very hard. He was careful to call it his opinion, said he hopes he's wrong, and isn't trying to push her out. Nothing in today's update suggests she's retired.

Isa Rosli is now about 100 miles ahead of Christensen, having pulled clear since their tracks crossed in the storm. Henry Wootton has slowed to 2.5 knots after his run of strong days, with a wall of light wind still ahead. Louis Kerdelhué is grinding through the same calm at 2 knots, and Matt Woodside is keeping a positive outlook at 3.8 knots. Pär Nyman had another strong day, 135 miles at 5.2 knots, still closing on the fleet from behind, though a broad patch of light wind developing ahead could slow that recovery before it finishes.

Guy deBoer's repairs are properly under way. His rigger Eli is doing the fibreglass work on Spirit while deBoer took the ferry to Gran Canaria for more epoxy and supplies. McIntyre floated a possible return to sea by Monday, 5 October, in Chichester Class, but called it ambitious rather than confirmed. The timing matters: strong southeast trades, 28 to 30 knots, are due to arrive around that same date, a fast but genuinely punishing stretch that McIntyre singled out as exactly the kind of pounding that would test the repair if deBoer is back at sea by then.

There's a rarer surprise in the wider weather picture. McIntyre says the forecast shows the Doldrums effectively closing up within about four days, unusual enough that he wondered aloud whether it's linked to the current El Niño pattern. If it holds, it hands the whole fleet an easier passage south than the leaders got. Seas across the fleet have already eased below two metres, though it's hot and humid for everyone still waiting on wind.

The order right now: Guillou leads Lawless, with Messikommer third, Lodolo fourth, Beskardes fifth, Pinsky sixth, Cantini seventh, Kveseth eighth and Wootton ninth. McIntyre's own caveat is worth keeping in mind. That order means little while so much of the fleet is still parked in light air, and it will only start to tell the real story once everyone's in the trades.