Guillou crosses the equator as McIntyre opens up on a missed check-in from Kerdelhué

Damien Guillou has crossed the equator, and the margin behind him is getting hard to describe as anything but dominant. Race founder Don McIntyre put real numbers on it today: Solarem is now 835 nautical miles ahead of the fleet average, Pat Lawless's Silvermines Hydro 617 miles up, with only 170 miles between the two leaders themselves. McIntyre likened it to watching The Untouchables, and when asked outright whether the chasing fleet could still reel them in based on how 2018 and 2022 played out, he didn't hedge. Highly unlikely, barring an incident. Lawless had the slower day of the two, 130 miles at 5.6 knots as he traded some distance for speed, while Guillou held a straighter line in slightly more easterly breeze that let him keep his boat speed up.

Today I had a great learning moment talking to Pat's team manager. During Pat's sail, he is raising funds for Parkinson's - a very worthy purpose. He has set up an iDonate page from which donations can be made: https://www.idonate.ie/fundraiser/patlawless1

Louis Kerdelhué is the story worth more care. McIntyre confirmed IE Charge's skipper had gone seven days without making his mandatory daily safety check-in, before the team found a radio call he'd made with race management on 28 September that had somehow been missed off the log. McIntyre framed it as procedure rather than alarm. Messages have gone out to other entrants asking if they've heard Kerdelhué on the radio, and Gunnar Christensen, sailing nearby aboard Pompoen, may be asked to divert and check on him directly, with time compensation on offer if it comes to that. McIntyre isn't personally worried, he said, mostly because Kerdelhué is known for disliking the paperwork side of things rather than for getting into trouble. But the process runs the same either way.

Further back, Ertan Beskardes has had the day of the week. He's surged to third overall, and his own broadcast caught him in good form to match it, sailing Miss Beagle through confused, boiling water where two currents meet near the equator, the kind of sea state he said would stop a lighter boat outright. His plan for Trindade is deliberate: he's holding 30 to 40 miles above the island rather than aiming straight at it, after a wind shift caught him out there on a previous attempt. His HF radio's been running most evenings for the news, and he pointed out that Miss Beagle's winches came from Jean-Luc Van Den Heede himself, fitted when the boat, formerly Matmut, was being prepared for the Frenchman's winning 2018 campaign.

McIntyre's own tactical read of the Doldrums lines up with what Beskardes is finding out there. Etienne Messikommer is positioned well enough on Bernard that McIntyre thinks he could be first through to a commanding position once the hole closes. Beskardes himself may just scrape through on the eastern edge of it. Andrea Lodolo's push on BiBi risks running straight into the no-wind band and parking there, while Daniel Pinsky has been getting a boost from cloud cover on Exodus, visible plainly on the satellite data. Helga Marie "Mara" Løvenskiold Kveseth is light on wind for now aboard Showgirl but expected to catch the group back up once it fills in.

Guy deBoer's repairs are going well enough that McIntyre is now eyeing a weekend restart, though his gut says Monday is more realistic. The Hobart gate concern that's shadowed his return turns out to have been a misunderstanding on deBoer's own part, he'd believed the cutoff was the end of December rather than the end of January, and McIntyre says there's no real pressure on that front at all.