The comeback of Team Holcim-PRB has reshuffled the entire front of the fleet. After spending much of the previous day exploiting a transition zone, Rosalin Kuiper's crew clawed their way back to the leading group, which had been made up of Paprec Arkéa, Allagrande Mapei Racing, Biotherm, and Team Malizia. With the boats creeping along the eastern coast of Sicily in barely a breath of wind, the gaps between them shrank to just 10 miles, and for a spell this morning Holcim-PRB actually held the lead. "We're all back on the same starting line," said a relieved Nicolas Lunven.
The Mediterranean has been testing every crew relentlessly. Skippers have spent the entire race trying to answer one persistent, fundamental question: what conditions will they face next? The answer, in recent days, has been all of them at once. Two days ago, south of Sardinia and across to the west of Sicily, the front-runners punched through heavy storm systems. Then they slowed, then they surged, then they stalled again.
Lunven described the experience: "Despite a short and choppy sea where we buried the bow quite a bit, there was a downwind leg with 20 knots of wind, and then we found ourselves becalmed. And when we get out of it, we'll have to deal with upwind and reaching in changing conditions." Every point of sail, compressed into just a few days, dictated entirely by the weather's whims.
The storms that hit the leading boats yesterday were particularly ferocious. Yoann Richomme of Paprec Arkéa described "hundreds of lightning bolts," some of which "struck less than two kilometers from the boat. We weren't feeling very good about it," he admits. After surviving that, the front four pushed hard toward the southeast of Sicily, blasting through a race gate "at full speed, averaging 25 knots," according to Richomme, only to find themselves hitting "a wall with no wind" on the other side.
By late morning, speeds had tumbled from 25 knots down to a crawl of 7 to 8 knots. Aside from one brief burst of pace overnight, the leaders inched along the Sicilian coast from west to east, unable to pull clear. While Allagrande Mapei Racing, Biotherm, and Team Malizia sat alongside Paprec Arkéa waiting for pressure to fill in, Team Holcim-PRB was charging hard from behind.
The green-and-blue boat had been more than 150 miles adrift of the leaders. That deficit has now been wiped out entirely, a turnaround that delighted Lunven. "It's a nice combination of circumstances in our favour," he said. "The top four got stuck in a transition zone, and we reached them with wind from behind. They were kind enough to wait for us!"
The satisfaction runs deep for Kuiper's crew. Since the opening stages of the race, fortune had largely deserted them. Near the Porquerolles and again close to the Balearic Islands, the leading group had pulled clear and extended their advantage, with Holcim-PRB unable to hang on. To now find themselves back in contention, and briefly at the front, amounts to something close to a fresh start.
On Friday morning, by choosing a marginally more southerly track than their rivals, Holcim-PRB managed to take the race lead outright. The gaps remain far too slim to read too much into the order, but the quartet at the front has become a quintet, and Paprec Arkéa must now share the top position, with less than 10 miles covering all five boats.
Lunven expects the fleet to face "upwind and reaching in changing conditions" as they push on toward the finish in Boka Bay, expected on Monday. With margins this tight and conditions this unpredictable, the racing looks set to stay close right to the end.
Further back, Canada Ocean Racing - Be Water Positive and Team Amaala continue to fight their own battles. The Canadian crew sits around 170 miles behind the front group, while Alan Roura's Team Amaala trails a further 100 miles behind them.
