While the world celebrates a new year with fireworks and good intentions, the leading boats in the Portimão Global Ocean Race celebrate a milestone of a different sort. Earlier today both Beluga Racer and Desafio Cabo de Hornos passed the halfway mark for Leg 2 and in doing so set their sights firmly on the second half of the leg; a long passage under Australia, across the Tasman Sea and into the Cook Strait. There is a lot of water stretched out ahead of them, but taken in bite sized chunks they will quickly eat up the miles to Wellington.
At the front of the pack Boris Herrmann and Felix Oehme on Beluga Racer continue to set a brisk pace. Their average speed for most of the last 24 hours, in fact for all of 2009 so far, has been over 11 knots, a full knot faster than the Chileans on board Desafio Cabo de Hornos. The extra pace has opened up a comfortable lead for them of almost 80 miles as both boats set up for passing north of the Ice Gate. The gate, which stretches along the 45th parallel from 105 degrees East to 120 degrees East, has been added to the course to keep the boats north of an area where numerous icebergs have been reported. It’s imperative that the boats remain to the north of the Ice Gate for the entire length of the gate; failure to do so will incur a stiff time and points penalty. Unlike the Kerguelen Gate, this gate is not a scoring gate.