USPA NEWS - The French duo of Charlie Dalin and Yann Eliès on the latest generation 60ft foiling monohull, Apivia, appeared to be coasting to victory, literally, in the Transat Jacque Vabre Normandie Le Havre on Saturday afternoon. At the 15:00 UTC ranking, Apivia, cantering down the northeast coast of Brazil towards the finish line in the Bay of All Saints in Salvador de Bahia, led by 232 miles with just 155 to go. The latest routing continues to have them crossing the line at 02:00 UTC.
“(The wind) has just softened. So far we’ve had 15/16 knots of wind, we’ve been making 13 knots; we’re slower but the conditions are good, it's smooth. We passed a lot of fishermen during the night, they don’t have AIS, just a small white light, so we spent the night on lookout. We crossed paths with a few cargo ships as well. “I haven’t made the calculations yet, but I think that after midnight UTC we’ll be outside the bay. We’re trying to look after the boat, but we’ll just play the wind that we get during the day; we’ll stay in race mode until the end! We passed the point where we are closer to the finish than the second boat is to us.
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