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With Andrea Mura completing the 2023/2024 Global Solo Challenge podium, certainly the focus of many of those following the event has drifted away towards other ongoing events and others about to start. However, four skippers are still at sea and for them there is no option to just scroll away from their long adventures.
Riccardo Tosetto and Francois Gouin are both preparing for their final dash to the finish, with the Italian skipper less than 1500 miles to A Coruna and the French captain lagging just 240 miles behind in terms of distance to the finish. However, whilst Riccardo is already north of the area influenced by the Azores high pressure system and can set his eyes on the final destination, Francois needs to keep sailing north before he can make a turn towards the Iberian peninsula.
Riccardo is currently expected to arrive about March 30, which would require him to sail around 200 miles a day, which is plausible in the strong following winds that are forecast. Francois on the other hand has 2 more days to sail north, and then may be affected by the center of the Azores high pressure itself, which will be slowly moving south and towards him.
The patch of light winds should keep displacing south so that Francois should find the northwesterly winds even if initially he were to get stuck in light airs. He should be sailing in favorable winds starting from the 26th when he will be around 1100 miles to the finish and could potentially finish between the 1st morning and the 2nd, although he may be slowed by having to permanently sail with 3 reefs due to his problems with the mainsail track.
David Linger is 1000 miles south of the equator and 4200 miles to the finish. After the storms in late February the skipper of Koloa Maoli has recently had to battle with the fickle and light winds in the area west of Rio and Salvador where the trade winds curl from SE to NW requiring patience to make progress to the north.
David, however, should be just one tack away from being able to clear the westernmost part of Brazil on his way north towards the equator and then the Azores high, before he can set his eyes on the final goal of A Coruna. He may have to spend another month at sea before closing the circle where he started from at the end of October last year.
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