Sailing: Stamm and Dubois set sharp pace

The Around Alone leaders are making short work of the Great Australian Bight as Bernard Stamm, on Bobst Group Armor Lux, and Thierry Dubois, on Solidaires, reel off day after day of 300-plus miles.

Stamm has less than 2,000 miles to go to the finish in Tauranga and was rapidly closing on the west coast of Tasmania. Dubois had been able to close the gap a little over the New Year festivities, but the fair winds that he had been sailing in finally caught up with the Swiss sailor, and Stamm has opened up his lead once again. At the last poll, he was 287 miles ahead of Solidaires sailing at 13 knots.

Graham Dalton, on Hexagon, is tenaciously hanging on to his third place while still dealing with the effects of a flu bug he has had since Cape Town.

Behind him, Simone Bianchetti, on Tiscali, and Emma Richards, on Pindar, are still locked in their race. Fifty miles separate them as the two yachts now sail diverging courses. For much of the past week Richards has been following directly in the wake of the Italian yacht, but she has now dived south in hope of finding more wind.

"I took a gybe south not long after I had been through the gate [the sliding waypoint] and a little earlier than Simone and Graham, which I am hoping will pay later," she said. "There is a little more wind here and I got the shift slightly earlier."

At the back of Class 1 Bruce Schwab, on Ocean Planet, is having trouble after a gybe to the north did not pay the dividends he had hoped. He pushed too hard playing catch-up, which has resulted in damage to part of his boom vang arrangement.

Almost 1,000 miles separate the Class 1 leader Stamm from Schwab, and with all the Class 1 boats past the halfway stage of the third leg Stamm could be in New Zealand by next Thursday or Friday.