Moonblue 2 going great guns

Geoff Hill's Antipodes still leads on the double: Overall IRC and Line Honours
Pete Churchouse's Moonblue 2 is 65 miles behind, still leading Premier
Cruising (white w/crown), 3rd IRC and 3rd LH.  Peter Cremers' Shahtoosh is the red one north
of the rhumb, after tick-tacking north yesterday; 3rd PC, 4th LH.  The TP52, Standard
Insurance is second Line Honours immediately north of Antibodes.  She
tacked north early out of the harbour, and so was able to avoid the knock
and tacking back to the rhumb that the rest of the fleet suffered yesterday.
Talking Head still leads IRC2, and Crystal leads Cruising
09:30, 29 March

UPDATE: 15:00, Moonblue 2 and Shahtoosh now level-pegging on the water, both with 98 miles to go.  MB2 still first in Premier, Shahtoosh moved up to second, with Explorer, the new XC50 in third.  Meantime, Andipodes has less that one mile to go, still with the Line Honours and Overall Handicap double in hand. [probably finished by now, given the Race Tracker delay..]

Live on the YellowBrick Tracker here.  (I'm not sure how long these stay online; I wonder...).

Tactically the two front boats are in interesting positions: Antipodes is harder on the breeze, currently 40TWA, while Standard Insurance north is travelling freer, about 70 TWA, and has slightly better boat speed at last checking.  Distance to finish between them: 20Nm.  If breeze clocks right a bit more, will favour the TP, though it seems to be sailing into a hole (4-5 knots) that doesn't extend down to Antibodes. So should be interesting and maybe close finish sometime later today. [current rough estimates: they'll be two hours apart, Antibodes first..]

At last checking of tracker: Moonblue 2 doing 9 knots in 11 knots of breeze at a TWA of about 55-60 degrees, so clearly revelling in the light-tight reaching conditions.  Antipodes and the TP52 are both doing a touch over 10 knots. (Can't help wondering how Xena would be doing, as do G&A in a comment to yesterday's post).

Winds 070-080, 10-12 knots.  Wonder if there'll be the usual "Luzon Hole"?...

PS: sometime and regular Xena crew: "Bucket" is aboard Moonblue 2; Stevo and TC aboard Shahtoosh.