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Day 7 saw the fleet row a total of over 1500nm and made good over 1200nm, an average of over 42nm per crew – by far the best days rowing yet. With the first task of clearing the Canaries over, and all crews making good south through the first week, the following 7 days should see crews really impose themselves on the Atlantic Ocean and make excellent progress towards the finish line.

Britannia III made 68nm to the finish on day 7, and are 292nm closer to the finish than they were at the start of the race. To break the current record of 33 days 7 hours and 30 minutes they must cross the finish line before 1300 hrs on Saturday 06 February. That gives them a further 26 days from 1300 hrs on Monday 11 January to make a new record. At the start of the race they needed to make good 76nm per day to break the record, however, due the route and conditions taken by both themselves and the current record holder La Mondiale, Britannia III are actually in front of the current record by 41nm. From this point on, historically crews have stronger winds and, certainly in the case of Britannia III will be looking to make good between 90-100nm per day.

For the racing fleet, if crossing the ocean wasn’t enough there are records out to be beaten. All the crews are currently behind the pace set by the records, purely because the data for records is an average of the race – that is to say the speeds and distances outline at the foot of this document are always the DMG and VMG relative to the finish line. It is well documented that crews have travelled south and then start travelling west, so while they are behind each record now, over the next two weeks crews should start to claw back the lost miles. Here follows a brief summary of the records, and the crews trying to break them.

The two remaining fours in the race have the tough record of 36 days to beat. However, both crews are all female, and the current fastest women’s four record is just under 52 days. Weather permitting this could be broken, and requires a DMG of 50nm per day.

The pair’s race is always hotly contested, being the most popular of the classes. The current record is a little over 40 days. With the progress of QBE Insurance Challenger, Karukera and the other crews currently leading the fleet there are high hopes that this maybe taken as many of the pairs are surpassing 50 and 60nm days and this may get better as the winds strengthen into Antigua. To beat the records crews will need to exceed 65nm per day.

Furthermore, the all female crew of Explore will be trying to break the World and GB Atlantic records for a female pair of 50 days and 73 days respectively.

The solo record is 42 days which is contestable. However, the race record is 68 days, this, looking at Charlie Pitchers progress is most certainly attainable, and certainly a record that several other solo rowers will hope to topple. To break the race record a solo rower needs to make good a little under 40 nm per day, a distance Charlie has surpassed on several occasions, most notably yesterday, whereby he made good nearly 65 nm.

Beech Boys Atlantic (the father and son crew of Norman and James Beech) will be hoping to beat the current father/son record of 78 days and with it James will become the youngest successful male ocean rower in history. They will need to continue at their current speed of 1.65knots to break this.

The table below shows the current records for the classes as well as the average DMG and VMG required per day to beat the current record.