Six days into the 2026 Golden Globe Race, the fleet is dividing itself along a clean line: boats that found the stronger offshore breeze, and boats that didn’t.
Damien Guillou and Pat Lawless are firmly in the first camp. Guillou, sailing Solarem, put in 156 nautical miles over the last 24 hours at 6.3 knots and now leads Lawless’s Silvermines Hydro by 60 nautical miles, both boats holding a direct track south toward Lanzarote. Andrea Lodolo isn’t far off that pace either. Her BiBi logged the fastest four-hour average anywhere in the fleet, 7.2 knots, on the way to a 161-mile day that keeps her clear in third.
The wind split is most visible a little further back. Etienne Messikommer’s Bernard and Guido Cantini’s Hannah of Cowes have been sailing close enough to trade tacks within sight of each other, both working strong offshore pressure of 25 to 28 knots, boat speeds briefly touching nine knots on the race’s onboard footage. Messikommer took eight miles out of Cantini over the day, 160 to 152. Daniel Pinsky, tracking a more coastal line, is stuck in something closer to 15 to 18 knots and posted 145 miles as a result, a clear illustration of how much the routing choice is costing boats on the inshore option.
The standout run of the report belongs to Guy deBoer, whose Tashiba 36 Spirit had spent much of the opening week trapped in the light patch that opened the race’s first real tactical split. He’s now made 177 nautical miles in 24 hours, the best of anyone in the fleet, though his present heading risks running him back into softer air before long.
Further down the order, progress is more workmanlike: Isa Rosli (109nm) and Gunnar Christensen (103nm) are both ticking along, while Henry Wootton has finally found his rhythm on the inshore route at 151nm. Matt Woodside’s tracker reading of 64nm is understood to reflect a reporting glitch rather than his actual pace. At the back, Selim Yalçin logged just 39nm and now trails the leader by roughly 450 nautical miles, while Pär Nyman’s boat speed is improving without yet showing up in real distance gained.
Race organisers expect Guillou and Lawless to keep the better breeze for another 48 hours, stretching their buffer over the chasing group to as much as 240 nautical miles, before conditions further north help the trailing boats close some of that gap. Guillou is provisionally on track to reach the Lanzarote film gate around midnight on 15 September, with Lawless expected through early the next morning.
