Posted by Peter Willis on January 29, 2001 at 21:37:30 from 195.92.67.68:
Ellen MacArthur has today taken the lead in the Vendee Globe single-handed round the world yacht race, 81 days into the event, and with 3,000 miles, about 14 days to go. Within the last few hours, she's dropped back to second, but she is now neck and neck with the leader, with a good chance of winning. Over the last few weeks, in the Southern Ocean, around Cape Horn and up to the equator, she has been lying second, having pulled up from 5th, and has been steadily choping down the distance between herself, in Kingfisher, and the leader Michel Desjoyeux in PRB, whose lead just before the horn was around 600 miles, and described then as "unassailable". Ellen is, amongst other things (youngest competitor, probably smallest, former yachts woman of the year)a Patron of the Nancy Blackett Trust, and we're immensely proud of her.
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