It’s been 20 days and over 4,000 nautical miles since the Volvo Ocean Race fleet set sail for Cape Town from Alicante, but the two leading boats are still within sight of each other amid a very strong prospect of food shortage looming large.
The changing wind patterns and a new ‘Ice Gate’ are testing the navigators to the limit every day and keeping each of the seven crews on their toes.
At midnight UAE yesterday, skipper Ian Walker’s Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing narrowly had their noses in front, 7.5nm clear of Charles Caudrelier’s Dongfeng Race Team with Bouwe Bekking’s Team Brunel 11.4nm further adrift in third.
Chris Nicholson’s Team Vestas Wind are by no means out of it either in fourth place, 27.9nm behind the leader while Charlie Enright’s Team Alvimedica are further back 81.1nm in fifth.
Such a close packing of the crews so long into the opening leg is unheard of in the 41-year history of the event, with the sprint to be the first to sight Cape Town’s Table Mountain, one of the Seven Wonders of the World, still anyone’s to win. At the back of the fleet, it is not such a happy picture. Sam Davies’ all-woman Team SCA and Iker Martinez’s MAPFRE are 277.1nm and 476.8nm behind respectively.
Mapfre had huge problems with a broken water pipe on board and electrical issues on Tuesday and had to bail out in a hurry to avoid serious misfortune.
Martinez was close to appealing for help from land to assist with sorting issues with the charging of their engine, which performs a number of key functions including water desalination.
But great opportunities are still available to them; both SCA and Mapfre could still make up the difference as the leaders head down south to catch the low pressure winds before meeting with a St Helena high front on their way back up to Cape Town.
To avoid the risk of running into icebergs or growlers, an exclusion zone has been decided by race control, which is formed by longitude lines that serve as obstructions that the seven boats must leave to starboard.
Ahead still lies the Roaring 40s, four or five-metre waves, steady 25- knot winds and the likely drag race towards South Africa next week.
As the days wear on, there is now the strong possibility of food shortages in the fleet with the estimated time of arrival to Cape Town now been pushed back.
ETA first boat in Cape Town: The afternoon of Thursday, November 6.
