The Volvo Ocean Race fleet has come through a difficult first night of Leg 3.
“We have 35 knots upwind,” said Kevin Escoffier on Dongfeng a couple of hours after the start. “It’s a nice way to start the race. But soon the wind should decrease for the night.”
And that’s how it came to pass, with the boats now attempting to cross a ridge of high pressure and very light winds. Wind and boatspeeds are down in the 5-knot region at 0800 UTC. It’s been a race of extremes for the first 18 hours.
“We haven’t had a great day,” said Vestas 11th Hour Racing navigator Simon FIsher a few hours after the start. “Everyone been a bit more aggressive tacking into the Cape and we were late on that… Or conservative and just looking to get south into more pressure.”
But with all the talk about balancing risk and reward on a tough first night of Leg 3, skipper Charlie Enright summed it up best:
“Boat’s not broken and that’s about all we have going for us. But we’re still in touch,” he said.
Full ocverage is on the tracker – still live for the first 24 hours of the leg.
