The stage will see an army of virtual skippers navigate from Itajai in Brazil to Newport on the USA’s east coast over 5,700 challenging nautical miles. The nature of the leg means that time zones will hardly change as the fleet heads north – unlike the weather.
© Virtual Regatta
The virtual skippers will have to fight their way through numerous climate zones, edging their way round the St Helena High in the South Atlantic and into the trade winds.
From that point the dreaded Doldrums will rear its ugly head for one last time, bringing fickle winds, thunder storms, rain and plenty of cloud action. Once clear of the Doldrums it’ll be back into the trade winds before taking on the Azores High, the northern hemisphere’s equivalent of the St Helena High.
One of the last hurdles will be the Westerly Storm Track, a series of depressions that spin off the North American continent towards Europe. With just four legs remaining, things are heating up on the overall scoreboard.
Swedish player Tessa94 tops the table with two leg wins to his name, followed by Belgium’s Marcusbelgicus and British 2011-12 Volvo Ocean Race game winner Sideshow, who also has two leg victories under his belt.
The next four stages are going to be crucial in deciding the overall winner of the 2017-18 Volvo Ocean Race, starting with Leg 8. It’s still not too late to join in the action – head to volvooceanrace.com/game to sign up now and you could be on the start line when racing resumes at 2pm local time (5pm UTC) on Sunday April 22.
