The six boat Volvo Ocean Race fleet remained locked in a sweltering hot struggle for supremacy overnight as they continued their relentless progress towards the first turning point of the second stage of Leg 3 off the northern tip of Sumatra.
At 0400 UTC Ken Read’s PUMA Ocean Racing powered by BERG had maintained their lead at the head of the fleet, 1.7 nautical miles (nm) ahead of Chris Nicholson’s second placed CAMPER with Emirates Team New Zealand who had been steadily giving up their previous northerly positioning on the leading boat.
Franck Cammas’ Groupama sailing team held on to third place, dropping back a single mile to sit almost six miles off the lead. Almost 12 nm adrift of Groupama Iker Martínez’s Team Telefónica and Ian Walker’s Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing were in a virtual dead heat for fourth place, more than 17 nm off the lead with Telefónica’s position as the most northerly boat in the fleet giving them a 0.1 nm advantage over Abu Dhabi.
Mike Sanderson’s Team Sanya sat in sixth place 25.2 nm off the lead.
The breeze slowly decreased overnight making for flatter drier sea state and giving the crews some welcome respite from the unrelenting humid conditions.
On board leaders PUMA the mood was one of cautious optimism to be again leading the fleet on the opening days of an ocean leg – something they have managed on all three legs so far.
“Last night was another good one, and we still find ourselves leading the race east’” said PUMA Media Crew Member Amory Ross in his latest report from the boat. “Holding our ground in the early going has neither paid off nor cost us, as we’ve extended a little on Groupama (now 6 miles dead astern), and have reconnected with Camper this morning (just over 4 miles off our hip).
“They (CAMPER) have been aggressively sailing back down to our line and if they come all the way we will be close, just as we were when they tacked to the north a few days ago.”
With one or more fleet reshuffles highly likely when the fleet enters the confined and congested waters of the Malacca Strait where the winds are notoriously fickle and unpredictable, Ross said there was little attention being paid on PUMA to the regular but minor gains and losses made with each position report.
“In all likeliness, none of these small differences across the fleet matter much because everyone seems assured of the many windless race-restarts to come in the Malacca Straits,” he commented.
Having been caught out by such scenarios in the past Ross says the PUMA crew are painfully aware that leading the fleet can be a risky situation.
These scenarios tend to favour the trailing boats—a position we’ve never benefitted from (we were first into the Atlantic Doldrums and second into the Indian Doldrums)—so we’re very aware of how quickly our results and hard work can evaporate,” Ross said warily.
At the 0700 UTC position report the ranking remained the same with PUMA eking out another nautical mile on CAMPER and Groupama and Telefónica stretching out a two nautical mile advantage over Abu Dhabi.
