Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing's Azzam and Dutch Team Brunel emerged on Monday ahead of the rest of the seven-strong Volvo Ocean Race fleet after the strategic gambles of sailing one side or the other of the Cape Verde Islands in the Atlantic added new spice to the competition.
Despite having been held up for two hours to replace a broken rudder on Saturday, Chinese boat Dongfeng Race Team held a narrow advantage by early Monday morning but their decision to sail south around the islands soon cost them their sliver-thin lead.
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The crews of Team Brunel and Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing opted to go north around the Cape Verde Islands instead and were rewarded with extra wind which has left the Emirati outfit, as of the midday UTC update (12.55pm UTC / 4.55pm UAE), with a 4.6 nautical mile edge on the Dutch boat.
Dongfeng have dropped back to third, nearly eight nautical miles off Team Brunel’s second-place pace and just ahead of Spanish Team Mapfre, sitting 15 nautical miles behind the lead.
Danish boat Team Vestas Wind trail those two closely, another four nautical miles behind Mapfre.
The Turkish-sponsored American Team Alvimedica and the women’s crew of Team SCA (Sweden) currently bring up the rear.
A clear distinction following the crucial Cape Verde decision, along the first leg to Cape Town, South Africa, has emerged between the two leaders, the three yachts forming the middle of the pack and the two bringing up the rear.
While the first two are separated by less than five nautical miles and the next three are within another 15 miles, with Vestas Wind the furthest out of that set 19 miles behind Azzam, Alvimedica trail the leaders by 31.3 miles and SCA have found themselves 63.5 miles behind.
With the first leg covering 6,487 miles in total and the boats only having reached about a third of that distance so far, though, advantages can be fleeting.
Wouter Verbraak, navigator for Team Vestas Wind, summed up the dilemma the crews have faced in the last 24 hours.
“The Cape Verde Islands are like a magnet,” he explained. “You always get drawn towards them, they are tricky to handle and if you don’t use the local winds you’ll get burnt.”
The next hurdle the fleet face are the notorious – in sailing terms – Doldrums where the boats will lose what moderate winds they have and it will be a question of finding any gust to keep them moving.
The race will take nine months to complete, finishing in Gothenburg, Sweden on June 27, 2015. The fleet cover 38,739 nautical miles and visit all the continents and 11 different countries.
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