One by one the Volvo Ocean Race fleet has followed Ericsson 4 back into the Doldrums, and the torture they endured in Leg 1 and Leg 2 has begun again.
Torben Grael and his team were the first to slow on the 07:00 GMT Position Report this morning. “Today we arrive at the Doldrums, and the last eight hours has been really painful with lots of clouds and light winds,” announced Joca Signorni, from aboard Ericsson 4. And for a brief period they even appeared to have tacked to starboard, in a bid to find new breeze. It looks like it worked. By the 10:00 GMT Position Report they were moving again, and are now matching the speed of PUMA, who are still 22 miles behind them.
The real winners in this initial exchange are Ericsson 3 – “what we really want is to get up there and match race with Ericsson 4 and PUMA,’ announced Ericsson 3’s navigator, Aksel Magdahl, earlier today. Magdahl’s wish has been partly granted, having started seven hours behind PUMA, they are now just three miles away from the second place that Ken Read and his team have held (apart from a brief period in the lead) for a week. But at the 16:00 GMT Position Report, the leading trio were all maintaining very similar boat speeds, around 11-12 knots, with the same wind speed. Still, there is every likelihood that this will end up in a three-way, close-quarter battle.
Behind the leading trio, Telefonica Blue were sticking to their strategy and still aiming at their pre-determined Doldrums crossing point. While they still had plenty of wind and a boat speed in the high-teens, they seem to be aiming at the same target that the leaders have locked onto. Doubtless he was thinking of Green Dragon when he wrote that – while the rest of the fleet have chosen to fight it out in the same piece of water, Ian Walker and his team have created a real opportunity for themselves. They are over 100 miles further east than the rest of the fleet, and heading for a completely different part of the Doldrums.