Weather conditions have improved significantly in just three days and the Green Dragon crew has changed their thermals for shorts.
Skipper Ian Walker says: ‘Three days ago the clothing call was thermals, boots, gloves, crash helmets and double fleece sleeping bags and now we are happily in shorts, UV tops, shoes, sunhats and sun cream.
‘The wildlife has changed too with no birds following us and certainly no albatrosses, but flying fish occasionally peppering the decks. The water temperature has more than doubled and so too has the air.’
But the intensity of the racing hasn’t changed. The top four boats are within a couple of hours of each other with the others not far behind.
Ian Walker continued: ‘This is pretty amazing considering what I am sure all the teams have been through in the last week.
‘For those watching on the internet the distance to the finish should start to mean something now as we start to head almost directly for Cochin.
‘We have had a frustrating last 24 hours as we got caught to windward of a huge rain cloud in the transition to the trade winds.
‘For over an hour we didn’t have a ripple on the water and all we could see on the position reports was everyone also, both right and left of us, in wind. This cost us and Ericsson 4, 20 to 30 miles as we were on a similar line but it has also cost us 3rd place. ‘
It seems to be a good moment to repair everything that needs to be fixed.
The crew are working continuously to stay on top of the breakages such as repairing a water leak through a glue joint on the port daggerboard, and reattaching the steering sheave box, which had broken clean off.
Tom Braidwood says in his blog: ‘I am pretty excited to tackle the boom and am waiting for Ian to give me the go-ahead’ but Ian is not sure that they’re better off concentrating on speed.
Ian Walker explained: ‘Amazingly, we are still going well with no boom and when we have the mainsail set up it looks good - the problems are when we need to react quickly to shifts or gusts as we have about four sheets hanging off it.
‘The back of the boat looks like a cat’s cradle. We are still undecided about whether to try to repair the broken boom but the sentiment is swinging in favour of toughing it out as we are.’
For the next 1000 miles, the Dragon will be reaching along the trade winds. Walker expounded: ‘We will sit tight try and keep up the pressure and aim to focus on the doldrums where we did so well on leg 1.’
Leg Two Day Nine: 1600 GMT Volvo Ocean Race Positions
(boat name/country/skipper/nationality/distance to finish)
Ericsson 3 SWE (Anders Lewander/SWE) DTF 1833 nm
Ericsson 4 SWE (Torben Grael/BRA) +1
Telefónica Blue ESP (Bouwe Bekking/NED) +34
PUMA Racing Team USA (Ken Read/USA) +37
Green Dragon IRL/CHN (Ian Walker/GBR) +51
Telefónica Black ESP (Fernando Echávarri/ESP) +97
Team Russia RUS (Andreas Hanakamp/AUT) +138
Delta Lloyd IRL (Roberto Bermúdez/ESP) +157
