The fleet have broken through one of the first milestones on the leg five of the Volvo Ocean Race, as they are under 10,000 miles until the finish in Rio.
Conditions have dipped a little as they sail, although the fleet are still reaching 15 knots.
Ericsson 4 are holding pole position and they have made some distance from the chasing pack, PUMA have lost several miles in the last 24 hours and are now 39 miles behind in second.
Green Dragon’s easterly position seems to be paying off and they have pulled back some miles from Telefonica Blue who are just 13 miles to their stern. The crew will be happy with this considering the night onboard in which they caught something around the keel and had an issue with the mainsail, which meant a lot of lost speed in the process.
Skipper Ian Walker has stated: ‘In the middle of the night we quickly lost speed indicating we must have something caught on the keel.
‘Because it was over 20 knots we had to bear off, lower the jib and go head to wind and back down.
‘When all said and done this would have cost us 3 or 4 miles. Today we spent an hour sailing with no mainsail as we had to fix the inboard end of one of our batten sockets.
‘It appears to have just come apart under the load of all this reaching. Fortunately, we carry a spare, although as is so often the case the spare wasn’t identical so it needed some fine tuning.’
With the fleet split from east to west and with Green Dragon still holding the most easterly position, it is clear that they are all now sailing in a variety of conditions.
The Dragon crew is hoping this will work in their favour.
Walker continued: ‘I am happy with our Easterly position and I am sure the others will have to work this way - it seems to have stopped the loss of miles for a while.’
At present the fleet are currently sailing in an area of major satellite reorganisation, which means that in some cases they are receiving no weather information.
This is making the navigators job even harder as they try and make their approach to the dreaded doldrums.
For the crew onboard the Dragon they have another reason to be happy as watchleader Damian Foxall was named Irish Independent/www.afloat.ie Sailor of the Year.
The result was announced on Seascapes, the RTÉ Maritime radio show by Tom McSweeney yesterday and Damian was told last night during a live call to the Allianz Dublin Boat Show.
Foxall was selected by the judges for his outstanding contribution to Ireland’s international maritime reputation.
Volvo Ocean Race positions: leg five, day 8: 1300 GMT
(boat name/country/skipper/nationality/distance to finish)
Ericsson 4 SWE (Torben Grael/BRA) DTF 9842 nm
PUMA Racing Team USA (Ken Read/USA) +39
Ericsson 3 SWE (Magnus Olsson/SWE) +95
Telefónica Blue ESP (Bouwe Bekking/NED) +260
Green Dragon IRL/CHN (Ian Walker/GBR) +273
Delta Lloyd IRL (Roberto Bermudez/ESP) DNS
Telefónica Black ESP (Fernando Echávarri/ESP) DNS
Team Russia RUS (Andreas Hanakamp/AUT) DNS
