Green Dragon have reached the 40 day mark, with the last few days onboard having been long and slow.
Conditions have improved, and the Dragon is now up to speed again and making good progress towards Rio.
Just 700 miles remain on this epic leg for Ian Walker and his crew, and whilst the weather looked to be against them yesterday as Telefónica Blue closed the gap to within 50 miles, today brings better news, as the distance between them has increased again to over 160 miles.
Green Dragon have managed to escape the high pressure that has been a trap for them in the last week. The Dragon is now in good breeze and sailing at a steady 15 knots.
Volvo’s race expert Mark Chisnell filled us in, ‘They all had the east or south-easterly wind direction that would be expected to flow anti-clockwise above the high, at 12 o’clock relative to the centre. And in the case of Green Dragon, it was veritably howling, blowing 20 knots.’
Elsewhere Ericsson 3, who were leading the fleet home to Rio, have pulled the stealth play out of the bag today at 10:00 GMT - the current routing has them arriving into Rio approximately 9 hours ahead of their sister ship Ericsson 4, who also deployed stealth play at 16:00.
