On deck with the Camper crew in the Atlantic. Photo Hamish Hooper/ETNZ.
Camper takes a hit to search for stronger winds in Volvo Race
CAMPER lost precious miles on Wednesday evening, giving up their southerly
position to dodge an area of light wind as Telefónica closed to within two miles
of Leg 7 frontrunners Groupama.
Chris Nicholson’s men on CAMPER with
Emirates Team New Zealand had been following a course 50 miles south west of
Groupama sailing team but were forced to head north to avoid a ridge of high
pressure that would have seen them slow to a halt.
The move has proved
costly for the team, who just two days ago were lying in second, relegating them
to sixth place, more than 80 miles behind the leaders at 1900 UTC.
“The
scenario right now is that a couple of the guys are trying to get through the
high pressure,” CAMPER helmsman Tony Rae said.
“The weather is not
exactly as forecasted so we’ve had to get ourselves up a bit to enable us to do
the same. We had to take quite a big loss to get back into the pressure.
“It’s something we’ll have to chip away at but there’s a long way to go
yet, over 2,500 miles, so we’re really trying to set ourselves up for the next
few days and see we’ll see what happens.”
Meanwhile, overall race leaders
Telefónica continued their assault on their French rivals Groupama narrowing the
gap to just 1.5 miles and travelling more than two knots quicker as the two
crews closed in on one another.
Third-placed Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing had
another successful day chasing the leading pair and at 1900 were trailing by
just 19 miles, averaging speeds of more than 19 knots, the fastest in the
fleet.
Around 70 miles from the leaders, Team Sanya, in fifth, gained two
miles on fourth-placed PUMA Ocean Racing powered by BERG, winners of the
previous two offshore legs.
- VOR Media
