The VOR fleet continues to work south toward the trade winds,…
The VOR fleet continues to work south toward the trade winds, gybing back and forth for optimum speed along the coast of Western Sahara. The current leader, Dongfeng, has benefited from being farther ahead and in better wind. Astern, SCA has come out on the losing end of a few strategic choices, putting them in last place (for now), 25 miles astern.
It will be interesting to see how things develop now that the boats are farther apart. It’s better to be in front (obviously), but being the leader can sometimes mean sailing into holes that the trailing boats are then able to avoid. And just as Dongfeng is benefiting now from being the first to enter the trades, they’ll also be the first to enter the doldrums later, where the fleet is likely to bunch up again.
There’s a lot of racecourse left. The boats will be crossing the Atlantic to round the islands of Fernando de Noronha off the coast of Brazil, then back across the Atlantic to Cape Town. And then on around the world, with eight more legs before the ultimate finish next June in Gothenburg, Sweden.
Reposted from http://ift.tt/1wOzYhH.
Tags: vor, volvo ocean race.
