Going their own wayTwice since the start of leg 4 SCA has split…
Going their own way
Twice since the start of leg 4 SCA has split from the fleet. Both times are shown on the tracker screen captures above.
The first time was as they were leaving Sanya a few hours after the start. Apparently there was some ambiguity in the race instructions (I think?) that caused most of the competitors to think they needed to go one way, but Libby and Sam (or someone) on SCA realized that under the rules they could actually take a different, faster route. So they went that way, and it put them briefly in the lead.
The second time was a just a short while ago. The fleet has been on a long port-tack beat toward the northern edge of the Philippines. The lead is a little tricky to judge in the tracker; the boats are going to have to tack onto starboard to get through the Luzon Strait, so they’re actually closer, race-wise, than it appears from a casual glance.
Around sunrise this morning local time, as the fleet sailed into the persistent header around the Philippines, SCA tacked, the first competitor to do so, with Brunel tacking to cover almost immediately while the rest of the fleet continued on port. If it’s the wrong call it could drop them off the back of the fleet. But if it’s the right call it could put them in the lead.
The last two legs have mostly been sailed in light winds, conditions that SCA didn’t train for very intensively. But what they did train for was heavier conditions like these. I’m looking forward to seeing whether the months they spent pounding into the trade winds off Lanzarote will help them be more competitive on this leg.
Reposted from http://ift.tt/1DBxI3b.
Tags: vor, volvo ocean race, weareteamsca.
