After hearing Genny Tulloch mention Dongfeng sailing lower and faster in the on-board interview with Martin Strömberg today, I wondered if you could see it on the tracker. Since the leaders were all basically in a drag race today along the northern limit of the ice zone, it makes for a nice speed test.

And boy, was she right. The gif above shows Dongfeng closing rapidly on ADOR throughout the afternoon. Both boats were surfing at high speed on port gybe. At the beginning of the animation, 1238 UTC, Dongfeng was 28.2 miles from race-leader ADOR. Nine hours later, at the end of the clip, they’ve closed to 12.9 miles. That’s huge.

I think it’s unlikely that anyone on ADOR could see Dongfeng behind them, so they would have been unaware of the Chinese boat closing. The first they would have known about it would have been the 1915 sched.

I think the racing on ADOR probably got a lot more serious at that point. Because the gains pretty much stopped.

It would have been interesting to know who was at the helm and who was trimming on each boat throughout the afternoon, and whether either boat made any sail changes.

This race is very much not over.

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My favorite from today’s batch of on-board VOR videos. Eric Peron on Dongfeng makes a trip to the bow wearing a helmet cam reminiscent of the rig Peter Garbriel used for “Digging in the Dirt” on the Secret World tour.

Really gives a sense of what it’s like to work the pointy end on a VOR 65.

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Wolf (Yang Jiru) at the press conference announcing his selection for the crew of Dongfeng Racing Team, one of seven teams competing in the 39,000-mile Volvo Ocean Race. Source.

“During the press conference Leo explained he worked very hard and congratulated Horace and I for being onboard for Leg 1. I know how hard this is for him because he tries and tries so hard, but he is not yet ready for whatever reason, and I can feel he’s so sad but he’s so proud of us. This is why I left my place in the press conference and hugged him – this is why I cry. From the beginning I said, I race for China but now, now I also race for Leo.”

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