Roberto Bermudez de Castro/ESP brought the crippled Delta Lloyd across the finish to complete leg three of the Volvo Ocean Race from Cochin in India, at 2007 GMT tonight, after 10 days, 10 hours, 7minutes and five seconds (elapsed time 10:10:7:5), more than 24 hours after Bouwe Bekking and Telefónica Blue scored their first leg win of the event.
Green Dragon (Ian Walker/GBR) and Kosatka Team Russia (Andreas Hanakamp/AUT) have been fighting their own private battle for the minor placings.
We are limping home. We are about 20 hours from the finish line with an expected eta in the dawn hours on the 24th. The wind looks to be cooperating today. Right now, we have eight knots of wind pushing us along on a nice beam reach angle.
We saw this leg as a good opportunity to get a podium place as we did not expect any hard running conditions, our known ‘Achilles heel’. We had ‘no excuse to lose’ as Dennis Conner used to say. In front of us we had a long upwind struggle in NE trade winds, which should do us, fine we thought…
Fernando Echávarri from Spain brought Telefónica Black through the finish in Singapore today in fifth place at 1736 GMT (0136 local time), after racing for nine days, seven hours, 36 minutes and 23 seconds (09:07:36:23).
We just finished the leg to Singapore. I have to be simple with my thoughts because I am too tired to get really in-depth.
Fighting for every inch, Telefónica Blue, skippered by Dutchman Bouwe Bekking, crossed the finish line at the end of leg three of the Volvo Ocean Race to score an emphatic victory in Singapore today at 1451 GMT (2251 local time).
Leg three of the Volvo Ocean Race is in its final stages, but which teams will be on the podium today in Singapore is still anyone’s guess. Only 22 nautical miles separate the top four boats, which are due to finish in just one hour’s time. “A solid three iron is what it would take to whack a golf ball off the mainsail of half the fleet at this stage,” says Kenny Read, American skipper of PUMA currently in second place.
A very happy bunch here on Telefónica Azul. We kept our heads cool today, and, as predicted, it wasn’t over until close to the finish.
All the talk on the Malacca Straits was of pirates, fishing nets, shipping and obstacles but it was the wind shifts and tide that we should have been focusing on.
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