The crew of Delta Lloyd just gets better and better. Although finishing in fifth place this morning in Galway at 0339 GMT, the team had been up in the lead during this leg and was in contention for a podium finish right up until the last moment.
It has been edge of the seat stuff watching the fight for the top three places in leg seven of the Volvo Ocean Race play out right to the bitter end. This morning, at 0219 GMT, PUMA pipped hometown boat Green Dragon to second place, but only by three miles. The Dragons finished 11 minutes later at 0231 GMT, greeted by a very large and noisy Galway crowd.
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Ericsson 4 again took maximum points this morning when she crossed the finish of Volvo Ocean Race leg seven in Galway in first position. She finished at 0054 GMT today after taking seven days, 10 hours, 33 minutes and 51 seconds to sail across the North Atlantic from Boston.
After all but Telefónica Black played their Stealth option overnight to cover the timing of the critical gybe, the fleet is now converging on the finish in Galway in what is promising to be dramatic ending to this trans-Atlantic leg from Boston, USA. Accordingly, Galway is prepared for a grandstand finish in the early hours of Sunday morning.
On Saturday 16 May, the fleet left Boston bound for Galway in Ireland in the last of the true offshore legs of the Volvo Ocean Race 2008-09. The start was not without drama.
Ericsson 4 is back in her familiar position, leading the fleet by 13 nm as they scream towards Galway. But, the last 24 hours have not been without incident. The red sky yesterday morning heralded a warning, and, as the wind increased as forecast late yesterday afternoon, PUMA was in trouble, having just sailed into the lead.
The breeze is up and the Volvo fleet is rocketing downwind towards a predicted finish in Galway, Ireland early on Sunday morning. It’s the kind of sailing that everyone has been looking forward to and it is almost certainly the last time the boats will have the chance to show off their paces in the open ocean.
The fleet, led by Telefónica Black, is converging on the southeast corner of the ice exclusion zone just over three nautical miles ahead, where sheets will be eased and spinnakers hoisted as a new and exciting downwind game begins.
Telefónica Blue continues to make her mark on the Volvo Ocean Race 2008-09 when at 0311 GMT today, she was first past the scoring gate off Newfoundland, claiming four points. This comes on top of her recent wins inshore in Rio de Janeiro and Boston and her rounding the Fernando de Noronha Gate in first place on leg six.
Everything lined up perfectly for full points at the scoring gate until early yesterday morning when a couple of big whales appeared out of the thick fog. We managed to avoid the first one, but we only saw the tail of the next one as it dived just in front of us.
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