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Displaying items by tag: Turn The Tide on Plastic

#VOR - Yesterday’s snug racing out of the gate in Alicante made for the most exciting Volvo Ocean Race start in recent memory.

But the near-misses weren’t only between the fleet as the jockeyed for position out of port, as they faced a slalom of spectator boats offshore.

In particular, Turn The Tide on Plastic — with Annalise Murphy on deck — narrowly avoided disaster just minutes into their race as some onlookers got a little too close for comfort.

Seen from on board the Dee Caffari-skippered boat, the squeeze looked even tighter — potentially a more dangerous situation than what they’re bound to face on the open ocean over the next few months.

As reported earlier this afternoon, the lead in Leg 1 is still held by Vestas 11th Hour Racing, which features Ireland’s Damian Foxall in a senior crew role.

Published in Ocean Race

William M Nixon has been writing about sailing in Ireland and internationally for many years, with his work appearing in leading sailing publications on both sides of the Atlantic. He has been a regular sailing columnist for four decades with national newspapers in Dublin, and has had several sailing books published in Ireland, the UK, and the US. An active sailor, he has owned a number of boats ranging from a Mirror dinghy to a Contessa 35 cruiser-racer, and has been directly involved in building and campaigning two offshore racers. His cruising experience ranges from Iceland to Spain as well as the Caribbean and the Mediterranean, and he has raced three times in both the Fastnet and Round Ireland Races, in addition to sailing on two round Ireland records. A member for ten years of the Council of the Irish Yachting Association (now the Irish Sailing Association), he has been writing for, and at times editing, Ireland's national sailing magazine since its earliest version more than forty years ago