Volvo Ocean Race Leg 6 Update: AkzoNobel & Scallywag Seize Opportunity In The Doldrums

17th February 2018

Justin Ferris in action on board Team AkzoNobel on Saturday 10 February Credit: Rich Edwards/Volvo Ocean Race

#VOR - Team AkzoNobel and Sun Hung Kai/Scallywag are the big winners over the past 24 hours as both have had a relatively fast transition through the doldrums.

This has allowed them to gain about 100 miles on the chasing pack in the Volvo Ocean Race fleet, who have suffered through some painful moments.

Dongfeng Race Team and MAPFRE have had the worst of it. Languishing for hour after hour in extremely light and variable winds, while at the same time AkzoNobel and Scallywag were hurrying south at speeds up to 20 knots.

In the middle, Team Brunel and Turn the Tide on Plastic made their escape ahead of the final pair, and at 1pm Irish time/UTC today (Saturday 17 February) they find themselves making good speed chasing down the leaders.

The next 24 hours look to be slightly more settled with the fleet racing south in moderate westerly winds. But by Sunday night (UTC) the leaders will be bumping into the second half of this doldrums crossing.

This looks to be a more complicated transition than usual, with cyclone activity to the south of the fleet disrupting the normal weather patterns.

It will make the start of the week extremely challenging, and there is likely to be some kind of compression in the fleet with the back markers making gains as the leaders slow.

Regrettably, non-safety communication with the fleet has been disrupted since Friday evening UTC. Inmarsat confirms that it is currently experiencing an outage of its I-4 F1, L-band satellite, which covers the Asia Pacific region.

The cause has been identified as a spacecraft altitude control issue. Inmarsat is currently implementing the specific recovery activities to establish a safe return to normal operations as soon as possible.

This outage has impacted the onboard reporters being able to send media off the boat. However, the safety of the fleet has not been affected as Race Control is still able to track the boats and send basic messages to the fleet by email via an alternative Inmarsat satellite.

Leg 6 Position Report, Saturday 17 February (Day 11) at 1pm Irish time/UTC:

Team AkzoNobel - DTF 2118.07 nautical miles
Sun Hung Kai/Scallywag +54.79 nautical miles
Team Brunel +129.86
Turn the Tide on Plastic +183.34
Dongfeng Race Team +224.09
MAPFRE +237.29

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MacDara Conroy

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MacDara Conroy is a contributor covering all things on the water, from boating and wildlife to science and business

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