Update from onboard: Greendragon
“Fiji has been and gone and it is now clear that boats in the East like ourselves and E4 did well going East and boats in the West like Telefónica did well going West. It must have been very difficult for the more central boats to decide what to do and so E3 and Puma separated and took different options from within sight of each other.
Amazingly enough it looks as though in a few more hours they are likely to come back together in sight of each other once again. I suspect Puma and Telefónica are very relieved to have got through the gap so cleanly as they could have easily been stuck in no wind so close to land - it was certainly a risky route and I applaud them for taking it on. We had few choices to make being so far East and felt a little hard done by not to have crossed one or both of the Ericsson boats as they tacked onto starboard.
It was certainly on the cards until a big right shift let them across our bow in the last 100 miles. For now it has been great just to feel we are back in the race. It is quite amazing that after 5000 miles the whole fleet are within 50 miles, or 4 hours sailing of each other. We are now heading due south towards New Zealand which is causing some anxiety with the 2 kiwis onboard. There was already some talk of swimming ashore as we sailed through the islands off the Eastern tip of Fiji so we will have to stay out of swimming range of the NZ coast. I have hidden the passports just in case.” Ian Walker Blog-
Amazingly enough it looks as though in a few more hours they are likely to come back together in sight of each other once again. I suspect Puma and Telefónica are very relieved to have got through the gap so cleanly as they could have easily been stuck in no wind so close to land - it was certainly a risky route and I applaud them for taking it on. We had few choices to make being so far East and felt a little hard done by not to have crossed one or both of the Ericsson boats as they tacked onto starboard.
It was certainly on the cards until a big right shift let them across our bow in the last 100 miles. For now it has been great just to feel we are back in the race. It is quite amazing that after 5000 miles the whole fleet are within 50 miles, or 4 hours sailing of each other. We are now heading due south towards New Zealand which is causing some anxiety with the 2 kiwis onboard. There was already some talk of swimming ashore as we sailed through the islands off the Eastern tip of Fiji so we will have to stay out of swimming range of the NZ coast. I have hidden the passports just in case.” Ian Walker Blog-
