Volvo Ocean Race: "Catch me if you can": Six boats chase Dee Caffari's team

The most easterly position in the fleet earned Dee Caffari's team Turn the Tide on Plastic the leading position on the current course north two days ago. Now the young 50:50 mixed team must defend their lead. Nautical mile after nautical mile, the hunters have made up ground over the past few hours. But on Saturday morning, Caffari's team still had a lead of around seven nautical miles over Charlie Enright's team Vestas 11th Hour Racing and almost 17 nautical miles over Charles Caudrelier's Dongfeng Race Team.

With the fastest intermediate speed of up to 19 knots, Xabí Fernandez Team was in 6th place behind Team Brunel and AkzoNobel, 50 nautical miles behind the leading group. As the slowest boat with a speed of around 15 knots, David Witt's Team Sun Hung Kai / Scallywag had almost 80 nautical miles to make up. A few hours before passing Recife and Natal at the easternmost tip of South America, the teams are still struggling with unpredictable cloud activity and are engaged in a speed race in moderate winds of around 11 knots.

"The team is currently in the lead. They have worked hard to consistently get 100 per cent out of the boat. Sail changes are required with every new cloud. In the past 24 hours there have been too many to count. Sometimes there were only 20 minutes between two sail changes," reported Turn-the-Tide-on-Plastic-Anbord reporter James Blake the day before. "As a result," says Blake, "the crew who are not awake no longer have complete recovery periods. But morale is high on board. The team is happy to step on the gas. They always intended to occupy the most easterly position in the fleet and that now seems to be paying off. There's still a long way to go, but this young team will have a chance to fight for a podium place if they can keep up the momentum."

Italian Francesca Clapcich said: "We are leading! This is fantastic! We are sailing a really solid leg. We just have to keep this up for another two weeks." The 49erFX world champion and crossfit trainer is sailing around the world for the first time. The heroine of her youth: Dee Caffari. Clapcich is now part of the youngest team in the fleet, which is led by Caffari. She is fighting and living her dream in the only team with five women and five men.

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