One day after the doldrums start off Itajai, the field sails out onto the South Atlantic as one. Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing's botched start had no consequences. Skipper Ian Walker had positioned his boat too close to the right of the starting boat and was unable to push it under the line due to the lack of wind. He drifted past the outside of the starting boat, lost a lot of time and had to turn back and restart several hundred metres behind. But by the time he left the bay, he had equalised the deficit.
The overall leader is currently in third place, but all the boats are still within sight of each other. Walker's team Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing is engaged in a duel with the US crew of Alvimedica.
The entire field is sailing with wind from port, with Alvimedica and Abu Dhabi furthest to windward. Abu Dhabi's on-board reporter Matt Knighton complains that the team ahead, Alvimedica, is copying Abu Dhabi's every move. A distance of half a nautical mile is close enough to be hindered by the disturbed winds from the Alvimedica sails. Skipper Walker is constantly trying to keep clear to windward, but Alvimedica always goes with him. The result is that both sail a little too high and therefore slower.
Meanwhile, Team Dongfeng is struggling with problems of a completely different kind. The main water maker, which is mechanically operated, has sprung a leak and broken down. The team has to fall back on the emergency water maker, a Katadyn Survivor-35, which is not exactly suitable as a permanent solution.
"The advertising says it produces 35 litres of water per hour," writes on-board reporter Sam Greenfield. "I call it a gimmick. In fact, the Survivor takes about 35 litres of seawater, 15 minutes plus part of your soul, to produce a single litre of fresh water. After pumping three 1.5-litre bottles, my muscles were burning and my mouth was dry."
Feeding all nine crew members in this way would be very laborious: "We need three to four bottles just to prepare one meal from freeze-dried food," says Greenfield. "The boys eat three meals a day. Each of us needs one litre of water a day to survive. That's 18 bottles a day - four and a half hours of pumping."
All that remains is to hope for a miracle when the main watermaker is repaired.
The summary of the first day
The complete start in the recording
