Leg 6 from Hong Kong to Auckland remains fiercely contested. However, Simeon Tienpont's team AkzoNobel was able to pull away from the chasing pack overnight and had a lead of more than 20 nautical miles over David Witt's team Sun Hung Kai / Scallywag on Wednesday morning. Behind them, the third-placed Spanish team Mapfre and the fourth-placed Dongfeng Race Team are still engaged in an exciting duel at the start of the eighth day of the 6,000 nautical mile Pacific leg. The two red boats are currently separated by just 1.6 nautical miles. Behind them, Bouwe Bekking's Team Brunel has fallen back a little. Although the yellow boat performed well in the duel with the Spaniards last night, Bekking's crew got caught under a cloud a short time later. The team had to watch as their rivals in red pulled away and are now endeavouring to close the gap of around ten miles as quickly as possible.
The new sail wardrobe, from which Team Brunel is clearly benefiting on this sixth leg, should continue to help. The new mainsail, masthead code zero, fractional code zero and a light headsail are fresh and fast. Nevertheless, the yellow boat still has speed problems in certain areas, as Bouwe Bekking reported in one of his blogs from on board: on the port bow, the boat cannot quite reach the same height as the two red boats (Mapfre and Dongfeng).
Simeon Tienpont's AkzoNobel team has no speed problems at the moment. The team around the 36-year-old yacht designer and engineer from Dirksland in the Netherlands is demonstrating its strength and remains the measure of all things for the time being after bold strategic positioning on the Auckland course. For AkzoNobel's navigator Jules Salter, this is his fourth race around the world. The 49-year-old Briton is one of the best in his field and has remained loyal to Tienpont even after the initial personnel disputes and heated arguments with the sponsor. Salter is regarded as extremely experienced and calm. On Wednesday, he was given the honour of being mentioned by name in a press release issued by the Dongfeng Race Team, which could not resist a cheerful jibe in the direction of the leading Dutchman.
The report said: "Most alarmingly, Jules Salter - AkzoNobel's British navigator and famous for not giving away the slightest thing - was spotted smiling on board the Dutch boat today. That is very unusual. But of course he knows that with the Doldrums passage starting in the next 24 to 36 hours and in the light northerly winds, there is also a lot of potential for a restart of the fleet." In addition, the Dongfeng Race Team points to Cyclone Gita, which could shake up the typical trade winds of the southern hemisphere and make the approach to New Zealand a rather atypical affair with an open outcome.
After a bumpy start to the race, AkzoNobel skipper Tienpont has brought another extremely experienced man on board in the form of Australian Chris Nicholson. Nicholson contested his first Volvo Ocean Race in 2001/02 on "Amer Sports One" alongside skipper and warhorse Grant Dalton. This was followed by stints on "Movistar" (2005/06), with Team Puma Ocean Racing (2008/09), on "Camper" (2011/12) and with "Vestas Wind" (2014/15), whose spectacular reef collision Nicholson was jointly responsible for as skipper. Six-time 49er and 505 world champion Chris Nicholson supports AkzoNobel as watch leader.
While the six boats are heading for New Zealand and will probably be able to celebrate their half-time mountain party today, the Vestas 11th Hour Racing team is making headlines on land. Not because there are finally facts about the accident off Hong Kong in which, according to official information, a Chinese fisherman died, but because new pictures of the badly damaged hull of the blue boat are circulating. YACHT online has deliberately refrained from showing these images from an unknown source, which the news blog "Sailing Anarchy" published with a short commentary and the US blog "Sailing Illustrated" also made the subject of a live programme. The images and the damage to the hull, which can now be seen in full for the first time and is also torn open from below over a large area, give an idea of how dramatic the collision between the blue Volvo yacht and the fishing boat, which subsequently sank, must have been. However, YACHT online still does not want to take part in the speculation about the circumstances and the exact course of events without new relevant facts.
Tatjana Pokorny
Sports reporter
