Dee Caffari's team Turn the Tide on Plastic achieved a small breakthrough a day and a half ago in light winds. The mixed team was the only one to break away from its direct rival Brunel and open up a lead of around 20 nautical miles over the yellow boat. This is currently enough to take the lead in the flat race on course for Auckland. David Witt's team Sun Hung Kai / Scallywag and Simeon Tienpont's team AkzoNobel are close together in second and third place, separated by just two nautical miles. Behind them, Bouwe Bekking's Team Brunel has dropped back to 4th place. The red boats from Mapfre and Dongfeng, which are still well behind this quartet in the overall standings, have managed to reduce the gap to the leaders to just over 70 nautical miles. However, with an average of five knots of wind and repeatedly huge fields with a total lull, the approach to the stage finish in New Zealand remains an extremely slow affair. The teams continue to wait for wind in relentless heat and temperatures of over 45 degrees Celsius below deck.
On day 16 of the sixth leg, AkzoNobel skipper Simeon Tienpont and his team-mates describe the merciless temperatures in the flat waters of the Doldrums
Dee Caffari recently wrote: "And the groundhog greets us daily... Once again, the sunrise has burnt off all the clouds. The sea is as smooth as glass and the wind even lighter than predicted. We spent our whole day waiting for the news to see if we had more or less wind than the other teams. But we managed to hold our position on the New Caledonia course. The temperatures drop when the wind dies. It feels like these last few miles have been the toughest. This race is far from over. We have to give it our all - if we can."
Scallywag's navigator Libby Greenhalgh is struggling with the permanent doldrums just as much as her opponents: "The Doldrums have caught us on the wrong foot several times in the past two days. Sometimes you have to veer off course to avoid the impending doom signalled by an approaching cloud. It's all much easier during the day. Then at night, it's incredible how you can really sense that one of your senses isn't available to you. Yes, of course we have radar. But a lot of the clouds we try to avoid don't necessarily rain. Everyone moves a little more on the edge of what can, will or might happen at night. As night fell last night, a long cloud formation moved in between AkzoNobel and us. On the one side, they had a little more pressure and wind from the south-east. On the other side, we had a little less pressure and wind from the south-west. When the next position report came in, we had lost a few nautical miles. I think our quote of the day is: 'Not even chocolate lifted my spirits'. The Doldrums are a frustrating place where wind conditions can vary wildly within 200 metres. Yes, it's an art to find the right course here. It also has to do with luck. But when we feel like we're a little short of luck, we gently remind ourselves that we could also be one of the two red boats duelling at the back of the fleet."
Tatjana Pokorny
Sports reporter
