Over the Christmas holidays, the two boats, which had already finished the first leg in first and second place, fought a match race to the virtual finish of the first leg, where Telefónica crossed the line shortly before 7 p.m. CET on Monday. Camper, who held the lead until shortly before the finish, arrived exactly 1:57 minutes later. "It was a complicated race and a fight to the finish," said Telefónica skipper Iker Martínez, summarising the events. "The last few miles were just crazy. They were the crowning glory of a brilliant comeback that took Telefónica from last place at the start of the leg to the very front.
The blue boat had broken down several times, but found enough wind eight miles from the end to pass Camper. The navigators were challenged by every trick in the book, as it was already dark and the water was littered with reefs. In third place was the more highly rated Puma Ocean Racing team, who had to bury their chances of victory at the equator because, like fourth-placed Groupama, they sailed too far west and lost more than 100 miles in just a few days.
Telefónica picked up 24 provisional points for first place in the first part of the Cape Town to Abu Dhabi leg, 80 per cent of the total points. Camper was rewarded with 20 points. However, the real points will be awarded after reaching the official stage finish in Abu Dabi. In the provisional overall standings, Telefónica is in the lead with 61 points, followed by Camper with 54, Groupama is third with 36 points and Puma is now in fourth place with 25 points.
"It might sound a bit negative now, but I'm very disappointed with the result because we were ahead for the longest time," said Camper's skipper Chris Nicholson. "It's been a battle we've been fighting with Telefónica for the last few days and then we get put in our place by a nasty cloud an hour before the finish."
Before crossing the equatorial convergence zone, Telefónica and Camper were still in third and fourth place respectively, but chose an easterly route. This turned out to be a smart move, as it allowed them to free themselves from the grip of the difficult and unpredictable weather conditions as quickly as possible.
The organisers do their best to ensure the safety of the participants without allowing the regatta to degenerate into a cabaret. Nevertheless, this is by far the strangest leg of a sailing regatta, which is interrupted at an unknown location in order to load all the boats onto a freighter and transport them through the area of the Indian Ocean patrolled by pirates. This was compounded by unusual and unpredictable wind conditions, which caused problems for the teams and, above all, played havoc with the leaders. The Chinese team Sanya, for example, had to abandon the race with a defective rig and head for Madagascar just as they had taken the lead with an extreme beat. And Groupama, which was the first boat to enter the "darkened zone" of the censored position tracking, was relegated from first to fourth place.
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