While Team Sun Hung Kai / Scallywag, which has been badly hit by the fatal accident of its crew member John Fisher, is approaching the Chilean coast and should reach a safe harbour within the next 48 hours, Bouwe Bekking's Team Brunel and Charles Caudrelier's Dongfeng Race Team are engaged in a thrilling duel for the stage win at the head of the Volvo Ocean Race fleet. The lead has changed hands several times in the meantime. On Easter Monday morning, the yellow boat flying the Dutch flag was again 9 nautical miles ahead of the red boat flying the Chinese flag. At this point, the two teams still had a good 500 nautical miles to go to the Brazilian stage harbour of Itajaí.
Early on Monday morning, skipper Bouwe Bekking described the situation: "At the moment we are still dealing with the tail end of the last heavy weather sailing. Will that ever end on this leg? The good news is that we are shovelling away the last few miles to the finish quite quickly. In the last five hours we've averaged almost 24 knots of boat speed!!! That makes you think you've made good gains compared to Dongfeng. But no, it's only two nautical miles, because of course they are fighting just as hard for the three extra points that the winner gets on this leg. You think you have a good lead, but the rubber band is getting shorter again, barely exists at the moment, because the predictions are that Brunel and Dongfeng will finish these stages within a minute of each other. So it's going to be a battle between the yellow bus and the red bus over the next 36 hours."
The day before, Bekking recalled the past week, which had been difficult for all teams, and wrote: "It's remarkable how quickly the human brain can forget 'bad' events. Of course, there are some things we will never forget. But on board, people are talking more animatedly about all sorts of things again, and we are carrying out a whole range of maintenance work. We had completely forgotten how pleasant it is not to get wet."
Tatjana Pokorny
Sports reporter
