After battling thunderclouds, heavy rain showers and lulls, the teams in the Volvo Ocean Race now have to contend with a plant-based opponent on the ninth day of the eighth leg: the seaweed in the Sargasso Sea. Sargassum, also known as Golftange, is making life difficult for the sailors. Time and again it gets stuck on keels and rudders. Sometimes the only way to get rid of the unpopular "brakes" is to stop the boat completely and put it in reverse gear. The seven crews are united by just one desire: to reach the trade winds as quickly as possible after the Doldrums Passage and race off on a northerly course to Newport. The leading boats are currently experiencing a doubling of wind speeds within 24 hours.
Brunel was the first boat to accelerate. "It's official! We've reached the trade winds and the water is flying over the deck again," announced Team Brunel's onboard reporter Sam Greenfield early Tuesday morning, "we're experiencing boat speeds of 15 to 20 knots in winds of 15 to 17 knots." The news from the Dutch team AkzoNobel, who fell behind despite their rum gift to Neptune during the equator passage, sounded somewhat more frustrating. Anbord reporter Brian Carlin wrote: "Chris (Nicholson, ed.) thinks we should have drunk more rum and maybe our offering wasn't generous enough."
Bouwe Bekking's Brunel took command overnight ahead of Dee Caffari's team Turn the Tide on Plastic, Dongfeng and Vestas (34 nautical miles behind). The yellow boat had built up a lead of more than ten nautical miles on Tuesday morning, also benefiting from the fact that other boats had partially "parked" in flat conditions or obstructed by seaweed. The Dutch have now reached the trade winds first, while Mapfre (65 nautical miles behind), AkzoNobel and David Witt's team Sun Hung Kai / Scallywag (141 nautical miles behind) are struggling to catch up in 5th, 6th and 7th place. However, their gap to the leading boats is likely to widen as they reach the trade winds in the near future.
