The light airs gamble continues

The light airs lottery is set to continue for CAMPER with Emirates Team New Zealand as the Volvo fleet heads towards another large windless zone.

The last 24 hours has seen the fleet making steady progress in moderate reaching conditions, however within the next day this will be replaced by a light and variable breeze that could reshuffle the leaderboard before the final sprint from the Bahamas across the Gulf Stream to Miami.   

After two weeks of racing Puma, CAMPER and Telefonica continue to battle it out at the front of the pack and with 600 nautical miles (nm) to go to Miami there is only 40 nm separating the three boats.

However, the looming breeze hole will most likely compress the fleet and open up opportunities for all the boats including Groupama and Abu Dhabi currently in fourth and fifth place.

The tricky conditions have seen CAMPER and Telefonica engaged in an epic battle over the last 72 hours with only a few miles separating the two boats and the lead changing several times a day as they slug it out for second place.

CAMPER navigator Will Oxley says that the race for Leg Six has a long way to go yet.

“We have a drag race for probably the next 200 miles, and then it starts to get really light again.

“There is a big high over the Bahamas, the front-runners will sail into it and slow up, so we will start again there so we are looking at strategies on how to deal with that. There is an awful long way to go in this yacht race yet.

“These drag race conditions of beam reaching in moderate airs are hardly our strong point, so we’ve done a nice job of hanging in there with Puma and actually putting some miles on Telefonica.
“The next few days as we transition through this big hole will most likely determine the race so it’s going to be very interesting to see how it plays out.
“The race is still wide open.”
CAMPER in the latest position report at 1200h 6 May Miami time is in second place sailing at 12.5 knots in a 9.8 knot  north easterly.  

Pictures of CAMPER, video footage and audio files  are available upon request. Further information and race updates will be available on our blog and on our Facebook page

The latest video from on board CAMPER is here