Groupama have just rolled CAMPER and PUMA, to take second spot! The wind is shifting further right, and boat speeds are building to between 16 and 19 kts!
Nick Dana, Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing's media man, brings us this: "Slowly gaining ground. Groupama is looking fast, definitely getting into her
fastest angle now. Next mark in 30 miles - with a 10 or 15 deg. bare away.
Speed is climbing!"
From Rob Salthouse on CAMPER with Emirates Team New Zealand: "Groupama seem to be sailing right in their boat's
sweet spot right now, ideal angles for them and are sailing right on by, we
just have to hang in there and sail as fast as we can. There is a long way
to go yet."
Telefónica are less than 0.9 nm in front of Groupama, who have steamed into second place. CAMPER trail the French team by 0.06 nm in third place. PUMA are fourth, trailing CAMPER by 0.12 nm and Abu Dhabi are in fifth place, trailing PUMA by almost 1 nm.
@danielle.mckay Ian Walker tipped Groupama to be fastest in his audio interview with us yesterday...
@Marty Rijkuris Yes, that's been the case ever since the race became single-class... Will the trend continue?
Telefónica are getting nervous reports MCM Diego: The wind is building and the boat is going faster and faster. Groupama has accelerated and is catching up. Let’s hope we can defend our lead. We’re putting up the staysail in order to look for more speed.
@Champ The race editorial team is spread around the world! Kevin and I in Abu Dhabi, Dan and Will in Alicante, Spain along with Agathe who is running our French language blog and website.
There is less than 50 nm between the finish and the leading boat! Telefónica are still winning, with Groupama right on their heels, just 0.46nm behind. CAMPER are in third, PUMA fourth and Abu Dhabi trail in fifth, with 51.78 nm to go!
Telefónica's tracker is playing up for sure....
Next live call to Groupama - stand by race fans!
The wind continues to be a stable 20 knot breeze from the w/nw, gusting up to 25 kts.
Hi all - just to recap, we are having some technical probs with Telefonica's tracker and we're working to fix them. Telefonica currently lead by 0.2 of a mile
@Joko The tracker updates every 60 seconds but the dashboard updates hourly
