It is down to the wire for the top two boats this Boxing Day with the pair throwing punches at each other in a bid to draw head. Overnight, Iker MartÃÂnez/ESP and his men temporarily overthrew Chris Nicholson/AUS and CAMPER’s lead, but at 1000 UTC, Nicholson was back at the top of the leg leaderboard with Telefónica just half a mile astern and averaging 11 knots, half a knot slower than CAMPER.
“Boxing Day is appropriate because we have a full on street fight right here with Telefónica over my shoulder,†wrote CAMPER’s co-skipper Stu Bannatyne/NZL earlier this morning. “The guys are working on getting every ounce of boat speed out of the boat. The conditions are pretty light, so we are just trying to milk everything out as of it as we go along. It’s going to be a very long day,†he said.
After several thousand miles of ocean racing it is nothing short of a match race for the leading pair. “Every metre, every run is decisive,†describes Team Telefónica’s MCM, Diego Fructuoso.
It was a very intense night for these two boats as they fought it out under warm and cloudless starry skies. The crews are exhausted after this extended battle, many of them only having had snatched sleep for days on end. “It will be full on, close quarters, neck and neck, all guns blazing racing all the way down to the wire,†says Hamish Hooper, MCM on board CAMPER.
Meanwhile, in third place, Ken Read/USA has been able to draw PUMA’s Mar Mostro 15 nautical miles (nm) ahead of Franck Cammas and Groupama 4, while Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing’s Azzam (Ian Walker/GBR) is still over 115 nm in arrears.
