With 2,350 miles still to sail, however, everyone in this race is beginning to wonder whether Dave Witt, the skipper of Team Sun Hung Kai Scallywag – and the Volvo Ocean Race 2017-18’s resident cheeky-chappie – has not pulled off a masterpiece in corner-cutting or corner-banging.
At about 700 miles back, Witt and his team on Scally were in last place and watching the boats ahead struggling to find a way out of the Doldrums. His gamble was to cut the corner and point more directly at Hong King, leaving the rest of the fleet to windward.
In the early stages of this move it looked like Scallywag would run out of breeze as she continued northwest and as the other boats – Dongfeng among them – hit the northeast trades first.
But the last 48 hours has not born that out and Scallywag is continuing to lead the fleet. What’s more, her prospects now look good as the lateral distance between her and her nearest rivals – AkzoNobel and Dongfeng – currently 112 miles, begins to reduce.
Today Scallywag is nearly 19 miles ahead of Team AkzoNobel in second place and 22.5 miles ahead of Dongfeng in third.
On Dongfeng, the team under Charles Caudrelier is concentrating on boatspeed and trying to avoid lumps of land as they ride the trade winds towards the convergence with the stronger northeast monsoon.
Having been leading Akzo, they are now four miles behind but will be encouraged to see that Vestas – even further to leeward - is now 42.8 miles off the pace. Then there is still a big gap to Dongfeng’s main rival, MAPFRE, which is 133.7 miles behind Scallywag.
Dongfeng Race Team has been enjoying fast sailing in big breeze and warm water. Just before this phase of the race began, skipper Caudrelier summarised the position as the boat moved out of the Doldrums into the trade winds. At that stage he was not too concerned about Scallywag’s prospects.
“We have just taken the lead, or we are in the same position as Scallywag, but we prefer our position for the future,” he said. “So I think we are in a strong position – we should be the boat with more wind for the next few hours, so it is good. But there is still very far to go and it’s a very tight ranking, but at this moment it is good to be at the head of the race.”
Latest position report at 1900UTC:
1. Team Sun Hung Kai / Scallywag. DTF: 2,330.4nm
2. Team AkzoNobel. DTL: 18.7nm
3. Dongfeng Race Team. DTL: 22.5nm
4. Vestas 11th Hour Racing. DTL: 42.8nm
5. MAPFRE. DTL: 133.7nm
6. Turn the Tide on Plastic. DTL: 165.4nm
7. Team Brunel. DTL: 168.5nm
