Green Dragon docked up in Boston. Image copyright Yongtao Jiang/Green Dragon Racing.
by Lucy Harwood
Ian Walker and his crew onboard Green Dragon crossed the finish line off Boston at 16:08 GMT this afternoon after a challenging leg from Rio. It was a sunny afternoon which marked the completion of 15 days, 22 hours, 8 minutes and 10 seconds at sea for the crew, as the boat sailed across the line to take seventh place with the spinnaker flying. The team were greeted by local well wishers who came out to see the Dragon into port, and also by Maurice Keller from Good Food Ireland who presented the crew with a well deserved Green Dragon Buttie; an organic Irish fillet beef, topped with sea salt, West Cork Country relish and freshly baked bread!
Speaking on the dockside skipper Ian Walker said “We don’t give up until the other boats have crossed the finishing line. There’s always hope. I just had a chat with the lads at the end and I said, ‘a lot of crews wouldn’t still be together after the tough last leg, running out of food and the problems we’ve had to overcome, and then this leg...’ But I think the fact that we’re all here, we’re all smiling that speaks volumes. You have to get the technical aspect right as well as the personnel and all of the different ingredients and we have a lot of ingredients right in this programme and we still have plenty of race left in us!”
The crew will now be focused some rest and relaxation in Boston, and on the next leg from Boston to Galway, a 2,500 mile dash across the Atlantic, Green Dragon’s trimmer Phil Harmer said on the dock, “We’ve been talking about the Irish connection here and obviously the Boston Celtics – I like the basketball so I’m going to the basketball tomorrow night so I’m excited about that. Galway is going to be massive, it’s going to be probably one of the tougher legs of the race as well which suits us – our boat suits the ocean rather then the passage racing and coming into Galway is going to be something else as well, so everyone is really excited about that part of the race”. Talking on the leg he said, “If we lost miles then we’d try that bit harder to gain it back. It was good, it was a good team effort. There are six other good boats out there, we’ll move on and get ready for the next leg and we’ll be fine. We’ll be back out there and challenging for first again.”
The teams will have some time in Boston ahead of the In Port race on 9 May. The start of leg seven, on 16 May, will take the fleet 2,550 nm back across the Atlantic and into Galway, Ireland. For Green Dragon preparing for Galway essentially starts here in Boston, the team will be involved with events with the local Irish community and are already looking ahead to coming back to their home port. It will mark a complete circumnavigation for the boat and team who left Galway nine months ago.
Ian Walker commented, “I’m up to speed on everything that is going on in Galway, Jamie Boag our CEO is there at the moment, he emailed this morning he was positively brimming with excitement about everything that is going on there, I think the Galway stopover starts here for us in many respects and one of our aims is to make that one of the best and most fun stopovers of the race.”
Listen to the dockside interviews here
View the images from the arrival here
Leg Six Finishing Order Boston
1. Ericsson 4: 8 points
2. Ericsson 3: 7 points
3. Telefónica Blue: 6 points
4. PUMA: 5 points
5. Telefónica Black: 4 points
6. Delta Lloyd: 3 points
7. Green Dragon: 2 points
Overall Leaderboard (Provisional)
1. Ericsson 4 (Torben Grael/BRA) 77.5 points (FINISHED)
2. Telefónica Blue (Bouwe Bekking/NED) 64.5 points (FINISHED)
3. PUMA (Ken Read/USA) 64.0 points (FINISHED )
4. Ericsson 3 (Magnus Olsson/SWE) 53.0 points (FINISHED)
5. Green Dragon (Ian Walker/GBR) 44.0 points (FINISHED)
6. Telefónica Black (Fernando Echávarri/ESP) 29.0 points (FINISHED)
7. Delta Lloyd (Roberto Bérmudez/ESP) 21.0 points (FINISHED)
8. Team Russia 10.5 points (DNS)
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