Shackle onboard PUMA Ocean Racing, on leg 6 of the Volvo Ocean Race, from Rio de Janeiro to Boston, symbolising the way in which PUMA is shackled to the Ericsson twins on this leg. Image copyright Rick Deppe/PUMA Ocean Racing/Volvo Ocean Race.
by Kenny Read (skipper)
Approaching a 500 mile day on the fine yacht, gains on all the last position reports- boat is going well and the crew is happy. What's there not to like! Well, I will tell you one thing. The race is essentially starting over again and the two bloody Ericsson boats are right next to us- essentially tied with us in distance to the finish. We can't ever shake these boats. Magnus Olson said at the pre-leg press conference that he was going to shadow us because he thought we knew how to get to Boston fastest. Well I'm not so sure if that is true because the T-Blue guys seem to be doing a pretty good job thus far- but I didn't think he meant his comment so literally.
We’re kind of tired of looking at a mirror image of Ericsson boats- feels like we are getting teamed up on sometimes. Between you and me, we gauge if they are close or not by the fact we can see the orange head on their mainsails. We call it their pregnancy test. You know, you wait for the stick or whatever it is to turn the special color…something like that…well, their color turned orange. Orange pregnancy lines means they are positively close. No visual on the orange mainsail head means negative, they aren't that close. There have been a lot of positive tests for far this race.
The fire hose is still on full force on deck. I can say that this is some of the easiest 500 mile per day sailing that I have ever done. Warm, not sweltering, warm water, beautiful 20 knot trade winds, open ocean planning across the waves. Just fast, fun sailing that might bee some of the more pleasurable miles ticked off this entire race. It has been a long time coming waiting for days like this. Hopefully it lasts for a bit longer.
PUMA Ocean Racing
Volvo Ocean Race
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