Day 5, Overnight, Roberto Bermúdez and Delta Lloyd have put in a dazzling performance to regain second place, closing to within seven miles of the leader, Bouwe Bekking’s Telefónica Blue. Instead of the more usual strategy of plotting a course and trimming the sails accordingly, Delta Lloyd’s Dutch navigator, Wouter Verbraak has gone to where the wind is, believing heavily in the theory of diurnal variation. The mornings bring more wind from the left of the course, the afternoons bring lighter breeze and from the right hand side and the evenings bring squalls and left hand wind again. At night, the wind goes lighter and more to the right. Consequently, Delta Lloyd’s wake is as ragged as a drunken man’s stagger, but whether the success is myth or theory, the generation one boat and winner of the 2005-06 race is now in second place and her crew is determined to hang on to it at the scoring gate.
Telefónica Blue is 115 nm off the Brazilian coast with Delta Lloyd to the east, Telefónica Black in her wake and PUMA on her hip, but 24 miles behind. For Green Dragon and the two Ericsson boats sailing on the inside track, closest to the shore, the wind is likely to be light.
Conditions have stabilised briefly as the fleet closes on the scoring gate at Fernando de Noronha, the only scoring gate on this 4,900 nm leg and an island that played the same role on leg one. Gone are the clouds and now the sea is flat with a 12-knot easterly breeze. Boat speeds are stable at 12-13 knots and today Delta Lloyd takes the prize for the highest 24 hour run at 293 nm.
