Volvo Ocean Race 2011-2012 | Leg 3 Stage 2 start: onwards to Sanya
As racing gets underway from the Maldives to the Chinese city of Sanya on Leg 3 Stage 2, we bring you dispatches from our on-the-water reporters.
0630 UTC: It's another typical day in Malé - hot, humid and with little wind. The six boats have started to dock out ahead of the 0800 UTC race start. After a couple of weeks of interrupted scheduling, the sailors are all chomping at the bit to get racing again.
0640: All teams apart from Sanya have their mainsails up. PUMA Ocean Racing and Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing are testing headsails in the light breeze.
0650: Around five knots of breeze blowing through the bay right now - so it's not exactly going to be a flying start, but things should pick up quite quickly. The first five days or so will see the fleet race to the Malacca Strait, which Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing skipper Ian Walker reckons will give his crew time to guage their upwind speed against their rivals. "it’s going to be a lot of upwind sailing, so I think we’ll learn a lot about the relative boat speeds of the boats upwind, certainly in the first four days," he told us prior to docking out.
0652: The start line is being laid. The fleet will have to head south first of all from the west coast of Male before turning left under the island. Likely to be a port-tack start.
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