Alicante – Three teams have held the Volvo Ocean Race 2nd leg lead within the last 24 hours as the fleet sped toward the stage’s conclusion in Abu Dhabi.
Dutch team Team Brunel, led by 51-year-old Bouwe Bekking, held a slim advantage by 0940 GMT on Sunday on the 5 200-nautical mile leg between Cape Town and the Emirates. Bekking is contesting the race for a record-equalling seventh time, after first competing in 1985-86. He has never won it.
They led by just three nautical miles from Chinese entry Dongfeng Race Team with first leg winner Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing, two nautical miles further adrift. The three boats have swapped the lead through the weekend.
Only six boats are contesting the second of nine stages in the nine-month global offshore race after Danish entry Team Vestas Wind was forced to pull out at the start of the week when its boat was grounded on a reef in the middle of the Indian Ocean.
The nine-man crew escaped their disintegrating vessel to reach a tiny island, Íle du Sud, which is part of the St Brandon archipelago and infested by sharks. They remained there for two days until a small fishing boat took them to Mauritius on Wednesday.
The fleet is expected to start arriving in port in Abu Dhabi on Saturday.
Latest placings: 1 Team Brunel (Netherlands), 2 Dongfeng Race Team (China), 3 Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing, 4 MAPFRE (Spain), 5 Team Alvimedica (Turkey/US), 6 Team SCA (Sweden). – Sapa-AP