Really early in the morning, right after sunrise, we saw Brunel’s small silhouette in the horizon. We’ve been cutting down miles on them the whole night, and were as close as five miles during the day.
The wind dropped gradually and we gybed to sail with the new wind.
We could see “Dongfeng” and “Abu Dhabi” parked in the horizon – what a relief. We are catching the teams at the front and the ones behind haven’t made any gains on us.
We’ve found a new hope and we really want to win.
Sailing on our MH0, the wind started picking up around 10 knots. We peeled to the J3 first and after that to the J2. “MAPFRE” was flying at around 20 knots heading to the 005º. Straight to Newport swallowing miles at good speed and bearing. We enjoyed another great sunset – it had been a while since the last time we saw one like that. Skies were clear and the sun was painting everything in pink and orange.
Like in all previous legs, the finish is going to be nail biting and I don’t think there will be more than 10 minutes difference between the first four boats on the finish line.
Let’s catch them!
#vamosMAPFRE
Francisco Vignale, OBR