Only a few hours left until the arrival and the last night onboard MAPFRE. The truth is that an impressive finish is coming up. There is tranquillity onboard for the moment, and we’re focused on sailing as fast as possible towards our way point.
This is like a chess game, changing with the wind, and that has us on our toes in every movement. Abu Dhabi, who is leading the fleet at the moment, is dictating our movements quite a bit. “It’s a fast boat and you need to take into consideration,” says Jean-Luc Nelias.
The movements previous to the tack towards Brazil have been decisive, since we had to make the decision of who would tack first, so calmly, we prepared it along with the sail change.
After the tack, Abu Dhabi did it automatically right in front of us, staying a bit to windward. Alvimedica tacked immediately, keeping their position to leeward, but Brunel decided to wait to our line.
As the afternoon went on, the breezed increased little by little, and the J1 peeling was necessary, as the sun had already set and the moon was looking over us.
Little by little, the Dutch began to run and started to lose our line to gain terrain/ground. At this moment, they’re shadowing/marking Alvimedica pretty strongly, and we’re in leeward. We are a bit nervous regarding their position, since we cannot see them in the AIS anymore and we cannot see their movements.
As for our fight with Abu Dhabi, the distance has stretched a bit overnight, and right now they’re 4nm. They’re within sight but not as close as they were all day yesterday.
Meanwhile, we’re all fighting for that one mile that is so hard to keep up and even harder to win.
#vamosMAPFRE
Fran