All boats have now completed Leg 6 and are looking forward to Galway
Green Dragon finished leg six of the Volvo Ocean Race at 16:08 GMT yesterday – after 15 days and 22 hours at sea. “We’ve been looking forward to Boston for a long time,” explained skipper Ian Walker. “It’s the first step to Galway if you like. What a perfect day, spinnaker up all the way down the river, the sun’s out, there are worse things in the world.”
“I’m just pleased we had a bit of a race of it. We had a few little opportunities and we got within a few hours of other boats. As you saw with Telefonica Black, you can make up some miles. But we had a terrible night last night – no wind at all, just flapping around – we’re just lucky we had enough wind to get in here today.”
“Alot of crews wouldn’t still be together after the tough last leg – running out of food and the problems we’ve had to overcome. And then this leg – finishing last and slipping further and further behind on the long reaching sequence…But I think the fact that we’re all here, we’re all smiling, that speaks volumes.”
It is the first time that the Volvo Ocean Race has stopped in Boston and the seven crews will now be able to have good recuperation period in Fan Pier before the in-port race on Saturday 9 May. The start of leg seven (Saturday 16 May) will take the fleet 2,550nm back across the Atlantic and into Galway – another new port for this race edition.
Leg Six Finishing Order, Rio – Boston
1. Ericsson 4: 8 points
2. Ericsson 3: 7 points
3. Telefónica Blue: 6 points
4. PUMA: 5 points
5. Telefónica Black: 4 points
6. Delta Lloyd: 3 points
7. Green Dragon: 2 points
Volvo Ocean Race – Overall Leaderboard (Provisional)
1. Ericsson 4 (Torben Grael/BRA) 77.5 points (FINISHED)
2. Telefónica Blue (Bouwe Bekking/NED) 64.5 points (FINISHED)
3. PUMA (Ken Read/USA) 64.0 points (FINISHED )
4. Ericsson 3 (Magnus Olsson/SWE) 53.0 points (FINISHED)
5. Green Dragon (Ian Walker/GBR) 44.0 points (FINISHED)
6. Telefónica Black (Fernando Echávarri/ESP) 29.0 points (FINISHED)
7. Delta Lloyd (Roberto Bérmudez/ESP) 21.0 points (FINISHED)
8. Team Russia 10.5 points (DNS)