After five days of racing on leg four, the Volvo Ocean Race fleet will reach strong gale force winds within the next 12 hours. The teams are fighting a fierce battle to reach the typical Southern Ocean conditions first.
Extremely tough, wet and cold days now await the crews.
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Corp is still in the lead and is being followed closely by illbruck. The pack meanwhile is trying to keep pace with the leaders, with Amer Sports One having dropped back to third place, followed by Tyco, ASSA ABLOY, djuice, SEB and Amer Sports Too.
ASSA ABLOY's navigator, Mark Rudiger, said some of the boats have opted to sail faster due south to engage the coming front first.
"We feel that because it's moving so fast, they won´t reap enough reward to make up for the miles spent."
More tactical decisions will soon have to be made. Mark Rudiger predicts a split in the fleet once the front hits.
"The big decision is when you reach the front, do you gibe ahead of the front and ride it east towards the mark, or invest more south and ride the southwesterly behind it? There will be a split in the fleet here and an interesting chess game will develop."
It is gradually getting colder, which is reflected in an email from the boat.
"Every day now another layer of clothing, hats, gloves, goggles etc. will be coming out until nobody will recognise anyone or be able to understand a word they say. For every degree we go south, the more my senses become acutely aware of the weather and menacing changes, sometimes minutes away.
"The hair on the back of my neck starts standing up on a regular basis. I count the hours until we can turn north again and hope we are able to run fast and safe… Life as we know it will be extremely different for the next 10 days," he said.
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