Witt’s crew were sitting on a lead of almost 100 nautical miles to their closest rivals Vestas 11th Hour Racing with around 800 miles to the finish line.
Despite the healthy buffer, Hong Kong is still a day and half away, and to get to the finish they must first thread their way between Taiwan and the Philippines and avoid any patches of light wind in the area.
“For me the biggest concern is from here to the top of the Philippines,” he Witt. “Once we get around the corner of the Philippines to Hong Kong it’s pretty easy, I don’t think we can get passed there. The most danger lies between here and there so the next 24 hours are the most important.”
“If we can get through the next three scheds without a loss there won’t be enough runway for anyone to catch us. We’re going to push really hard for the next 24 hours, and hopefully ‘sign the deal’. Basically the only way we are going to lose it is if we park up and stop, and I’ll make sure we won’t do that.”
A moment of panic set in when Scallywag hit a patch of light airs, halting progress. But thankfully for them the breeze that was forecast to fill in ahead of them materialised, and by 1300 UTC they were back up to speed.
“I don’t think anyone really understands the magnitude of this if we manage to pull it off,” Witt added. “There are so many firsts: first Hong Kong team ever, first time to Hong Kong… hopefully we will have plenty of time in Hong Kong over beers to let it sink in – but we have to get there first.”
Second-placed Vestas 11th Hour Racing were seemingly sitting pretty thanks to a 70-mile gap between them and team AkzoNobel in third on the leaderboard.
However Dongfeng Race Team had been in third place some 50 miles behind Vestas before opting to go in to stealth mode, hiding their position from the fleet for 24 hours.
Charles Caudrelier’s crew will reappear on the tracker at 1900 UTC – and only then will anyone know what strategy they’ve been employing and whether they’ve closed the gap at all.
Sixty miles behind AkzoNobel were overall race leaders MAPFRE, with Team Brunel in fifth and Turn the Tide on Plastic in sixth.
Brunel skipper Bouwe Bekking, the most experienced Volvo Ocean Race sailor in the fleet, admitted his team have struggled for speed.
“Everybody is giving a 100 per cent, there is no doubt about that, but at the moment that’s just not enough,” he said. “We’ve made a mistake twice, once at the beginning of the leg and once in the Doldrums.
“With lower wind speeds and when we’re sailing closer angles to the wind we do alright, but when it’s like this, with more wind and coming more from the back, we barely manage to keep up with the rest of the fleet. It’s frustrating, but the only thing we can do on board is remain positive and trim and steer the boat as well as possible.”
Additional reporting and images: Volvo Ocean Race, Konrad Frost, Yann Riou
