There is a five-way tie at the top of the Volvo Ocean Race overall points standings after the leaders passed through the Leg One scoring gate at Fernando de Noronha.
Green Dragon led the way at 12:24 GMT yesterday to earn four points, while Ericsson 4 won the battle with PUMA to round in second place at 13:59 for their 3.5-point windfall.
Ken Read's men pocketed three points when they rounded at 14:16. Telefonica Black, meanwhile, passed the landmark at 14:48 to collect 2.5 points. Their brothers in arms, Telefonica Blue, scored 2 points by passing the gate at 19:42 GMT.
That was enough for Bouwe Bekking's men to lead the overall pecking order - based on the Alicante in-port race performances.
Green Dragon leapt into the lead on the approach to the Doldrums by taking an extreme westerly crossing point – so far west, they couldn’t actually lay the scoring gate without putting in a couple of tacks to hitch a few miles to the east.
“We’re delighted on board. We’ve been leading for a few days now and every single position report we’re watching to see if they’re closing in us, but we’re holding them off,” said skipper Ian Walker as the boat roared through the scoring gate.
The ‘they’ he’s referring to are Ericsson 4 and PUMA, both of whom had been closing in rapidly. Over the 24 hours to 10:00 GMT, PUMA had gained 12 miles and Ericsson 4 had taken a 15-mile bite out of the lead. But both ran out of runway to catch Green Dragon before the scoring gate.
“I don’t think anybody was expecting us to do as well as this at the start of the race,” Walker said. “I guess we were hoping if things went really well for us to be in the top three. But we certainly never expected anything like this at the first gate.”
Confounding the pundits Green Dragon continued her lead overnight, holding off the big money campiaigns of Puma and Ericsson. Both are within striking distance of the Galway boat this morning.
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