Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing performance director Neal McDonald can’t wait for skipper Ian Walker to unleash his own “tactical wizardry” on the third leg of the Volvo Ocean Round the World race.

The latest race report saw Southampton-based Walker and his Abu Dhabi crew fourth out of the seven-strong fleet four days into the third leg from Abu Dhabi to the Chinese port of Sanya.

However, Abu Dhabi are only nine nautical miles adrift of leaders Dongfeng, with Hamble skipper Sam Davies and her all-female Team SCA crew 20 miles adrift of the leaders in fifth.

McDonald said: “I don’t think we’ve seen yet the full benefit of Ian’s tactical wizardry.

“We probably won’t see it for days to come.”

Abu Dhabi onboard reporter Matt Knighton said Walker and navigator Simon Fisher, another Southampton-based sailor, wanted to “try something different.” “The middle of the fleet is an uncomfortable place to be,” Knighton remarked “Tacking all morning up the Iranian coastline, we found ourselves buried in messy winds that kept shaking up the positions with no clear way out.

“Ian and SiFi were determined to try something different.

“As all the teams began heading offshore to find more wind, there was a narrow band of racecourse running along the race-imposed Iranian exclusion zone.

“Ian decided we would tack inshore and hope the wind would turn to the right as predicted – effectively steering us away from the boundary without having to tack away from it.

Knighton added: “The afternoon wore on as the red boundary moved near.

“We began to move so close to Iranian waters that even our data transmissions from the boat were becoming intermittent – a suspected casualty of Iranian military interference.

“Finally, the lift in the wind came and we turned gently parallel to the exclusion zone.

“As Brunel, Alvimedica, and MAPFRE battled it out between themselves, we silently worked our way inside and around them.”