Hampshire’s sailors are playing catch-up on the Volvo Ocean Race in the early stages of leg three.

The almost 39,000 nautical mile epic has entered its latest section – from Abu Dhabi to Sanya on the southernmost tip of the Chinese tropical island of Hainan – but, unlike the previous two stages, the contingent of local sailors are battling to keep up.

The Chinese backed Dongfeng Race Team are leading chase to their home port and opened up a ten nautical mile lead overnight on the 4,642 nautical mile stage.

Since then the gap has been closed to under four nautical miles, with Team Brunel in second as they head east along the Gulf of Oman and across the Arabian Sea en route to the fourth port of the competition.

Captain Sam Davies and Dee Caffari, of Hamble and Gosport respectively, on board the all-female Team SCA boat are in last place after an impressive showing in the in-port race in Abu Dhabi, in which they claimed victory after a slow start to their VOR campaign.

Meanwhile, skipper Ian Walker and Simon Fisher on the Azzam Abu Dhabi, which is joint first in the overall standings with Dongfend and Team Brunel, are in fourth position as of 12.40pm this afternoon.

They won the opening stage from Alicante to Cape Town. 

“We’re mixed up in a dogfight with everyone else where positions seem to change every several minutes depending on the tack and wind conditions,” wrote Matt Knighton on board the Abu Dhabi.


“Early in the morning, we decided to take a quick, 20-minute tack away from the fleet and that turned out to be a big mistake as two boats passed us on the next crossing.”

Another Hampshire-based sailor Sam Goodchild, on board the Spanish MAPFRE vessel, held second place briefly during the night but have now dropped back to fifth.

Winds are last reported to be in the 7-knot range, which is significantly stronger than yesterday.

But, as the Volvo Ocean Race official race website reports, there are still lots of unpredictable wind shifts under the Gulf sunny, clear skies.

With 300,000 fishing boats operating along the Indian coast, which the fleet of identical Volvo 65s are heading towards, there should be some interesting tactics over the coming days.