On the home stretch with a final tussle looming

Emirates Team New Zealand Media Update: On the home stretch with a final tussle looming

4 February 2012

On day thirteen of Leg Three CAMPER with Emirates Team New Zealand is on the home stretch of Leg Three with less than 100 miles to go until the finish off Sanya and a final tussle looming for third place.

After an exhausting last few days doing hundreds of short tacks up the Vietnamese coastline and running a gauntlet of sandbanks, wrecks, fishing boats and nets CAMPER has now tacked away from the Vietnamese coast and is on the final 100 mile straight line run to the finish in a 15 knot easterly.

With a current estimated arrival time of 1630 local time/2230 NZT CAMPER is sitting in third place 53 miles behind first placed Telefonica and 28.2 miles behind second placed Groupama. The remaining miles offer relatively few passing opportunities and barring a major gear failure or breakage the top two positions are likely to remain unchanged.

However with Puma only 14 miles behind CAMPER a tight battle for third and fourth places is likely as the two boats close in on the end of the 3051 mile race from the Maldives to Sanya.

CAMPER Skipper Chris Nicholson says that it has been an exhausting final few days.

“All the guys are absolutely physically and mentally exhausted. The last few days getting up the Vietnam coast have been pretty tough on everyone and we’re just glad to have got the boat out of there in one piece.

“We’ve been pushing ourselves and the boat to the very limit in an effort to pull in the boats out front. While it looks like it’s going to be to bigger an ask to pull in Telefonica and Groupama this time we’re not going to give up until we cross that finish line.

“Puma and Abu Dhabi are going to be pushing us hard right until the end as well so we’re determined to squeeze as much boat speed out as possible.

“We just can’t wait to cross the line, get ashore and have some cold beers, burgers and a hot shower – it’s going to be great.

“After a good night’s sleep we’ve then got plenty of things to review, debrief on and see where we could do better but that’s for tomorrow.”

CAMPER in the latest position report at 1500h 4 February NZT is averaging 16.2 knots in a 13.2 knot north easterly.

The latest audio from onboard CAMPER is here http://etnzblog.com/#!2012/02/audio-a-draining-few-final-days

The latest video from onboard CAMPER is here http://etnzblog.com/#!2012/02/video-a-matter-of-doing-whatever-it-takes