Green Dragon off the pace

Sailing : The crew of Green Dragon will fall further down the overall standings as they near the end of a frustrating third …

Sailing: The crew of Green Dragon will fall further down the overall standings as they near the end of a frustrating third leg in the Volvo Ocean Race. With the top four boats already past the finishing line in Singapore, the Dragon is locked in a battle with Team Russia to hang on to sixth place.

Bouwe Bekking and his crew onboard Telefonica Blue were first across the finish line this afternoon and climb to second in the overall placings. They were closely followed by Puma, Ericsson 3 and current pacesetters Ericsson 4.

Telefonica Black remain 55 miles ahead of the Dragon in fifth and look assured of fifth place while just eight miles separate Green Dragon and Team Russia.

"It has been a frustrating 24 hours onboard Green Dragon," admitted skipper Ian Walker today. "We gained many miles back on the leaders yesterday and then got stuck with no wind and lots of tide against us.

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"For five hours we sat and got washed backwards into the old wind. It was infuriating, as we knew this was likely to be our one shot at getting back into the race.

"We licked our wounds and made gains back overnight, but today we again got stuck at the narrowing of the straits in no wind and foul tide. This was simply bad luck on our timing."