It's all to play for on mystery tour

SAILING: VOLVO OCEAN RACE:As we leave Cape Town behind and pass Port Elizabeth, race organisers have real security concerns due to the rise in Somali pirate attacks that have spread across the Indian Ocean

FINALLY, WE are racing as a fleet for the longest period since the Volvo Ocean Race began in Alicante more than one month ago. Since departing Cape Town on Sunday afternoon, we’ve barely lost sight of each other as we head east towards a mystery destination.

But that’s probably about to change from today onwards as tactical choices present themselves. In leg one, we had barely left Alicante when two boats were knocked out in the first 24 hours. Two days later, we split from the remainder of the fleet after leaving the Strait of Gibraltar and that was the last we saw of them until South Africa.

Now here we are about to pass Port Elizabeth on the South African coast and we’ve been as close as 100 metres at times. We’re getting a good look at all the others and as with each wind change, we’re starting to read the other boats’ abilities and sail plans.

Of course, they’re doing that to us as well but that’s okay, we’re happy that we’re fast and we proved that on Sunday leaving the ‘Tavern of the Seas’ as we led out of Cape Town, past the Twelve Apostles and Table Mountain and out towards the Cape of Good Hope. As the wind dropped, we relinquished our lead briefly but we were soon all tightly packed. Fleet leader Telefonica was the exception, trailing by 12 miles but that’s nothing really.

Since then we’ve been carefully picking our way along the coast, taking care not to slip too far offshore where the Aghulas Current is opposing us and liable to set us backwards or at least slow us down.

So we’ve been taking it carefully even though in previous races the plan would be to dive southwards immediately to the Southern Ocean and the Roaring 40s. However, the routing this time is holding us close to the coast until sometime today when the current comes so close to the shore that we’ll have no choice but to tack out to sea and take our chances.

At the same time, a low pressure system is forming so a quite complicated transition zone is likely as we make easting before the turn northwards and our mystery location.

The two tactical options starting to emerge is whether to stay towards the Mozambique coast or turn south towards the deep ocean. Either way, I can’t reveal our destination except to say it is ultimately Abu Dhabi. In the meantime, the organisers have real security concerns for the fleet due to the rise in Somali pirate attacks that have spread across the Indian Ocean.

The plan is to reach our mystery port of refuge, score our finishing places there for 80 per cent of the leg points, load the fleet on to a ship with armed guards while we fly ahead to the next safe haven closer to the UAE where we’ll unload and sprint to the finish to score the remaining 20 per cent of points.

And in the third leg, the whole process will be reversed for the leg to Sanya in China.

In the meantime, we still have around 3,800-miles of race track to deal with and already this leg is starting to look as if it might take longer than predicted though it’s way too early to be certain of our ETA.

Our goal is to improve on our current third place overall which we are well capable of beating.

Last weekend saw the race organisers introduce a new format where the In-Port Race was actually held the day before the restart. In the past, this would have been the weekend before to allow time for repairs and loading the boat for the leg ahead.

This time however, we finished the In-Port Race and while heading home for dinner had the odd realisation that the very next day we’d be heading for deep ocean.

Saturday didn’t turn out as well as we had planned. Even though we had practised well and made improvements in Cape Town prior to the In-Port Race, our plan to start at the committee-boat end changed at the last minute when it looked as if we might get stuffed out the side of the line in the reaching start.

So we headed for the pin end but as luck would have it, the correct choice was the far end so we were stuffed anyway.

As always with inshore racing, getting a clean start to be in good shape at the first mark is vital. This was where Ian Walker on Abu Dhabi did so well in Alicante, building on his extensive experience and doing what he couldn’t do with Green Dragon three years ago.

But last weekend’s result went to Iker Martinez and the Telefonica boys, helping to consolidate their overall lead of the race. We trail by 13 points from our third place but in turn, Ken Read on Puma in fourth place is 15 points behind us after their dismasting in leg one.

So as we prepare to part gradually from one another, the Camper, Puma and ourselves are playing pass the hot potato for the lead on the water as we’re all separated by less than a mile.

Now that the fleet is back in strength, we finally feel like we’ve joined the race!

In conversation with David Branigan