Volvo Ocean Race: Green Dragon gain on Ericsson 4's lead

11:42 PM Sun 22 Feb 2009 GMT

'Green Dragon Racing - leg 5 Volvo Ocean Race' Guo Chuan/Green Dragon Racing/Volvo Ocean Race &copy

The front runners have finally entered the doldrums, and this means changeable conditions, rain, heat, frustration and more importantly for the chasing pack; a compression in the fleet.

Today has seen the chasing boats pull back miles. Ian Walker and his crew onboard Green Dragon made a 77 mile gain on Ericsson 4's lead in the last 24 hours. They are still the most easterly boat and are now under 200 miles behind the leaders. Elsewhere Ericsson 3, who are currently in third have also hit the doldrums as they report wind speeds below five knots.

As the fleet continue to push south they are currently passing the Marshall Islands and as the most easterly boat Green Dragon are likely to pass closer to these islands than other boat in the fleet.

The Marshall Islands - Two archipelagic island chains of 29 atolls, each made up of many small islets, and five single islands in the North Pacific Ocean. They are located just west of the International Date Line and just north of the equator about half way between Hawaii and Australia.

Leg Five Day 9: 1300 GMT Volvo Ocean Race Positions
(boat name/country/skipper/nationality/distance to finish)

Ericsson 4 SWE (Torben Grael/BRA) DTF 9,545 nm
PUMA Racing Team USA (Ken Read/USA) +21
Ericsson 3 SWE (Magnus Olsson/SWE) +25
Telef?nica Blue ESP (Bouwe Bekking/NED) +170
Green Dragon IRL/CHN (Ian Walker/GBR) +196

Delta Lloyd IRL (Roberto Bermudez/ESP) DNS
Telef?nica Black ESP (Fernando Ech?varri/ESP) DNS
Team Russia RUS (Andreas Hanakamp/AUT) DNS

www.greendragonracing.com

by Lucy Harwood

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Volvo Ocean Race: Green Dragon gain on Ericsson 4's lead

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