Volvo Ocean Race: Green Dragon weigh up their options

10:20 PM Fri 27 Feb 2009 GMT

'Neal McDonald onboard Green Dragon, on leg 5 of the Volvo Ocean Race, from Qingdao to Rio de Janeiro' Guo Chuan/Green Dragon Racing/Volvo Ocean Race &copy

The Volvo Ocean Race fleet has split and all eyes are now firmly fixed on Fiji. Puma and Telefonica Blue have made a break to the west, Green Dragon hold their easterly position, 50 miles to windward of the Ericsson twins who have not made a full commitment on either side.

Nobody predicted that Fiji would play such a pivotal role in this leg, 'I hadn't even looked at Fiji on the map if I am honest,' said Ian Walker this morning. 'In theory sitting in the 'classroom' in Qingdao we were hoping to be further east than here, but this is kind of where the weather has sent us. Given our current position, if we do have to tack we will have to do about 50 miles less on the other tack, so we are in many ways less impeded by Fiji (than the Ericsson boats), as long as the wind holds in the way that it is now'. This split in the fleet has also seen a shake up in positions as Puma take pole and Ericsson 4 move to third.

The only other option is to go through the middle of Fiji, as it is actually made up of two main islands, but it is the most complicated route by far, so once again it is about going east or west. But the Dragon is happy, 'we are quite excited about the split in the fleet and we are pretty pleased to be back in the race. Having been 280 miles behind not long ago we feel that we are right back up with the front runners and that's keeping us all fired up!', commented skipper Ian Walker in an interview this morning.

Given the clear split, the results will be just as varied and once again the winning and losing margins could be high, Volvo's race expert Mark Chisnell pointed this out in his report today, 'How is this going to play out? Slowly - when Green Dragon took the eastern route after Japan, it took more than a week for her to get back this close to the fleet. The separation that Fiji is going to open will be even greater, and it could easily take as long to play out. Unfortunately, until the fleet get out to one side or the other of Fiji, the Predicted Route is not much help to us. But that image does tell us that the west of Fiji looks pretty dire in the short-term, forcing them to sail downwind in light air'.

Now south of the equator the sailing has been good, the Dragon has been in some of the most consistent breeze over the last few days. It is currently sailing in around 12 knots, flat water and limited sail changes means life onboard has eased from the challenges of the first week. The only real hardship onboard right now is the heat and the squalls, 'In the daytime it is very, very hot down below. So just trying to keep out of the sun and get some sleep is probably the only real hardship that we have to endure right now!'.

Day 13: 1300 GMT Volvo Ocean Race Positions
(boat name/country/skipper/nationality/distance to finish)

Puma Racing Team USA (Ken Read/USA) DTF 8364
Telef?nica Blue ESP (Bouwe Bekking/NED) +18
Ericsson 4 SWE (Torben Grael/BRA) +20
Ericsson 3 SWE (Magnus Olsson/SWE) +41
Green Dragon IRL/CHN (Ian Walker/GBR) +78

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

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