Volvo Race - Out come the Stealth cards

5:36 PM Thu 23 Apr 2009 GMT

'Green Dragon with the sunset lighting up the sea, on leg 6 of the Volvo Ocean Race, from Rio de Janeiro to Boston' Guo Chuan/Green Dragon Racing/Volvo Ocean Race &copy

What else could Telef?nica Blue do? At 07:00 GMT this morning, Ericsson had inched to within six miles of the blue boat and skipper Bouwe Bekking was faced with an important tactical decision.

The opening salvos in what promises to be a tense tactical battle to the finish of Leg 6 were fired this morning in the North Atlantic. Telefonica Blue was first to blink, going into StealthPlay at the 07:00 GMT Position Report.

The gap between Telefonica Blue and Ericsson 4 had closed to six miles at the time. Under the amended sailing instructions for Stealth this leg, Bouwe Bekking and his men will come out of hiding at 19:00 GMT.

Bekking hinted yesterday that there would be a flurry of Stealth cards before Boston Harbour comes into view, and he was right. Ericsson 4 followed suit at 10:00 GMT. Torben Grael's crew will exit cloak and dagger at 22:00.

The tactical conundrum for the fleet today was when to gybe to port for the final approach. Since Stealth is a factor, we can only reveal that Ericsson 3, PUMA, Telefonica Black and Delta Lloyd have gybed and Green Dragon may do so soon. The position of the other two remain shrouded in mystery for now.

By the 16:00 GMT Position Report, the leaderboard had an eerie feel about it. With Telefonica Blue and Ericsson 4 in hiding, Ericsson 3 topped the table with an 11-mile gap to PUMA. Telefonica Black (+77) and Delta Lloyd (+82) were still locking horns, with Green Dragon a distant +133.

With the fleet well inside 1,000 miles of the end zone, wagers are being placed on ETAs, according to Delta Lloyd navigator Wouter Verbraak. 'Today is already the day for the thousand mile bet,' he said. 'The bet signifies that the finish now is but a few days sailing away, and that good food, a nice soft bed and chilled drinks are within reach. So what is this bet about?

'It is a winner takes all, no compromise bet with US$550 at stake. Guess our ETA in Boston right and you are the man. To ensure fair play, Ben Castello has made an official ETA board with both the rules and boxes for entering the date and time.

Volvo Ocean Race Positions - Leg Thursday, Six Day 13: 1300 GMT :

1. Telef?nica Blue ESP (Bouwe Bekking/NED) STEALTH PLAY

2. Ericsson 4 SWE (Torben Grael/BRA) STEALTH PLAY

3. Ericsson 3 SWE (Magnus Olsson/SWE) DTF 841nm

4. PUMA Racing Team USA (Ken Read/USA) +15nm

5. Telef?nica Black ESP (Fernando Ech?varri/ESP) +68nm

6. Delta Lloyd IRL (Roberto Berm?dez/ESP) +78nm

7. Green Dragon IRL/CHN (Ian Walker/GBR) +131nm

8. Team Russia RUS (Andreas Hanakamp/AUT) DNS

by Cameron Kelleher

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Volvo Race - Out come the Stealth cards

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