Going fast and finishing first is what yacht racing is all about. But when you’re talking about 67-foot thoroughbred sailing yachts speeding among a fleet of hundreds of spectator boats, things can get dicey very quickly.
During the start of Volvo Ocean Race Leg 1 off Alicante, Spain, the crew onboard Turn the Tide on Plastic cried, “Get out of the way!” as a spectator vessel came too close for comfort. The two boats were so close that Turn the Tide on Plastic’s wake splashed the double-decker catamaran before nearly colliding with it.
This video from the Volvo Ocean Race shows the near-miss from the air and on deck:
Turn the Tide on Plastic is one of the seven teams competing in the 13th and longest edition of the Volvo Ocean Race. Led by Britain’s Dee Caffari, the yacht is the flagship of a campaign to raise awareness around the growing issue of plastics polluting our oceans.
