The Puma Ocean Racing team bid farewell to Cape Town, South Africa, on Sunday and is on its way on Leg 2 of the Volvo Ocean Race 2011-12. Puma’s Mar Mostro was the third boat around the buoys before heading off to Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, the third port of the race.
The team is fourth in the overall standings after finishing third in Saturday’s In-Port Race. Puma is now offshore racing again for the first time since Mar Mostro suffered a broken mast on Nov. 21 during the first leg of the race, sailing from Alicante, Spain, to Cape Town.
“We’re looking at 14-16 days on this first stage of Leg 2,” said navigator Tom Addis, evaluating the conditions ahead. “It will be pretty typical for the first 12 hours – upwind out of here, and it doesn’t look like we have to go too far south. A lot of races you’re going directly south out of Cape Town, but we’ll likely be able to stay pretty close to land and save some distance due to a little low that’s just south of the country. We’ll be into some downwind sailing much sooner than normal. But, it won’t last that long – only a day or so. We’ll find some breeze at times. We have to sort of battle our way to the trade wind reach.”
