The last few hundred miles to Auckland (New Zealand) are not going easy on the fleet, but on this occasion it's good news for the Spanish team. At 13:00 UTC Iker Martínez and “Telefónica” overtook American entry “Puma” and with the latest report, published by the organisers at 16:00 UTC the Spanish team 's second place in the provisional leg rankings was confirmed.
The trend over the last few hours clearly revealed the Spanish crew's intention to overtake the American boat and “Telefónica” have clearly achieved their objective and are now sitting 14.6 miles in front of Ken Read's yacht.
It looks like “Puma” plunged into a zone of cloud which impeded progress at the same rate as the rest of the fleet: 6.5 knots in contrast with the 18.7 knots that being notched up by “Telefónica” at the time. At 16:00 UTC the situation changed for “Puma” and the team are now back sailing 16 knots, with “Telefónica” slightly topping that figure.
Speaking about the final one thousand miles on this fourth leg, Jordi Calafat explained that, “we've still got the end of the leg to go, a funnel ending. We all need to get to the same place and we are fighting with “Puma” for that second place. Let's see if we get lucky. I think that finishing second on this leg would be a great achievement”.
PROVISIONAL RANKINGS LEG 4
SANYA (CHINA) – AUCKLAND (NEW ZEALAND): 5,220 miles
Day 17 – 16:00 UTC – 7th March 2012
1 Groupama Sailing Team (Franck Cammas), 651.5 miles from finish
2 Team Telefónica (Iker Martínez), +149.5 miles
3 Puma Ocean Racing (Ken Read), +168.1 miles
4 Camper with Emirates Team New Zealand (Chris Nicholson), +211.9 miles
5 Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing (Ian Walker), +322.8 miles
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