Virtual Race risk-takers search for payoff

The leading virtual skippers are just about to return to the southern hemisphere as Leg 6 of the Volvo Ocean Race game enters its ninth day.

The current frontrunner, French player elwin, is heading a tightly-grouped band of boats including CamillePaardenkooper and Gufmiester as they approach the Equator for the third time in this edition of the race.

Just over one mile splits the top ten boats as they hug the rhumb line just of the east of Papua New Guinea, just ahead of the real Volvo Ocean Race fleet.

It's slow progress for the pacesetters though, having hit light winds of around four knots in the Doldrums.

Meanwhile, some 2,500 miles northeast, a handful of plucky players are forging forward with a slightly less conventional route that has taken them into the middle of the Pacific.

It might yet pay for those players – the likes of American sailor Your Mom SA – if they can reach the trade winds and begin the charge south at speed.

For elwin there are just 2,500 miles remaining, while for Your Mom SA, ranked 47,843rd in the 53,000-strong fleet, there are 3,700.

But there is still plenty of time to catch up, especially if the leading players get held up in the Doldrums.

Once into the southern hemisphere the virtual fleet will have to dodge Pacific islands aplenty as they head due south towards the finish line in Auckland, New Zealand.

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