NEWS

One of the Volvo Ocean Race teams turned invisible

Share on social media

For the first time since the start of the Volvo Ocean Race 2017/18 round-the-world regatta, one of the participants used the so-called stealth mode. Turn the Tide on Plastic skipper Dee Caffari decided to hide her team's position from other race participants and spectators for one day. The boat Turn the Tide on Plastic disappeared from the tracker at 1am UTC and will not appear until 19:00 UTC on Friday.

«We know the breeze will subside overnight and blow in again tomorrow afternoon. I think the lead group is still in AIS range, so there is no advantage to them using stealth mode. We are slowly catching up with Scallywag and and Brunel and want to capitalize on that. We decided to experiment a bit and see how it would work»," commented Deep Caffari.

According to the VOR rules the participating yachts communicate their position four times a day - at 1 a.m., 7 a.m., 1 p.m. and 7 p.m. All teams have the option of using stealth mode once per round-the-world stage to hide their position from the competition by omitting three consecutive reports of their whereabouts. Invisibility mode cannot be used within 200 miles of the finish line.

The second stage of Volvo Ocean Race from Lisbon to Cape Town started on November 5. The race participants are now approaching the equatorial slack zone. This is a classic place to take advantage of stealth mode.

Share on social media