It’s the first night at sea on leg 7 for the Volvo Ocean Race fleet as they finally leave the USA behind them and begin the crossing to Portsmouth in the UK.

After an initially slow start out of New York Harbour ABN AMRO ONE (Mike Sanderson) are now leading out into the North Atlantic. The top 6 boats all tacked around 2330GMT on to a north easterly heading and movistar followed suit an hour later. Brunel (Matt Humphries) and Brasil1 (Torben Grael) are sailing less than half a mile apart with ABN AMRO TWO (Sebastien Josse) and Pirates of the Caribbean (Paul Cayard) all within a two mile radius, Ericsson (Neal McDonald) choosing a slightly more northerly course along with ABN AMRO ONE.

After taking their two hour penalty for allowing shore crew to make repairs during the New York pit stop, movistar (Bouwe Bekking) are on their way and just 17 miles behind the pack.

All the boats are currently experiencing 20kts winds from the south east however these are forecast to increase and back around to the north east making for a slow and uncomfortable few days.

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