The first 24-hours of the prologue leg from Lisbon to Alicante brought challenging, but light conditions to the fleet in the Mediterranean.

The Prologue is a scoreless race to deliver the seven-boat fleet from The Boatyard in Lisbon, Portugal to the home start port of the Volvo Ocean Race in Alicante, Spain ahead of the race start on 22 October.
At the scheduled start time of 1400 local time in Lisbon on Sunday afternoon (1300 UTC), the sea was relatively still with extremely light and variable winds.
Race Director Phil Lawrence and his team asked the crews to continue due south, under power, towards Gibraltar, and two-hours later the fleet was rewarded with a light, but steady 7 to 10 knot northwesterly breeze, allowing racing to start at 1515 UTC.
Xabi Fernández and his MAPFRE team led the fleet off the starting line, racing downwind in a race to get south. Continue reading Tough Conditions For The Volvo Ocean Race Prologue