At 15:00 local time (02:00 GMT) on Sunday 29 January, the double-handed Global Ocean Race (GOR) fleet started Leg 3 from Wellington, New Zealand, to Punta del Este, Uruguay, with a 6,200-mile course of around 30 days through the Pacific Ocean, around Cape Horn and through the South Atlantic ahead of the five Class40s.
Shortly after 13:00 local time, the Class40s motored out of Queens Wharf – the fleet’s base for almost one month – and into Lambton Harbour followed by a spectator armada of motorboats, sailing yachts and dinghies. While the fleet milled in Lambton Harbour around the start line under the watchful eyes of the Royal Port Nicholson Yacht Club team on the Committee boat, the five teams self-sealed their engines with instructions to email a time-stamped image of the yellow, plastic tie-wrap in place to Co-Race Director, Sylvie Viant within five hours of the start gun.
In around ten knots of breeze, Conrad Colman and Adrian Kuttel were first across the line with Cessna Citation, followed by the South African duo of Nick Leggatt and Phillippa Hutton-Squire with Phesheya-Racing. Colman and Kuttel led the fleet east across the mouth of Evans Bay as the breeze built fractionally and around Point Halswell, hoisting spinnakers and leaving Ward Island and Hope Shoal to port. For a brief period the breeze died completely before switching through 180 degrees, forcing a beat and short tacking through the gap between the eastern shoreline of Wellington Harbour and the jagged, exposed rocks of Barrett Reef before rounding Pencarrow Head and exiting the 2km-wide harbour entrance.
