Green Dragon battles for first place in Volvo race

Red-eyed, raw, and physically wrecked the 70 crew and their embedded media reporters on seven 70-foot yachts were racing to an overnight finish of the eighth leg of the Volvo round the world race today.

The 1,250 miles from Galway past the Fastnet Rock and up the English Channel and North Sea have been a harrowing test of skill, stamina and tactics with a liberal dose of sleep deprivation.

Neck and neck for first place were the overall leader, Sweden's Ericsson 4, and the late-break heroes of leg seven, the Irish boat Green Dragon. Looking for a last-minute opportunity to pounce was the American boat Puma and determined to stop its skipper Kenny Read from moving up from third place overall was the holder of second-placed Bouwe Bekking in Telefonica Blue.

Click below to listen to Stuart Alexander talk to Russell Coutts.

Just as busy were the 11 TP52s in the opening three races of the Audi MedCup in a bright, sunny, but typically tricky Marseille as Emirates Team New Zealand consolidated on some rapid improvement during the first regatta in Alicante to bang home two firsts and a third to top the leaderboard.

Second was the King of Spain's Bribon, which ETNZ's Dean Barker used to skipper, followed by the Alicante winner, the Argentinian yacht Matador, with Steve Hayles as navigator, and the defending 2008 champion Terry Hutchinson in the American yacht Quantum.

The British yacht Cristabella, still in its former Desafio Espanol green livery but destined to be white by the next regatta in Sardinia, managed a ninth, followed by a 10th, followed by an 11th.