At the start line

I was lucky enough to watch the in-port races for the Galway stop-over of the Volvo Ocean Race from one of the media boats that was out on the race course.  Our skipper usually runs whale-watching trips and so was well able to manoeuvre the boat right alongside the racing yachts, getting us incredibly close to the action at times.

One of the desirable shots of the day amongst the various photographers on the media boats was a shot of all 7 boats under sail, but this proved difficult to get.  Although the local favourite, the Irish-Chinese boat Green Dragon lagged her counterparts in both races and was often out of frame of any shots of the leaders.

The start of the races did see the boats all in the same area, so there were opportunities to get shots of most of the field.  The photo above  was taken before the start of the second in-port race, which was delayed 40 minutes until the wind picked up.  

Missing from this image are Ericsson 4 and Telefonica Black, which were away from the main bunch arriving at the start line.  Once the races were underway our capable skipper got us up close to all the boats, and I got some good action shots which I’ll be posting in the next few days.