Illbruck is accepted as unbeatable in the Volvo Ocean Race, Grant Dalton told the New Zealand Herald in an interview earlier this week. “Since Miami, no one has been able to win this other than illbruck,” said the skipper of Amer Sports One. “I think most of the boats have said that or accepted that already. This is a race for 2nd, 3rd and 4th.”

Dalton’s crew is lying 3rd overall, with three legs left to race and are, he says, focusing on trying to hunt down 2nd placed Assa Abloy. Amer Sports One has had three 2nd places in six legs, but has not yet won a leg.

Looking ahead to the next stage, he said in a separate interview yesterday that he is expecting the waypoint for this leg, the purpose of which is to route the yachts away from ice, to be as much as 350 miles further south than on the last race. The waypoint has yet to be fixed but Dalton has begun his tactics early with some speculative coat-trailing, adding: “I’m not convinced that we need to be protected from the ice to this extent. It will be only a couple of days and there are not hundreds of bergs.”