The second leg of the Velux 5 Oceans race is finally expected to get underway today after a four-day postponement.

The fleet was scheduled to leave Cape Town for Wellington on Sunday, but gale force winds (see above) and big seas forced organisers to delay the start.

Race director David Adams said: ‘It would be unsafe to send seamen into a known storm. If they were already at sea and a storm hit there is nothing we can do about it but to knowingly send the skippers into a storm is irresponsible.

‘It ultimately proved to be the right decision and the wind off Cape Town has been consistently over 35 knots for the past 48 hours.

‘Based on our current models, there looks to be a window of opportunity to get the skippers safely out on Thursday morning.

‘Current routing shows a potentially fast passage to Wellington and the skippers could start arriving from January 5 onwards.’

The five Eco 60s are due to leave South Africa at 0900 today (1100 local time).

American Brad Van Liew won the first leg from La Rochelle, France on Le Pingouin.

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